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Croix de la Chrysalis

by

Raining Sky Guy

Ichigo would like to proudly say that he had already gotten used to living in the past, as annoying as it all was. He wasn't as distracted anymore and it had always been hard catching him off guard, but –of fucking course– Ichigo had been daydreaming, distractedly thinking about the things he needed to buy for them when he sensed three blaring signals headed his way.

(He tried excusing it on him being tired or distracted. But they all knew he was a lousy liar.)

He should have dashed, but they were already close enough that they'd notice he was avoiding them and would become even more obnoxious as result. With jittery hands and a disgruntled sigh, he waited them out.

"Kon-san!" Two equally cheery voices chanted as the kids finally appeared, dropping by his side like old friends. Not-Kisuke and Not-Yoruichi were grinning up at him, impishly, as if daring Ichigo to complain about them.

Much more modestly, Tessai landed in front of Ichigo and his friends, apparently as unimpressed as Ichigo himself. Although when he noticed Ichigo staring at him, he gave a cheeky smile as well.

Ichigo rolled his eyes–and rejected the urge to hyperventilate. "So, what do you brats want now?"

They stared at him, curiously. Ichigo's scowl returned immediately. Why were they staring? Had he said something wrong again? "What?"

"You look… more relaxed." Not-Kisuke said after a nerve-wracking pause. His smile was goofy as his eyes glittered. "Did you get promoted?"

Dangerous question.

"I was having a good day, then you came along." Ichigo deadpanned, as he tried turning away from them. A muscle in his back jumped, a testament to his restlessness. "Don't you have better things to do? I swear I see your ugly faces way too often."

"We have better things to do, actually." The tiny woman said, matter-of-factly. "Like getting training out of you-!"

Why would you?

Ichigo's scowl deepened and he tried not thinking about how it didn't make any sense, they shouldn't be younger than him, they shouldn't be looking up to him. "I said no."

"Aw, come on!" Yoruichi said, her voice whiny, and child-like and completely not how she should sound like.

'Focus, she's not Yoruichi. They're not yours. Don't blow your cover and focus!'

Fuck, his face hurt. Ichigo lifted a hand to it. "You are Shihoins for god's sake! You surely have certified, fully capable instructors! Not to mention the academy! Why go to the only soul that doesn't want to train you?"

Why must you torture me so?

Somehow still not picking up on his mounting irritation, or just deciding to ignore it, Yoruichi laughed again– and the sound was somehow worse than a blade to the ribs. "Because you're strong."

"Fuck you." The War Hero whispered, barely keeping it together.

"Because you're fast."

"Being faster than you is hardly an admirable task."

"Because-"

"Nice talk." Ichigo cut them off, as he dramatically spun in the place and before they could so much as reach out for him, he was gone.

Ichigo rubbed at his eyes tiredly.

He knew there was no shame in crying. He knew that. Not only had he been assured of this by men and women older than him, but sometimes, he could pretend he was still human by the water rolling down his face.

(Crying also gave more time to the ticking bomb he had become.)

It was nowhere near the level of release he got from killing his enemies, but it was still better than nothing.

He had cried a lot. Since coming back.

But somehow it didn't dawn on him, really…

Why was he so affected by seeing the three gremlins?

They were alive. They weren't three tiny corpses on the battlefield.

They might not be his anymore, but really. After everything that had happened…

Was there really anyone who was?

Unbidden, unneeded and unwanted, someone whispers inside his head.

"Why is it, that you only think in killing? What happened-?"

Her voice pierced his soul, as it had done all those months ago, as she finally broke down under the pressure, under her fear. And despite of being afraid of everything he was, she still outstretched her hand and touched his face, begging to understand why-

Blood. Blood, there was blood everywhere. Blades piercing flesh, the stench of blood, he needed to kill. Kill it, kill it before- but killing it wouldn't bring her back, wouldn't put her two halves together-

She appears before him, alive and judging. There is blood soaking through her clothes.

"This is your fault. If only you knew more than how to kill. If only you had been more than a killing monster, I wouldn't have died."

"I'm sorry," he whispered brokenly, knowing full well that those were empty words. Empty words that solved nothing. "I-I'm…"

A monster.

"But I-!" He exclaimed, trembling, trembling, how ridiculous, the war Icon trembling like a newborn fawn. Hands like claws dig into his flesh. "But I swore I would change things. I swear I'll bring you back-!"

His eyes were golden, his hands were claws and his teeth were sharper. "I'll fix things. I'll kill whoever I have to kill, I will change things, even if it's the last thing I do. I won't- I won't break my word. Ya hear me, Kisuke-?"

With no witness other than himself, Ichigo whispered,

"I'll complete my mission, and I will make sure you're never harmed. No matter what."

It took him some time, but the War veteran managed to pick up his chipped, broken self and put it together in some semblance of a human being.

So he was back in the forest, annoyed and irrationally irritated that he had failed completely the task to buy supplies for the both of them because of three tiny, weak souls and his absolutely fucked up brain.

He was going to get them. Of course he was. It may have been a self-imposed mission, but completing missions and murdering armies were the only two things he was good at nowadays. He wasn't going to stop now.

'You are good at so much more, you dramatic oaf.' Shiro said in his mind, Ichigo's annoyance bleeding into his voice. 'If only you could-'

'Quiet.' Ichigo thought back, and Zangetsu didn't protest as they all sensed foreign activity near their current area of the forest. Shinigami.

At first, all he could think about was that whoever it was, was far enough from Dia- from Sousuke to not be a threat; but as Ichigo closed his eyes and let his Hollow crawl out and strengthen his senses he noticed something off.

The shinigami's reiatsu seemed to be dimmed, not enough for him not to notice his stalking behavior. Like a panther on a hunt.

But what was this soldier hunting?

His skin crawled. Was it maybe the Hollow the Second and Twelve Divisions were looking for?

Whatever it was, he would continue analyzing it after he got Sousuke safely to his side.

For the first time in a while, Ichigo spooked Sousuke again at his arrival. The boy did his cross of a jump and a flinch, his smile waning upon seeing his mentor's expression. "Shinigami-san, what is-?"

Ichigo put a finger to his lips. "Quiet." He added, just in case the child that hadn't known what a favorite meal was, didn't know this gesture either.

Once the obedient child complied, Ichigo returned his attention to the Shinigami.

He was still skulking around, drawing closer and closer to them. "Sousuke." Ichigo said, as he began planning for an eventuality. "Pick up our things. Make it look as if we were never here."

Sousuke threw him an alarmed glance, but immediately set to do it as silently as he could. While he did that, Ichigo focused back on the problem at hand and finally he picked up two more signals.

Weak.

He ignored his first instincts to dismiss their presence, and tried differentiating.

Hollow. Small. Weak. He need not bother with-

No, no. He wasn't attacking, he was just assessing.

The other was even weaker, but it wasn't a hollow. Was it a Shinigami? It was too weak to tell. A regular soul, maybe?

Why was the Shinigami hunting then?

Sousuke then stepped beside him and murmured. "There's someone there, right? And an evil spirit. Shouldn't we help them?"

"No. There's another Shinigami on duty nearby. They can handle it."

"But what if they're too late? Can't you just go make sure nothing bad happens?"

Ichigo stared at him. "What am I, your servant?"

"What? No! of course no!" Sousuke replied in a loud whisper.

"Good that you know. Then, we're going together."

Ichigo didn't really care. If the soul got eaten by a Hollow, or saved by the Shinigami, it wasn't his problem. Because he couldn't perceive things as abstract as reiatsu signals as living beings. Probably because of traps, and treason and betrayal, his brain had long since stopped correlating such things.

But maybe if Sousuke wanted him to be there, maybe there was something Ichigo could do?

Which is how they found themselves crouching behind some bushes, as they stared at the smallest Hollow Ichigo remembered seeing outside Hueco Mundo.

It looked, for all intents nd pruposes like a boar.

Just slightly bigger than an actual boar, his shining eyes under the mask zeroing on Ichigo almost immediately. His snout was raised and quivering as he tried picking off scents in the air, but his attention was on the Vizard.

If this was a trap, it was poorly executed.

Ichigo was about to tell Sousuke that they should leave when another presence entered the scene.

Ichigo could barely sense him, but he could see a small boy peeking out from behind a tree, eyes fixed on the Hollow. He too, seemed to be hunting. But it was off. Hollows disintegrated, there was no meat to scavenge. And if the kid was a hunter, it wasn't likely he had confused a hollow with an actual animal.

Ichigo kept thinking, trying to find out where was the lie, what was pretend. The kid wasn't a Shinigami, but maybe he wanted to emulate them? It was more likely that he was going to get killed if he kept this up, then. The kid's signal was the weakest of them all, like a dampened candle.

And then the tiny soul, stepped out of the shadow of the tree, materialized a bow out of reishi and shot the boar before it could scurry away.

Ichigo stared, dumbfounded– even as his senses picked up the smallest shift of reiatsu.

This kid was a Quincy.

His shoulder flared out with pain at the reminder, and Ichigo found it hard to stay in the present instead of falling back into one of his multiple nightmares.

A Quincy.

Here?

Was it a trap? Was Ichigo in an illusion, was this real?

Before he could truly begin spiraling, Sousuke grabbed his left sleeve and tugged gently. "Look, Shinigami-san. There's another Shinigami. He'll take the boy away like I told you, you'll see!"

Before Ichigo refocused on reality, the stranger Shinigami descended in a flash and just like an horror movie in slow-motion, drew his sword on the unsuspecting child, killing him on the spot.

Stupefied out of his mind, he could just stare at the limp body of the child falling down, drenching the ground in blood and the black-clad murderer was smiling and about to sheathe his sword when-

The murderer suddenly couldn't get air to his lungs as white-hot pain sprung up from his torso. He looked down even though he knew what had happened and then tried looking back to see who had done it. It probably was a mercy that he couldn't see Ichigo's hollow-like expression of fury. Before he could fully turn his head, his feet stopped touching the ground and he screamed in pain as the sword inside him continued to slice him vertically. Still screaming, he was flung away, sideways stopping only until he hit a tree.

There was silence.

The Hybrid would have pursued the body, stabbed it multiple times to make sure he was dead, but his head was being cracked open by Zangetsu's irate gibberish in his mind. What was he even saying? He couldn't hear. He had other things to worry about. Ichigo flashed back towards the body of the child and upon sight he knew there was nothing he could do for the boy. He had been dead as soon as the sword struck him.

Anger pulsed inside of him again, hot blood coursing his veins, threatening to make him lose control and with each breath he took, he felt his hollow surfacing, claws and teeth and the single intent of murdering-

"S-shinigami-san?"

Ichigo inhaled sharply, golden eyes trained on another boy who was still alive.

Was this creature dangerous?

Should he be stabbing it?

(For one frightening second, whoever he was looking at was not his Shinigami. For one second, Sousuke feared him.)

"Shinigami-san?" The boy repeated in a broken whisper.

Ichigo inhaled sharply, stepping back and lowering his hands away from the boy he had almost murdered.

He had been doing good.

He had been doing good so far, so why had he…?

"I… I'm sorry." Ichigo muttered, even though he knew that words wouldn't bring the dead back. Words would not solve the fact that he…

They lock eyes for a moment before the kid looked down. "Is he dead, Shinigami-san?"

Ichigo looked down too. He still couldn't believe what had just happened. Why he had not jumped right into it, stopped it. He had been so sure they would just take the kid and Ichigo would be able to track them and rescue him and…

(Who was he kidding, he didn't even need Aizen's illusions for Ichigo to be trapped within his own mind.)

Vision blurry, Ichigo glances at the body. "He is."

Another failure. More blood on his hands.

He needed to kill something. Someone. But the enemy was dead. Dead. Dead like the child he had failed to protect.

Sousuke was still shocked and scared, but he couldn't help but worry about the Shinigami as his reiatsu spilled from him like a broken faucet, scared and angry and blood-thirsty.

"Shinigami-san?" Sousuke wanted to grab his sleeve again, so his eyes would focus on the moment, but he was scared he'd stab him in his surprise. "Shinigami-san, are you alright?"

'Aibou, get a grip! You're going to kill the boy if you don't center yourself!'

His head hurt. Ichigo realized, his vision blurring even more, before everything was vivid and clear. He tried looking back at the corpses but Zangetsu didn't let him.

'You're going to lose it, if you see the bodies right now. We killed a Shinigami officer, we should be moving away. Away from the crime scene, and probably away from civilization for a while.'

"Right." Ichigo said, moving his body jerkily to face the paper-white Sousuke. "We need to go."

"What-?"

"No time to explain, we have to leave right now." Ichigo said in a forced whisper, as stalked towards what had been their camp– Sousuke trailing at a safe distance behind him.

The former camp space looked mostly alright. Sousuke had spread their small collection of burnable branches and managed to hide the darkened pit with the ashes of their past fires and both his small pouch and Ichigo's leather backpack (which he had unrepentantly stolen in one of his escapades to Rukongai) were sitting close-by, ready to be taken away.

Ichigo just picked his own bag, before picking up the heavy logs he had prepared for a fire. He shouldn't have stocked up; this was his mistake. It would be far too suspicious to have chopped wood just lying around when there was no presence of human activity.

His hands clenched on nothing as he remembered the bodies. He should discard the Shinigami. He was clearly stabbed to death. Ichigo needed to dump it in Hueco Mundo or-or maybe absorb it.

He didn't particularly liked the second method. Besides, there wasn't a shortage of food, it's not like he needed to.

Not like-

"Sousuke I need you to pick up your things and head south," he lifted his weapon-less arm to point in the right direction. He didn't miss how the boy flinched away in surprise. "I forgot a little something."

"W-what-?"

Ichigo's arm dropped. "Please go. I'll catch up later."

Somehow, these words work like magic, the child nodding and scampering off like a frightened rabbit.

Ichigo inhaled and turned around to deal with-

The Hybrid blinked, suddenly aware of his change of surroundings. He was in Hueco Mundo, wasn't he? What was he doing here?

His senses picked up a gang of hollows fighting over themselves for some fresh meat.

"Hey, Zangetsu. What are we doing here?"

'We had to dispose of some… garbage.'

The Hybrid cocked his head. "Are we done?"

'Yeah, but meditate a little before you go back.'

"Where is everyone? Are they safe? Did I hurt anyone, Zangetsu, are they hurt, did I-?"

'Aibou, meditate. We're in the past. We are with Sousuke. We need to go back to him to protect him.'

"…But you know I can't protect people. You know I can't."

'This is your mission. Are you going to fail Kisuke? Are you going to fail your mission?'

Ichigo gasped, his Hollow side finally retreating, his vision blurring. He was in Hueco Mundo. He needed to return to Soul Society. To Sousuke.

To the future he had been sworn to bring.

Bright and peaceful even if it costed every single drop of blood within him.

(The monster within licked its lips and promised the blood of everyone else if they so needed.)

Chapter 17 end

AN.

:^) hello

Did you think i was going to prank you again on April's fools?

Bold of you to assume I have enough imagination. No but seriously, did anyone read this chapter thinking "oh no, is this another prank chapter, is Ichigo dying in another gruesome way again?"

What did you think about the chapter?

The plot thickens!

(posted 1/4/19, betaed by MistyPaws)