[Pay No Attention to] The Man Behind the Curtain

She was crying the first time he found her, even though she pretended not to be. The new fukutaichou of the thirteenth division was standing on the edge of a building in Karakura Town, staring down at the park below where an orange-haired teen swung a wooden sword in graceful patterns. The only evidence of her distress were the wet spots on her uniform and an occasional sniffle. She wasn't one to make a spectacle of her pain.

Not like him. He made a spectacle of everything. The song and dance man, that was him, always good for a laugh and a smokescreen.

"My my, Kuchiki-san!" he chided, popping out from behind her. "If one didn't know any better, they might think you were planning to jump."

Rukia went rigid. "Urahara!" She kept her back to him and swiped at her face. "What do you want?"

"Do I need a reason to check in with my best customer?" he asked, giving her his most innocent look.

She wasn't fooled. "I'm your only customer, you old creep."

"Such harsh words to such a humble shopkeeper."

She returned her gaze to the teen in the park.

"Stalking isn't healthy, you know."

She ignored him, watching Ichigo for a long moment. "I'm just checking up on him."

"He looks fine to me." His light tone belied the seriousness of his words. "No need to hang around looking after him."

"He's not fine! How could he be fine?" she snapped. "I—I'll never forget the look on his face when his reiatsu disappeared, when I disappeared." Her voice broke as an involuntary sob clawed its way out of her chest. "He looked so humble. So lost, but trying to act like it was no big deal, like it didn't matter. Like his whole world wasn't changing again, like he wasn't losing part of himself along with his reiatsu."

Rukia shook her head, tiny hands balling into fists. Such strength and conviction for one so small—and so young. "I did that to him," she went on. "I forced him to live through that moment. It was my carelessness that drug him into all this. I brought him into our world, I forced him to fight, I left him with less than he had at the start. He is worse off for having known me, and I—" her chuckle sent a chill down his spine. "I'm so much better I can't even describe it."

Urahara moved so he was standing next to her, dying to touch her but knowing it wouldn't be welcome, wishing he wished he was the kind of man a girl like her would lean on. But to wish that, he would have to be an entirely different person. Change one thing, change it all. And so he just wished he wished it and did nothing to make it come true.

She was still talking, oblivious to his inner struggle. "Did you know he took up kendo the week after his reiatsu faded? He's out there now, everyday, practicing. Sweating and training and drilling to gain a tiny fraction of the skill he used to have."

Urahara watched Ichigo, his eyes widening at the flawless execution of the drills. "He always was a quick learner."

"He can't bear to be out of commission," Rukia said, her every breath focused on the movement of that wooden sword. "It's as if he knows he'll get his power back, and he doesn't want to be even a second behind for being out of practice."

"Hmmm," Urahara murmured noncommittally, retreating behind his hat.

She caught his movement and turned to him then. "Will he get his reiatsu back, Urahara?"

There was something about her that always made it so hard to hide. She cut through his every wall, until he was open and raw and constantly revealing too much. "Even I can't control the shifting sands of fate, Kuchiki-san."

"Can't you?" Her voice was sharp now, accusatory.

He narrowed his eyes, taking a step back before he noticed he'd moved.

She laughed but there was no humor in it. "Did you think we wouldn't notice, Urahara Kisuke? The way you were behind all of it?"

"Whatever do you mean, Kuchiki-san?" he asked, fluttering his fan. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

"You know exactly what I mean! You were behind everything that has happened to me, to Ichigo, to this town in the last year—no, even before that! For our entire lives, we have been your pawns, your instruments, your puppets!"

"Who, me? Come now, I am but a humble shopkeep. Perverted, but humble."

She didn't laugh. No one ever laughed. Why did he keep making that joke if no one found it funny?

"I don't know why I didn't see it sooner," she growled, stalking toward him. He backed away. "You were everywhere, as soon as the action began, with exactly what we needed at exactly the right time. It was too convenient."

"Customer satisfaction is my specialty."

"You knew what was going to happen before it occurred. We always knew that you knew too much, had too many plans, but we didn't know the half of it! You were the one who gave me that gigai, the one who saved Ichigo after Nii-sama nearly killed him, the one who helped him get his powers back. You trained him and sent him to save me, you recruited Chad and Inoue and Ishida, you opened the Garganta and switched the Karakura towns, we knew that. But the hougyoku, and the Vizards, and hiding that thing inside of me, and Ichigo's dad, and who even knows what else your invisible hand was directing along the way? You were part of everything, Urahara, and not only part of it, but guiding us all along like your pawns, making us think it was all our idea and we were acting on our own initiative! You used all of us, every one, and directed our lives as if you had the right! Aizen might have wanted to be a god, but you made yourself into one!"

He winced, torturing himself with the truth of her words.

"So tell me again, oh, omniscient being," she mocked, "oh, omnipotent ruler of the universe that plays with people's lives, tell me that you don't know what's going to happen to Ichigo. Lie to me again."

So he did. "I don't know."

She scoffed, and the glare she gave him ripped him apart. She glanced back at the park, and his heart clenched at the naked longing that flashed across her face. "I never should have gotten him involved. I'll never forgive myself for that."

She turned away, and called over her shoulder, "At least I take responsibility for my mistakes." And then she was gone.

She was magnificent. She was wrong and she was right and she was so beautiful, so passionate, so pure in her intentions that being in her presence brought him physical pain.

She was the other half of his soul. The light to his darkness, the dance to his song, the purity to his corruption. He'd known it the moment he'd met her, and watching her call out her shikai for the first time had only confirmed it.

That was why he had chosen her, why he had planted the hougyoku in her, because she was too pure to use it for harm, even subconsciously. That her purity made the sin worse didn't faze him; he was corruption, after all. The silky sweet seduction of song, so innocent on the surface and so deceptively manipulative.

Guilt wasn't the same thing as regret.

He noted her presence several more times before he spoke to her again. Soul Society had returned to normal, pretending that Urahara and the Vizards didn't exist—until they needed something they couldn't get themselves. Then the head captain would try to appeal to their duty, their loyalty, and all other things hypocritical. But for now the world was calm, and all was quiet on the living world front. And yet Rukia showed up twice a week like clockwork, to watch Kurosaki train in the park or walk home from school with his friends. She always stayed out of sight, took care to cloak her reiatsu from the others, but Urahara knew.

He could always sense her. She never stopped by to say hello. After all their time together before and during the war, he could have taken it as an insult, an unforgivable oversight. Except she'd made her opinion of him exceedingly clear—she blamed him for everything that had happened to Ichigo and to her, and she wasn't far off the mark.

So when, the twenty-seventh time he noticed her, she came to him, it would have been an understatement to say he was surprised. He found her, hands in her pockets and eyes on the ground, waiting outside his shop when he returned from running an errand.

"Welcome, Kuchiki-san! What can I get for my best customer?" he asked, letting her into the store.

She ignored him, as she always did. But this time, she was meek about it. "I realized I hadn't thanked you," she whispered, gazing up at him with vulnerability and a multitude of eyelashes.

He pulled his hat down over his eyes, turned away. "Ahh, you must have liked the discount on your last bill." He waved his fan at her, one last barrier. "No need to thank me, dear girl."

"When I first met you, I thought you were an idiot," she continued, not meeting his eyes. That was fine with him.

"Now now, Kuchiki-san, no need to be so blunt," he dithered. Insult her, annoy her, get her to leave, anything to stop her from talking.

"Then when I realized you were involved in everything that happened to me and Ichigo, behind everything, I saw you for what I thought you really were, and I just found you sinister."

He sweatdropped. "R-really, that's quite enough honesty for one lifetime."

She plowed on, staring at him, and he swore her violet eyes pierced right through his fan, through his hat, through his bumbling facade and she saw.

"That was before I realized you were a hero."

He closed his eyes, holding in the tears, every cell in his body begging her to take it back. "Don't get confused, Kuchiki-san," he said when he could speak. He dropped the foolish tone, and even the mysterious one, and just spoke to her as a man speaks to a woman. "Don't mistake me for the hero in this fairytale. That would be Kurosaki-san, or yourself, or Soul Society. At best, I am comic relief—at worst, another villain." He muttered the last to himself.

"I hate to break it to you, but no one finds you funny."

"I'd noticed that."

"I'm sorry, Urahara. When I spoke to you before, I didn't understand. I hadn't figured it out yet. I knew that you were behind everything, but I didn't fully grasp why. Now I get it."

"Kuchiki—"

"You saved Ichigo!" she burst out, grabbing him by his coat, shaking him with more strength than she should possess. "You saved all of us, every time we needed it, but especially at the end! You took over where Ichigo failed and you sealed Aizen away, and you did it because you were the only one who could! You were the only one who was as smart as Aizen and the only one as scheming." Her gaze pinned him in place, and the passion in those violent depths astounded him. "Sure you orchestrated everything, played us like your pawns, but it was because you were Aizen's nemesis, not us—"

"Don't!" he ground out, breaking away, turning his back on her. "Don't rationalize it, don't romanticize it, don't try to make it fit into your pure little world, Rukia. I did what had to be done to stop Aizen, and I won't apologize for it. But it's not something to be proud of. It's not neat or pretty or clean or honorable. It just is." He closed his eyes, muscles trembling. "Some things just are."

"What—"

"You said it the first time. Lives were ruined because of what I did. More than you know, more than any of you will ever know. Yours, Ichigo's, the Vizards—"

"You saved them!"

His laugh was bitter. "Oh, little girl, go home and play with your toys. Tell yourself whatever lies help you sleep at night. But don't try to play a player." He had to push her away. Push her as far away as possible, so she wouldn't make him her next altar.

"But—" Stubbornness was her best—and most frustrating—quality.

He switched tactics. "Ichigo's pain isn't your fault, Kuchiki-san. Why do you think I settled here in Karakura town, out of all the places in the living world? Did you think it was just coincidence? Kurosaki was guaranteed a role in this from the start. If you hadn't transferred your powers to him, he would have been pulled in another way. So absolve yourself, and go home."

"Ichigo's fine," she retorted, throwing him off guard.

"What?"

"I said he's fine. He's hanging out with his friends and going to school and being the normal high school kid he always wanted to be. Sure, he misses being all powerful and I like to think he misses us," she didn't say it, but he heard me loud and clear, "but he has his family and friends around him and he'll be okay. He'll grow up, his memories of us will fade, and he'll live a normal human life, focused on human things. And then someday he'll die and return to Soul Society, and he won't know us, won't remember what happened before. And sure it's sad that he won't remember he's a hero, but he won't feel any pain from it." She sighed, and the cold detachment in her voice wavered. "We're the ones who are hurting."

She punched the wall, rage overtaking her. "Screw we! I'm the one hurting! I'm the one who has to leave him alone but I can't help watching him, checking up, making sure he's okay and doesn't need anything and doesn't get hurt because he can't protect himself any more and he should be able to protect himself! I'm the one who can't forget, who he'll never see again during his life and he won't remember afterward!"

She fell to the ground, sobbing now, crouched over with her head buried in her knees. "There just wasn't enough time with him, Urahara! I thought there would be more time! I—I would give everything I have, my position, my afterlife, my soul for one more day!"

He'd known she loved Kurosaki. Hell, the kid was lovable. Not like him. But knowing it in the abstract and listening to the love of your life pour out her love for someone else were two different things. He hurt because she was hurting, and he hurt more because she wanted someone else when all he wanted was her. But in the end, none of it mattered, because neither he nor Kurosaki could ever have her. Maybe if he had been a different kind of man, made different decisions, stopped Aizen back in that field in Rukongai and not a century later after so people had been affected, they would have had a shot.

Time only runs forward. Guilt isn't regret.

But none of those thoughts could help him console her. Luckily, he didn't have to. While he'd been considering what to say, Rukia had calmed herself, wiped away her tears, and headed for the doorway. She was a noble, after all.

"I'm sorry, Urahara. I didn't mean to get so emotional. It's just . . . hard."

I understand. If you ever need to talk—but he couldn't say it. It was too out of character. It wouldn't do to break role any more than he already had.

"A-anyway," she stammered, "I just wanted to apologize and th-thank you for everything th-that you've done. E-especially saving Ichigo."

Before he could protest again, she was gone.

The last time he saw her, she had a request. It had been several months since their last encounter, and her observations of Kurosaki Ichigo had only increased during that time. She was looking more run down than he'd ever seen her, although her eyes were filled with determination, not defeat.

Urahara greeted her as he always did. "And what can I get for my best customer today?"

This time she answered the question. "I want you to make me a gigai."

His face lit up. Things were getting boring; he could really use a new project. "Excellent! Your old model is still functional, of course, but we have some exciting new upgrades!" he began, rubbing his hands together. "The supermegagigai XL5001+ package will do for the base, but then we'll have to add the emergency auto-eject function, the supersonic speed accelerator, the built-in spirit-particle-powered communicator, and of course, our newest upgrade—one press of a button, and the gigai turns into an airline-certified flotation device, complete with cup holder!"

He waited for the inevitable question of why a flotation device needed a cup holder (or why a gigai needed to turn into a flotation device at all, for that matter), but it never came.

"No."

"No? It's a very good upgrade," he urged. "But I suppose, if price is an issue, you could do without some of the extras."

She shook her head. "I want the original model."

He blanched. "Kuchiki-san—"

"Aiz—" she broke off, shutting her eyes, all her muscles tense. "Aizen said the original model you put me in was sucking up the last of my reiatsu, and that was why the integration was so bad. He said . . . he said that if I kept wearing it, eventually I would have become completely human."

"Sousuke said a lot of things," he replied, adjusting his hat until it hid his eyes from view. "Most of them were lies."

"Was that one of them?"

He was quiet a long minute. "No."

"Make me human, Urahara. You owe me that, at least." Not even desperation was left in her voice. She just sounded wooden, an empty shell of a once-vibrant Shinigami. A gigai.

He couldn't deny he owed her something. His damnable curiosity, his creation of the hougyoku in the first place, his underhanded attempt to hide it in her, his inability to beat Aizen the first time around—he'd made too many mistakes to count, he had too much guilt already. He'd repay this debt.

But not like this.

"Living in a dream world won't help, Kuchiki-san."

"I just didn't get enough time with him! This way I can have that! And sure, it won't last forever and I'll die someday and I won't remember any more than he will, but isn't that better than remembering and not being able to do anything about it? I'd rather forget. If you do this for me, we could have fifty years together!"

Ahh, the folly of youth. He closed his eyes, wishing he didn't have to feel so old when he spoke with her. "It won't be enough, Rukia," he said in a gentle voice. "You can live forever, and it's still not enough time. But one solid moment, one perfect memory, is worth an eternity of regret."

"But I'll always regret this if I don't do it!"

He scoffed, purposely cruel. "Who is this really for, Kuchiki-san? It can't be for Kurosaki-san. You've said yourself he will be fine without you. You would play god, now? You would alter his destiny and those of his friends and family? What about Inoue? You know, if you leave him alone, he'll marry her. She loves him just as much as you do, has loved him longer. But I suppose you deserve him more than her? You, who do not belong in this world, have the right to happiness at her expense! That's what power is, isn't it? The ability to alter another's destiny. But be careful when you start unweaving those strings . . . they're all connected, and pulling one out can affect people and situations in ways you never expected." He paused for dramatic effect. "Trust me, I know."

Recognition flashed in her eyes as the weight of his burden crashed down upon her.

"Go home, Kuchiki-san."

"But, I—" She was crying openly now, the emptiness filled with sorrow, tears streaming down her face and desperation apparent in every heaving breath.

His eyes softened and he handed her a handkerchief. "Rukia, go home. Soul Society cannot afford to lose you. This is not the last battle you will fight." He felt his eyes flicker and cursed himself for it. "I will watch over Kurosaki-san."

She held his gaze for a long moment, wiping her face, trying to understand. He could tell she didn't. He could tell she wanted to beg, to rail at him, to wheedle and cajole and threaten, and he watched each of these options slide across her face before she rejected them all as futile. He thanked any higher being that she didn't consider the possibility that all she had to do was continue looking that lost and eventually he'd cave and give her anything she wanted, anything to bring the warmth back to the flame.

Finally she sighed, and he watched the mantle of her Kuchiki breeding settle on her shoulders. She blinked, and then her expression was placid, unconcerned, perfectly, deceptively composed. As she walked toward the senkaimon, she glanced back over her shoulder. "Urahara?"

"Hmmm?"

Her voice was only a whisper. "If you had to do it all over again, would you—?"

"Yes," he interrupted, no hesitation in his heart. "I wouldn't change a thing. If I had done one thing differently, used one less person, altered one less destiny, we might not have won. We had to win."

She smiled, sadly. "I thought so. I . . . I wouldn't. If I could go back, I would never have let Ichigo distract me the night I met him, I would never have gotten him involved. Even if you say he would have been dragged into it anyway, I can't believe that." She laughed, and it was an empty, lilting sound. "I would spare him this, even if we needed him, even if it meant the end of the world."

She shook her head. "I guess that's what make you the hero, and me the fool."

"Rukia—" But she was gone. You're wrong.

That's what makes you the angel.

Angels didn't have to be practical.

She wouldn't return this time, he was sure of that. He wanted to sit down and cry for what he'd done and what it had cost. He wanted to kick the wall and rail at his loss, but he didn't. Yet another thing that had to be done, because if Rukia stayed, Ichigo might never meet the Fullbringers—others whose destinies he had yet to put to rights. It never ended, and what he wanted never mattered.

Being the man behind the curtain wasn't easy, and it wasn't without guilt. But that was the difference between guilt and regret. He wouldn't change a thing.

He just wished he would.