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feelingfredly · 5 years ago

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By Invitation Only

Summary: Bingo Square # 10

"I'm sorry, this is a private apocalypse. You will have to leave."

The door looked like every other door in the alley.

“You're sure this is the right place?” His question disappeared into the sounds of the night—hovercycles revving the next street over, the whirring of an ancient ventilation system trying to work against the humidity of the night, and the constant murmur of people getting on with their lives, totally unaware that they were living next door to the deadliest gang in the history of civilization.

They called themselves Ningyōzukai— The Puppetmasters—and according to Kisuke’s latest calculations they were responsible for the deaths of almost five million people over the past three years.

“Is anyone ever sure, Kurosaki-kun? Perhaps this is Schrödinger’s door; the monster is or is not there until you open it. However,” the snarky philosopher voice was replaced by normal Kisuke voice in his ear—also snarky, but more somehow, “my calculations indicated an over ninety-seven percent chance that this is a primary viewing site for Aizen’s operations and a sixty-four point three percent chance that he is actually in attendance this evening. They are the best odds we’ve had so far.”

Just then, a sleek black Arasaka limo turned into the alley. That kind of wealth was definitely outside the local demographic.

“Looks like the odds just went up.” Ichigo ducked farther back into the shadows and touched his visor jack, activating the heat sensor. In the city it usually wasn’t useful, too much ambient interference, but this close body heat was hard to miss.

“Two passengers and two guards. Only two pulse pistols, but there’s a signature that might indicate vibroblades—three I think—on the one on the left. Definitely some extra bells and whistles.” Kisuke sounded almost bored as he relayed the information. Well, he’d seen Ichigo take on twice this many targets without sweating, so maybe he was. With Kisuke it was hard to tell.

He rolled his shoulders and shook out his sword arm. The nanite armor on his hands flexed and he allowed himself a satisfied grin. Almost time.

The four exited the car and headed for the door. Ichigo focused on the two passengers, trying to get a good view for Kisuke’s scrapers. More data was always useful.

“Do we recognize these people?” he asked.

The larger one was male, brunet, and handsome in a too-pretty kind of way. He looked to be in his late thirties, but for anyone with an aesthetician on speed dial that didn’t mean much. His clothes screamed money, from the snow-white haori he wore over his suit to his actual leather boots, and he was clearly amped, with two visible jacks on the shaved side of his head. He didn’t have any tracks on his face, though, so he probably was limited to human vision. His companion, though, clearly wasn’t.

Tall, thin, and sharp-edged, the second man almost glowed in the low light. His hair was silver, his skin so white that Ichigo suspected that he’d had a full-body tattoo, but it was his eyes that gave him pause. The man barely opened them, but Ichigo could see the mirror-sheen of military-grade optics from across the alley. That and the silver tracings that circuit-boarded his skin marked him as loaded with biosoft, it was just a question of what kind.

Ichigo didn’t think he made any noise, but the ghost turned and looked right at him, and he braced himself. Shit. There went the element of surprise.

It was just his fucking luck that with all his upgrades the guy was probably faster than he was. On top of that, with the past two weeks of constant rain Ichigo had finally given in and reprogrammed the soles on his boots so he didn’t slip in the runnels of unidentifiable muck that ran through Karakura’s alleys, sacrificing a fraction of his agility on the altar of not slipping and landing on his ass if he had to make a quick getaway, and then today, irony being the only constant in his life, the rain was nowhere to be seen. The night sky was clear, and the alleys were cleaner than they’d been before the deluge, a momentary mirage of civilization in the desert of concrete ruins that lined the edges of town, a sparkling clean carpet welcoming this man and his entourage in the warm Karakura night.

The moonlight was too weak to fight the hazy halos of light around the windows, acid-washed LEDs casting long green shadows, pink neo-neon burning on a peepshow marquee at the end of the alley, and over it all the scrolling data Kisuke was feeding him, but Ichigo’s attention was fixed on the ghost. One heartbeat. Two. And… nothing. The man tilted his razor-sharp chin to one side and paused but made no move and raised no hue and cry. Then they turned to the door and the danger point had been passed.

“Odds have increased, indeed, Kurosaki-kun. That is Aizen Sosuke, your target for this evening.”

A bullseye flickered in his visor and settled not on the ghost, but on the brunet. Ichigo looked a little closer. He’d only seen vids of the man before and Aizen looked different in person—no glasses, the lab coat and meek posture of a scientist traded for a confident swagger, his whole aura altered. No one would suspect that this dangerous-looking man was the mind behind the cybernetics of HuecoMundo or the charitable works of his Espada. This man was the Puppet Master himself, here to sell death and destruction to the highest bidder.

“The man with him is Ichimaru Gin. Reports indicate that Gin is a fanatic follower. He was picked up as a child from the wastelands outside Tokyo after the food riots in ’67. After that he was first in line to receive many of Aizen’s new products. He’s probably more synth than human by this point.”

Ichigo nodded his understanding, knowing Kisuke’d register the movement.

“With both of them there, plus the personal security and the site security, this may be more than you want to take on by yourself. You can track them tonight and I’ll contact Byakuya and see if he and Renji can join up with you later.”

Ichigo knew the odds weren’t great, but he couldn’t shake the image of the last town the Ningyōzukai had targeted. Unwilling to pay Aizen’s protection fees, they’d gone into the pool of possible targets, and then the boss of the next town to the west had bid heavily for them to be next on the program. The betting window was thirty days—how much damage the attackers would take, how many casualties in the first 24 hours, how long the citizens would hold out, how long it would take to decimate the population—and the actual destruction took less than a week. Matsuo was nothing but a ghost town now, the citizens occupying cells in the neighboring boss’s body bank, the illegal organ sales filling his coffers obscenely, with Aizen getting 40% off the top.

No. He couldn’t put this off if it meant another town being destroyed while he twiddled his thumbs.

Ichigo shook his head once and Kisuke sighed, but he could hear the satisfaction in it.

The two men and their bodyguards had made their way to the door, the brassneck minding the door bowing deeply to them before allowing them to pass and closing it behind them. The pause allowed him to get a good look at the locking mechanism and the points of weakness in the frame, and Kisuke almost cackled as he dove into the building’s mainframe.

“Alright, Kurosaki-kun, if you’re certain.”

Ichigo smiled. “Is anyone ever certain, Urahara-san? Perhaps I’m simply…”

Kisuke cut him off. “Perhaps you’re a congenital smart-ass just waiting for someone, smarter and better looking, to come along and teach you a lesson in manners? Yes. I can totally believe that. Now, if you don’t mind, Kurosaki-kun, I’d feel better about this if you actually focused on the job at hand.”

He laughed under his breath. “Okay, Kisuke. If you insist. I’d almost think you were worried about me.”

A short huff filled his ear. “Worried about training your replacement. I have invested far too much time in you to sacrifice it all because you weren’t paying attention. Now. The door is on a separate circuit from the rest of the building. They really don’t want anyone just cutting the power and waltzing in, but the software hasn’t been updated in a while, so just…”

Ichigo ignored the rambling. Kisuke always babbled when he was thinking. He walked across the alley and knocked on the door.

A screen to the left of the doorframe lit up and the brassneck peered at him through the grainy camera. “Who are you and what is your purpose?”

Ichigo gazed blankly back at the camera and repeated the message he’d memorized. “I am Chikamatsu Monzaemon, here to tell tales of sewamono and jidaimono and to move the puppets on their strings.”

The brassneck nodded. “Please place your hand on the scanner.”

Ichigo took a deep breath and pressed against the biolock, waiting for Kisuke to work his magic.

“You know if you’d waited a few more seconds I wouldn’t have had to rush.” Kisuke sniffed and the lock buzzed its approval of his fake palm print.

“You love the rush,” Ichigo murmured fondly as the door swung open. The doorman’s robotic face registered a blip of confusion but decided to ignore whatever Ichigo was saying, clearly limited in its processing, the real security being the system that Kisuke was currently battering into submission.

“No weapons are allowed past this point. Please move forward to the weapons check and place them in the tagged locker. You will be given the code to retrieve them when you leave.”

Ichigo turned on his heel as if to follow the robot’s directive, only to stop and spin back, trench knife in one hand and katana in the other, the smooth swing of the blades separating the brassneck’s head from his body.

“I’m sorry,” he said, standing over the sparking remains, “but I refuse to make Aizen-sama’s acquaintance so underdressed.”

Kisuke snorted in his ear. “No one is there to hear your dramatics, Kurosaki-kun.”

Ichigo kicked the head to one side, like a soccer ball. “You know that you’re the only audience I need, Kisuke. How’s the progress?”

His partner hummed. “I’ve isolated the main viewing room from the rest of the security system. They shouldn’t know you’re coming.”

Ichigo flexed his arms. “Best news I’ve had all day. Patch me in.”

He stepped over the sparking chassis on the floor and headed deeper into the building.

Information flickered across his vision—floorplan, heat signatures, data ports, ventilation system—ahhh… that’s what he wanted. The largest of the private viewing booths.

Currently it showed four human or human-adjacent heat signatures, and three that were probably sentry-bots. There was one void, which meant that someone in there was wearing a skinsuit made to prevent their being seen on surveillance like this.

“The readings I got of Aizen in the alley showed a normal heat signature, Gin too. Watch out for the mystery player.”

Ichigo laughed under his breath. “You say that like I wouldn’t, Kisuke. You know how careful I am.”

The data streaming into his head turned a lurid pink and flashed HA HA VERY FUNNY for a split second and he had to smother another laugh. It was a constant battle between them, each telling the other to be more careful and neither listening very well. The key, though, was knowing when to listen. After the past few years with Kisuke, Ichigo thought he knew that pretty well.

Urahara Kisuke took risks that most would balk at, but rarely with Ichigo’s well-being, and never without a damn good reason. Ichigo, in turn, would follow almost all of the other man’s advice… until he didn’t. It worked for them--probably because they knew it wouldn’t work for anyone else.

The other hallways were mostly empty. Two of the upper halls had service bots, probably loaded with food and drinks for the gluttonous members of Aizen’s little club. Each one there by invitation only available for an extortionate price.

“How many viewing rooms are active?”

Kisuke hummed. “There are six active, but only four are currently occupied. One on the ground floor, one on the first, and then the other two are all the way up on the top floor. Must be high rollers to share a floor with Aizen himself.”

Another hum. “According to the datascrape, tonight’s target is,” he cursed softly under his breath, “Huangshi. Outside Wuhan. Close to a million citizens. Run by a warlord who goes by—oh, this explains a few things— Huangdi .”

Ichigo parsed through his Chinese history and came up short. “Okay, it may explain things to you, Kisuke, but I don’t get it. What does the Yellow Emperor have to do with Aizen choosing this city to destroy?”

He darted down the long, dark hallway, making sure that the cameras he passed were still offline after Kisuke’s first take-down.

“Well, it wouldn’t mean anything if the occupant of the front row to tonight’s cataclysm wasn’t a self-styled Yandi . He came up through the ranks of one of the newer populist cults in Wuhan, but really started making a name for himself after he had several biotic alterations that turned him into a walking flame-thrower. He killed at least a half dozen cultists by burning them to a crisp before turning his new-found talents on the management. He took over the whole group in less than five months, earning the nickname Flame Emperor of Wuhan.”

The dots were beginning to look connectable.

“So, Huangshi is run by someone who is setting himself up as Huangdi, the Han Emperor that ended the Yan dynasty. Subtle. Why not just take out a hypersign that says, ‘I’m coming for you, Fuckboi?’”

It was always this way. Fight like hell to take a territory, then become unsatisfied with what you have, only to take more and more until a bigger fish comes along and swallows you whole. Unfortunately, this time it wasn’t just one greedy fish paying the price. No, a million people who just happened to be unlucky enough to share a city with him were going to pay, too.

“Who are the other viewing parties? Yandi’s entourage?” Readouts showed a total of twelve people in the two lower rooms. And look at that… they shared a ventilation shaft.

“No. The group on the ground floor are Aizen’s bodyguards. I’m predicting they are just watching to pass the time between patrols. Second floor seems to be a potential client here with an investor to size up the opportunity Aizen promised them.” A note of bitter satisfaction crept into Kisuke’s voice. “What a shame that when the time comes for them to sign their contract their bank accounts will contain nothing but dust.”

Ichigo followed the floor plan until he found the central exhaust fan for the heating system. It was spinning gently, simply circulating air rather than actually trying to vent anything. He pulled a pair of canisters from the bag slung low across his back with one hand, and a collapsible baton from a holster on his thigh with the other.

“Can you isolate the exhaust fan on the ground floor?” he asked.

“It would take a minute or two, why?”

Ichigo snapped the baton open and stabbed it into the grate over the fan between the moving blades. The fan shuddered and groaned but stopped. Perfect.

“No reason,” he said, popping the canisters open. Each can was filled with a combination of tech-ticks—nanites that attached themselves parasitically to wetware that wasn’t hardened against them, rendering them useless over time—and a potent knock-out gas. It would only take moments to flood the lower viewing rooms and remove those people from the equation. The damage from the tech-ticks would be permanent and expensive to repair—really, one of Kisuke’s best inventions—but it would be a small price to pay for the terrible decision they’d made to associate with Aizen and his lot.

He pulled a vibroblade from his pack and sliced through the grates covering the branching ventilation shafts and then dropped the gas grenades into them.

“Start sleepy time countdown now,” he said.

“Anyone ever tell you you’re too soft-hearted, Kurosaki-kun?” Kisuke didn’t believe in leaving targets free to rejoin a battle. He was more efficient than that. Ichigo, though, didn’t figure the people in these rooms would join the fight to protect Aizen. The security staff looked like bakebrains and wannabe bioroids who’d signed on for a paycheck. The clients might want to stay on the bastard’s good side, but when it was their skin on the line it was more likely they’d run from the building as fast as their hardware could carry them. The tech-ticks would slow them down and mark them in such a way that they could deal with them later if they persisted in their homicidal tendencies, but he didn’t sign on for wholesale slaughter, even if it would make him safer in the long run.

“Soft-headed, maybe,” he murmured, “but never soft-hearted. Why? Are you accusing me of having a heart, Kisuke?”

The man on the other end of the line snorted. “Yes. You’re a sloppy, sentimental, bleeding-hearted man that secretly watches kitten and puppy videos when he’s supposed to be doing recon, and your countdown is at zero. The occupants of viewing rooms one and two are incapacitated. I have, in case you’re interested, placed chrono-locks on the doors from the outside. They will not be leaving for twelve hours, even if the sedation wears off before you’re finished here. You’re welcome.”

Ichigo grinned. “You’re the best, Kisuke.”

“Yes. I am. Now focus. You’ve got a job to do.”

He backtracked to the main corridor and down to the elevator banks. “Which one is operational?”

The data readout in his left eye flashed a yellow rectangle over the nearest set of doors and he pressed the call button. Kisuke had deactivated the other transports to prevent any other party crashers from interrupting the evening.

The elevator was old and noisy—nothing like the high-end security droid guarding the hall when he finally arrived at the top floor.

Kisuke was muttering again about time—he always wanted more—but Ichigo took one look at the guardian and knew this was up to him.

“I'm sorry, this is a private apocalypse, you will have to leave." The sentry droid looked disturbingly human, except it hovered two inches off the floor and Ichigo’s sensors read three different power supplies. Its face was painted more elegantly than the most expensive joyboys in Tokyo, and its clothing cost more than Ichigo’s hoverbike.

It was really too bad.

“Private, you say?” He stepped towards the droid, blocking its vision as he dropped a microfilament whip down along his thigh and shook it loosely. “I’m sure I’m allowed. I have an invitation from Aizen-sama.”

The droid cocked its head to one side. “Invitation? I was given no information about any other guests for this apocalypse. I must insist that you leave, at once, or I will be forced to treat you as a threat.”

The power supply located in the droid’s upper left torso showed a rapid increase in activity, indicating pop-ups in one or both of the arms. Whether they were for sleeper darts or bullets was anyone’s guess. Ichigo breathed in, once, and focused on the microfilament he couldn’t feel.

“Allow me to assure you,” he moved—weight balanced on the ball of one foot, knee bent, as he swept around slashing through the droid’s carapace in four precise cuts… three placed directly through the power supplies so there’d be no regeneration, and the fourth across the eyes to stop any potential visual records from being scraped from the droid later. “I’m supposed to be here.”

The pieces tumbled to the floor, the deep pile carpet muffling the sound, and Ichigo stepped over it, moving on towards his next target.

“How’s the bank coming?” he asked.

Kisuke made a satisfied sound. “The Red Emperor’s coffers have been emptied. I skimmed ten percent and the rest is now sitting in a Westphalian bank account waiting to be used towards reparations for damages that might come from tonight’s scheduled cataclysm. If we somehow manage to prevent it completely, well, then we’ll just have to figure out something else to do with all that beautiful filthy lucre.”

Ichigo had no doubt that Kisuke had already mentally spent every credit. He might be easy, but he certainly wasn’t cheap.

“Excellent. When Aizen tries to take his last pound of flesh in payment and finds nothing but bones, hopefully he will call off the attack. Can’t imagine that he’s ever offered services pro bono.”

No. Aizen Sosuke hadn’t a shred of mercy or generosity. Terrible qualities if you wanted to befriend the man, but excellent if you wanted to predict or manipulate him.

Ichigo moved silently to the viewing room Kisuke marked on his readout.

“The mystery player has moved across the hall and is now confronting the Red Emperor. You’d better get in there if you’re hoping to end the evening with minimal bloodshed,” he warned.

Two steps down the hall and then a pause at the locked door, throwing a glance over his shoulder at the last room on the floor. Aizen’s room. No movement showed through the heat sensors. They could be sitting having tea for all he could tell.

The other room, though, was falling into chaos. He could hear shouting through the door, faint but definite, and then a single scream, like a wounded animal.

Too slow, apparently.

He pushed the door open and stood back from the opening. No sense in making himself a target right off the bat. The mystery player, though, wasn’t interested in him.

“The Ningyō No Masutā is gracious and forgiving, but he is not a fool to be taken advantage of. He offered you your dreams, and for a mere pittance, and you have insulted his honor by not fulfilling your promises. Since it seems that there may have been outside influence in this, you will keep your life—this time—but do not confuse his intentional generosity with blindness. Your responsibility to him is your responsibility to protect and guarantee, even if interfered with.”

The speaker dropped his sword—an actual sword , it looked ancient—and bowed his head.

“Spread the news of his greatness and be thankful that you can.”

The room was in chaos. Several people were sobbing and there was blood everywhere. A small woman kneeled crouching before a huge man dressed in dark red silks, his belly held up by a suspensor belt, holding her crimson skirts against the bleeding stump of his arm where a hand should have been.

The hand was on the floor.

The speaker was short and dark, braids bobbing around his head like little snakes, and his eyes were completely white. He was probably blind, in the technical sense, but there was no way he didn’t see everything happening around him.

Ichigo could see silver filaments running along the length of his bare arms. He wasn’t wearing a skinsuit… it was embedded in his skin. He couldn’t imagine the hours of work, the expense, the pain, necessary to make such a thing happen. It was incredible.

“Kaname Tōsen,” Kisuke murmured. “I didn’t realize Aizen had his claws so deeply in him. He’s… not the same. Be careful, Kurosaki-kun. He’s a zealot, and you know how unpredictable those can be.”

Ichigo digested that bit of information. For Kisuke, that was a serious warning.

As if he knew he was the topic of conversation, the man in question spoke.

“You, Kurosaki Ichigo,” Tōsen didn’t turn towards him. “You are late. My master is waiting for you across the hall. Do not make him wait longer, or his impatience will become mine.” With that, his sword twitched, as if hungering to be unleashed. Impatience indeed.

“Well, then,” Ichigo nodded at him, “since you seem to have this under control, I’ll just scoot along. Anything you’d like me to pass along?”

His unflustered response was a roll of the shoulder. “I need not tell my master anything. He already knows everything he needs to. Now go. Quickly.”

The order itched between Ichigo’s shoulder blades, and he hesitated, almost wanting to linger just to see what the other man would do. But if Aizen already knew he was there, there was no point in delaying the inevitable, even if his natural reluctance to follow orders was being challenged.

“This wasn’t the plan, Kurosaki-kun,” Kisuke’s voice was very bland, which meant he was worried. “It is one thing to surprise a snake when it’s sleeping. It is another to challenge it head on.”

Ichigo rolled his shoulders and walked toward the door at the end of the hall. The floorplans indicated that it opened into a large room that ran the whole front of the building. This high up, it probably had quite a view. He wasn’t going to miss that.

“Do you have eyes on the main room?” he asked.

“No. Haven’t been able to get eyes. The plans indicate cameras were installed, but I can’t find a trace of them. Aizen probably had them removed.”

Made sense. Almost anything was hackable if you were good enough, and Kisuke was definitely good enough. The only option would be to dumb the room completely. Heat signatures would be reliable, still though.

“Am I still looking at a party of two now that Tōsen is out of the picture?” He had two stun grenades, but they were touchy in close quarters like this. His two knives were better… and he was better with them.

“Gin hasn’t moved since he entered the room, which is a little concerning because it could be a mirror, but you won’t be able to tell until you get in there. I can say that there are only two heat signatures in the room. I just can’t tell you where they’re going to be. Let me check just one more thing.” Kisuke sounded frustrated, and Ichigo knew he was probably chewing through every piece of data he could scrape to find out something—anything—that would be useful. Sometimes, though, you just have to take the jump and hope for the best.

“Kisuke,” he said, “it’s now or never.” He kept his voice soft and gentle, but they both knew that once he made up his mind there was no going back.

Kisuke sighed, and Ichigo thought he could hear a shudder in it.

“Don’t turn your back on him. Gin may look dangerous, but Aizen is dangerous. And don’t…” his voice cracked just once. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Ichigo laughed—a sharp, dark thing—and he remembered the first time he met Kisuke, standing over three unconscious bodies that had mistakenly thought the tall, pale gaijin would be easy pickings. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

And then, as if summoned, the door opened.

He walked the last steps down the hall, the hilts of his knives shifting loosely against his back and thigh, and he paused infinitesimally outside the threshold, foot raised but not crossing, and that was when he saw it. A microfilament spool mounted just at the edge of the door’s frame—a sudden and terrible surprise for anyone incautious enough to waltz in uninvited, the weapon poised to take off an arm or a head, whatever was unlucky enough to be in the way.

“Good evening, Aizen-san,” he said, pitching his voice to carry into the room ahead of him. “I was told to hurry because you were waiting for me, but I can only hope you don’t think me foolish enough to lose my head over such an invitation.” He snapped out his short knife and stabbed it into the door frame, breaking the mounting piece from the rest, causing the microfilament spool to fall to the floor with a clatter. “I didn’t expect much from you, but I have to say I’m disappointed in your hospitality.”

Ichigo gambled that there would be no other weapon in the immediate vicinity and walked through the door. The room was filled with light from golden lamps on low tables around the space, and the beauty of the Karakura night poured in through the bank of windows. Aizen, tall, dark-haired and handsome, his dangerous swagger from the alley still very much present, stood facing him with a look that balanced somewhere between annoyed and entertained on his face.

Ichigo recognized that look. Kisuke wore it often.

“My hospitality is typically reserved for honored guests or friends or family. You, Kurosaki Ichigo, are on none of those lists. Although,” he paused and looked him up and down suggestively, “you might be able to persuade me to add you. If you prove interesting enough.”

Ichigo couldn’t completely stifle his laugh. “Oh, really? And just what would you find interesting? I somehow doubt our definitions would align.”

Aizen sauntered across the room towards him. “I wouldn’t be so sure.” His voice dropped to a purr. “I mean there has to be something about you keeping Ki-chan entertained.”

There was dead air in his ear. Not radio silence—dead air. Kisuke had cut the line. Why had Kisuke cut the line?

“He gets bored, you know,” a second voice sounded behind him. Gin. Gin was standing behind him. “Your Kisuke. He likes the chase. The rush. He ain’t so much with what comes after.”

You love the rush. How many times had he said that?

Aizen watched the expressions play across his face and smirked. “Don’t tell me.” He clapped his hands gleefully. “He didn’t tell you.”

Ichigo saw red. Fuck that . He didn’t care what the guy knew about Kisuke, he wasn’t putting up with that shit.

“Tell me what? That you’re a murdering bastard who’s destroyed almost a dozen cities and deserve to be chopped into little pieces and fed to the koi outside the Summer Palace?” Ichigo cocked his head to one side and cast a look up at the brunet. “No, I’m pretty sure he told me all that. In those precise terms, actually.”

Gin barked out a laugh and Ichigo breathed a little easier as the tall man crossed the room to the low couch and slung himself out across it. Keeping Aizen in front of him would be much easier if he didn’t have to worry about the ghost behind him.

“That sounds just like him. He always got—colorful—when he was bitter over something and trust me… he’s bitter.” Venom dripped from Aizen’s words. “Bitter that I moved on without him. Bitter that I took his little idea and turned it into something so much bigger. So much… more. Ki-chan just couldn’t see the big picture. This is what dreams are made of. Infinite power. Infinite knowledge.”

“Infinite crazy, you mean.” Ichigo stepped towards the brunet. “If Kisuke isn’t here with you creating your made-to-order apocalypses, it’s because he doesn’t want to be. He doesn’t want any part of it. Or any part of you. Get real, Aizen-sama .”

There was a tiny intake of breath in his ear. Kisuke.

“Gin!” Kisuke could have whispered it or shouted; Ichigo was too focused on the hand on his shoulder and the blade at his throat to tell.

The ghost really did move faster than he did. Luckily, not faster than Kisuke’s nanites. He hoped. He leaned back a little against Gin; if the other man thought it was to get a little space between his carotid and the sword… well, it wasn’t illogical.

“You see,” Aizen was still talking, allowing Gin to hold him as a captive audience, “that’s where you’re wrong. Or one of the many places you’re wrong. My Ki-chan is here—through you. He’s watching, and listening, and taking his voyeuristic pleasures just as he always has, he’s just lazy. He lets us do his dirty work for him, and he just sits back and revels in it. And we let him, because we love him.”

Long legs ate the few steps between them and Ichigo was forced to look up to meet Aizen’s gaze. Equally long fingers gripped his chin and forced it even higher before he pressed their mouths together, sharp teeth digging into the soft meat of Ichigo’s lower lip, his vicious tongue swiping up the blood welling up there.

“Aren’t you…” Aizen closed his eyes and let out a breathy sigh, “delicious. I can taste the boosters in your blood. Ki-chan has outdone himself. Maybe I should keep you around. It might help keep Ki-chan more… amenable.”

Ichigo had had about enough. He shifted, rolling forward onto the ball of one foot and then dropping his full weight. The surprise bought him a split second and with it he struck his elbow backwards into Gin’s torso, wresting a gasp from the ghost, and his face from Aizen’s grasp.

“Now, Kisuke .”

A whisper sounded behind him, slowly growing louder, and he knew if he looked back that the hundreds of tech-ticks that had been riding on his back would be warping his view of the bodyguard, each one latching onto something, anything, that it could eat away at, like tiny techno-piranha.

Aizen laughed. “Do you think I wouldn’t have hardened Gin’s bioware against Ki-chan’s little toys? I thought you were smarter than that, but I guess you are just a pretty face.”

Ichigo felt Gin’s hands fall away and heard him groan. “Aizen-sama,” he gasped, “something is wrong.”

A ferocious frown spread across the brunet’s face. “No! It’s not possible. You were updated before we left. I made sure.”

Breath racked through Gin’s chest. “Urahara must’ve changed something. I… I don’t…”

The instant of confusion was all Ichigo needed. He raised the trench-knife in his hand and gritted his teeth as he punched it through Aizen’s chest, just below the glowing orb imbedded in his sternum.

An almost fond smile crept across the taller man’s face and he shook his head slowly. “So… not just a pretty face after all. You have conviction as well. I hope Ki-chan got a hi-def recording of this. I want to see it. I want to see it with his eyes.”

Aizen’s expression tightened, his lips twisted in a grimace of pain, and Ichigo braced himself for the blood and the screaming… but they never came. Instead, like water breaking against a blade, everything that was Aizen Sosuke shivered and shimmered around his weapon and then burst into a million pieces, waves of nanotech crashing to the floor, dead.

“Shit,” Kisuke cursed in his ear. “It was a doppelgigai. He’s improved the life-sign imitation since the last time I had to deal with one. Damn it all.”

“Well, well, well,” the voice behind him sounded much less breathless, and Ichigo spun to face the ghost. “Wasn’t sure what to expect from you, but that was worth the price of admission.”

Gin’s color was normal, and his breathing natural. Apparently—another fake.

“Amazing recovery,” Ichigo said, slowly stepping away from the skittering pile of Aizen-that-was.

“Isn’t it, though?” Gin put away his sword and raised his empty hands. “It won’t last long, I’m afraid. I’ll have to fry a few circuits before rejoining Aizen-sama, but it’s worth it.”

Ichigo made some quick calculations and came to an unexpected conclusion. “Not a fan, then?”

Gin cocked his head to one side. “The man’s a monster. Brilliant, but doesn’t have enough soul left to fill a shot glass. I got close to try to take him out, but he’s beyond me. He might not be beyond your friend, though. Aizen’s got a real blind spot about the blond.”

Ichigo could understand.

“The next apocalypse won’t be so easy to derail. Mining town called Ganymede. The army there is poised to attack, and Aizen is taking his pound of flesh in the form of Yttrium.”

Kisuke murmured in his ear. “He must still be working on those superconductors. We can’t let him get his hands on it. There’s no telling what kind of damage he’d do.”

Ichigo nodded to both of them. “Rare metals are key. So, what’s the play?”

Gin stretched, his long body lean and deadly, and smiled. “I don’t have one. I just have a message for your fella—next time, don’t miss. He’s coming for you, Ki-chan, and he’ll take your little strawberry here down the instant he sees him next time. You can’t hide from him anymore.”

He swung a long thin finger back and forth. “Tick tock, tick tock. Your time has run out.”

“Catch you later, Pretty,” he winked at Ichigo, and then, like the ghost he resembled, opened the door and disappeared.

Ichigo ground his teeth. “Strawberry, my ass. I’ll choke that puff of smoke the next time I get my hands on him.”

“Worry about Gin later,” Kisuke was already feeding his data stream with new maps and directions. “Get back here. New data. New plans. Hurry, Kurosaki-kun. And please,” Kisuke cleared his throat, “be careful.”

***

It took three days to get home. Three days where every question he threw at Kisuke over the comms was deflected or ignored completely. Three days of impersonal data overload with hundreds of names, faces, events, weapons, plans, and everything that could possibly tie them together being thrown at him.

“Enough, Kisuke,” he finally said, choosing radio silence over the artificial lightness of his tone, or the cold distance when he was so far in his own head that there was nothing Ichigo could do to reach him. “We’ll figure it out when I get back.”

Silence hung between them, but it was the open line that gave him hope. Kisuke hadn’t shut him out. Not yet.

Not ever if he had anything to say about it.

Finally, at the end of his journey, Ichigo stared into the optical scanner above the door, and then did a 360° turn before pressing 6 of his ten fingers against the biometric lock keypad.

“Tadaima!” His voice echoed through the stairwell and he started up it, taking the spiral steps two at a time. Gods, he was glad to be home.

He dropped his gear beside the stairs and toed off his boots, moving quickly through the living room and down the hall to Kisuke’s work rooms.

“Kisuke?” he called.

“In here, Kurosaki-kun,” the voice came not from the labs but from their bedroom.

That, Ichigo thought, could be either very good, or very bad.

He crossed the threshold and saw Kisuke’s bags packed and sitting beside the door, silent witness to the shit that was about to go down. Very bad it was.

“I am most relieved that you have returned safely,” the blond was sitting on a little chair by their dressing table, back rigid, the ridiculous green and white striped hat that he preferred casting his eyes in shadow.

Ichigo hated that hat.

“Why?” he asked, dropping bonelessly on the bed. “Looks to me like you’ve made all the decisions you wanted to make already. Didn’t need me for any of it.”

Kisuke lurched forward a little. “That isn’t…”

“Isn’t what, Kisuke? Fair? Isn’t the polite spin you were going to put on it? Cut the crap. You’re running, and whether it’s because you’re trying to protect me or running back to Aizen, what I have to say clearly doesn’t matter, or you wouldn’t have already made up your mind.”

Kisuke’s shoulders dropped a fraction. “I haven’t.”

Ichigo pushed himself up on his elbows. “You haven’t what, Kisuke? Packed? That isn’t what it looks like.”

“I did that the first day.” His voice was softer than usual, missing the snarky edge that carried it over the comms to him on jobs. “I don’t think I’ve ever moved faster in my life.”

Ichigo laughed at that. Kisuke could strike like a viper in a fight, but the idea of him packing in a hurry? Not your typical Kisuke.

“Why?” He almost didn’t want to ask the question. He figured he already knew the answer.

“I was scared. Angry. Needed to do something.” Kisuke shrugged. “Couldn’t get the image of Gin’s sword at your throat out of my head. Packing seemed like the right thing to do at the time.”

It had taken him years, but he’d learned the hard way that pushing Kisuke into a corner rarely gave him the responses he wanted. This time, though, he pushed. “And now?”

Kisuke breathed in slowly and let it out even more slowly. Once. Twice. “Now I’m not so sure.” He looked up, pushing the brim of the hat back so Ichigo could see his eyes. “I’m still scared. Still angry. Seems to me, though, that if what I’m scared of is losing you, then leaving is a 100% probability of fulfilling that fear with no help from the Asshole at all.”

What I’m scared of is losing you … Ichigo felt his breath hitch at the words and he forced himself to nod. “The math does seem to work that way.”

The older man made a noise in the back of his throat. “So, if you’re not too upset over finding out that Aizen and I used to be involved, or that he’s using my technology to commit these atrocities, then I…” his voice faded away.

“Then you’d what?” Ichigo pushed again.

“Well,” his voice was small but steady this time, “I could use some help unpacking.”

Ichigo couldn’t stop the relieved laugh that shook his frame. “Is that all?” he held out a hand for Kisuke’s, pulling him off the chair and onto the bed beside him.

Kisuke stretched out, wrapping his long arms around Ichigo’s waist. “Yes. Well, that and tracking down the money behind the attack on Ganymede, hijacking the yttrium, getting Gin away from Aizen, and possibly stabbing the real bastard in the guts this time. But, no hurry. Just the unpacking first.”

Ichigo buried his nose in the junction between Kisuke’s throat and collarbone, breathing in deeply the scent that always brought him back home, no matter where they were, no matter what madness Kisuke was planning.

“I think I can manage that.” He dropped feather-light kisses against Kisuke’s skin. “At some point we will have to have an invitation made up, though.”

Kisuke squirmed. He was always a little ticklish there. “An invitation? For whom?”

Ichigo held his partner tightly, the fear and anger of the past few days bleeding out of him as he allowed Kisuke to hear the smirk in his voice. “Aizen-sama, of course. We wouldn’t want him to miss his own apocalypse. I can’t imagine anyone who deserves one more.”

For the rest? They had all the time in the world.

#@uraichievents #cyberpunk ninja Ichigo #cyberpunk genius Kisuke #Aizen the Psycho Ex #Good Guy(ish) Gin #working on that trust thing #Bleach

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