Damian had never seen another person his age before.
“Wow, you're good at that.”
Damian froze in his practice and looked over at the boy. It was after his lesson, his instructor had other students to teach, and Damian had his own private training area. Well, it was supposed to be private. “Who are you?”
“Danny, what's your name?”
Damian glared at the boy. Who doesn't know who he is? “I am Damian Al-Ghoul, grandson of the Demon's Head, son of the Bat, heir to the League of Assassins.”
“Wow, that's a lot... Can I just call you Damian?”
“Servants call me Master. How did you get here?”
Danny shrugged, “I was just looking around.”
“Just looking around...”
“Yeah, my parents are in the science lab down in the bottom basement with the weird lake and I was helping them, but then I got board and Jazz said I wasn't allowed to leave the lab, but when I asked Dad, he said I could do what I want as long as I don't get in trouble.”
“Oh, the idiot scientists.” Damian remembered how his mother had described the new scientists hired to study the Lazarus Pools. A pair of geniuses when it came to the scientific study of magic but idiots in all other fields. Surely only idiots would bring their children to live with the League of Assassins.
“What do you mean? If you're a scientist you can't be an idiot?”
Damian huffed at the boy. “You can be smart at one thing and dumb at others. Like you could be good at reading but bad at numbers.”
“Oh, I guess that makes sense. But I'm pretty good at reading and numbers.” Danny then smiled brightly, “It looks like you're really good at swording though.”
“It's called swordplay. And yes, I am good at it. Better at it at my age than many who are older.”
“Can you show me how to do it?”
Damian contemplated for a moment, “As long as you don't get in the way of my practice, I don't see why not.”
Danny cheered as he ran up to where Damian was standing, but Damian pointed to the side of the training area, “There should be a spare sword over there you can use.”
Danny nodded and ran to get it then ran back.
Damian wasn't sure if he'd like showing Danny how to use a sword, but he liked how Danny followed all his instructions. It was different than how the servants followed his orders, but Damian couldn't place why. It became common place, for Danny to show up after Damian's lessons and Damian would show him what he'd learned. It actually made learning new things easier because Damian had to figure out how exactly something worked in order to show Danny how to do it. Not only that, but when they practiced the moves on each other, Danny would change them and make it harder to beat him. Damian did win every time, but Danny wasn't half bad.
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Have a Bleach extended-winter-war time-travel-fix-it idea. In this AU Kaien's death happened before the whole turn-back-the-pendulum arc. (Yes, another Bleach time-travel AU, I know, shut up.)
As Ichigo and Kisuke are planning to go back to the past, Kisuke makes sure to emphasize to Ichigo that they have to protect Shiba Kaien. Apparently, it's of the utmost importance.
Ichigo doesn't know exactly how Kaien's continued well-being plays into saving the future. Kisuke never really explains it, or gives him a straight answer when he asks. But Ichigo knows that the Shiba Clan-Head carried a great deal of political power, and Ichigo also knows that Kaien -- according to Kukaku and Rukia -- was highly competent, incredibly noble, and fundamentally kind. It's not exactly unintuitive that a person like that could be important to bringing down Aizen.
So Ichigo listens, when Kisuke tells him to protect Shiba Kaien. He memorizes how Kaien died in the original timeline. He's attentive as Kisuke reiterates for the thousandth time that Aizen will keep trying to assassinate Kaien until he succeeds. He takes notes when Kisuke hypothesizes about what Aizen's various assassination attempts might look like -- poison during a meal, hired assassins at night, an ambush during a mission.
Ichigo ingrains the assignment into his core: protect Shiba Kaien, because if Kaien falls, the mission fails.
So when Kisuke slips a paralytic into Ichigo's tea and places Ichigo in the middle of the time-travel kido array and drains the entirety of his own spiritual energy to activate the array, a sacrifice that Ichigo never would have agreed to--
Well. The first thing Ichigo does when he arrives back in the past, numb and alone and only able to function by focusing on the duty that is his purpose -- is track down Shiba Kaien.
After all, if Ichigo is going to kill Aizen -- and he is, no matter what it takes -- he needs to keep Kaien alive.
Ichigo goes straight to the Shiba family grounds. In true Shiba fashion, they accept him immediately as family. They tend to his wounds and give him a meal and welcome him home. They let him get away with his weak excuses and explanations, and they defend his presence to the rest of Soul Society.
Kaien, in accordance with everything Ichigo has heard about the man, personally takes the newest addition to the family under his wing.
Ichigo's plans to deal with Aizen take shape around his need to keep an eye on Kaien.
Ichigo, instead of running as far and fast as he can from the Shiba clan, accepts the offer to live in the Shiba compound. He gets to know every clan member and retainer, subtly vetting for traitors. He sleeps in a room near Kaien's, allowing him to both guard against assassins at night and place warding runes around Kaien's door without having to worry about being caught somewhere he has no business being.
He joins the Court Guard in the 13th division instead of the 5th, because the only real way to protect Kaien on a mission is to be there with him. Ichigo knows that if there's an ambush, or if the mission details have been tampered with, he'll be more than enough fire power to get Kaien out of it. And it's easy to always get paired with Kaien; Kaien -- reliably taking every opportunity to hover around Ichigo that he's offered -- does most of the work, leveraging his status as lieutenant and Ichigo's combat ability to keep them together.
Ichigo finds himself frequently taking meals with Kaien and Kaien's friends. Kaien always invites Ichigo, and Ichigo accepts so he can subtly check the food for poison.
(Ichigo does not tell Kaien about Aizen. Ichigo is still unsure what Kaien's role is in the whole fight, and in the meantime, telling him about Aizen is a sure way to get him killed.)
Things heat up. Ichigo prevents both Miyako and Kaien's death, killing Metastacia before it can hurt anyone. Ichigo's shadow war against Aizen gets more intense. Ichigo sneaks out regularly to dismantle Aizen's illusions, destroy his labs, and attack his network of power, slowly weakening him.
Ichigo waits for the assassination attempts against Kaien, but they don't come, even several weeks after Metastacia fails. Ichigo takes it as a sign that he's got Aizen distracted.
Things continue for a while. Ichigo falls into a strange routine.
(And Ichigo tries not to break, seeing so many of his loved ones alive and unknowing of him. It is agony, to be around Shunsui, who is not his mentor, and the Visored, who are neither visored nor pack.
But the worst is when Captains Urahara and Shihouin catch on to his war against Aizen. He finds himself working with them as allies.
Allies. Mere allies, instead of --
Well. Not that it matters anymore.
All that matters is his duty.)
Time passes. Aizen weakens. There are no attempts on Kaien's life yet.
And then Aizen's web has unraveled enough for Ichigo to attack.
It's a long battle. It's a bloody battle. It's a very public battle.
Ichigo wins.
And it's only after it's all over -- after Aizen's crimes are revealed and Soul Society is at peace and the future is saved; after Ichigo finds himself still alive and adrift, with nothing left obligating him to keep going and everything telling him to give up; as Kaien refuses to leave Ichigo alone and escorts him to regular appointments with Unohana and forces him to talk about the truth of his past --
It's only then that it clicks.
Ichigo is whispering secrets about the future into Kaien's chest, Kaien's arms wrapped tight around him, when Ichigo confesses that he messed up, that he put the Shiba clan in unnecessary danger. Ichigo tells Kaien about his death in the original timeline. He talks about how Kisuke told him that in this timeline, Aizen would try and kill Kaien again if the first attempt failed. Ichigo promises desperately that he never would have sought out the family -- would have kept the danger far, far away from them -- if he hadn't thought he had to watch Kaien's movements so closely.
And Ichigo admits that Aizen never actually tried again. Ichigo admits that he and Kisuke miscalculated, that Ichigo brought danger to the Shiba's doorstep for nothing.
It happens like this:
First, the words leave his lips, "Kisuke" and "miscalculated" in the same sentence. Hearing himself say it lays bare the absurdity of its premise.
Then, Kaien draws away slightly, to look Ichigo in the eyes. Ichigo sees, plain on Kaien's face, a terrible, damning gratefulness.
Then, Kaien says -- fierce and defiant in the face of what could have been -- "I am so glad you came home."
And it clicks. At last, Kisuke's final manipulation reveals itself to Ichigo's eyes.
The emotions flash through him: the sting of betrayal; a flavor of love that bursts across his tastebuds as hurt; a familiar brand of exasperation that, a split second later, has his knees giving out under the weight of old pain made fresh.
Kaien catches Ichigo before he hits the ground and holds him as he shatters. And Ichigo can barely breathe through the knowledge that Kisuke would have been so smug to see them.
A sob rips itself from Ichigo's chest, and it's followed by another, and another.
Ichigo's older cousin holds him, in the home of their family, through it all.
_________
THE END except not really.
This must immediately be followed by a whole arc where Kaien, much to his own dismay, finds himself trying to hook Urahara up with his little cousin.
After all, Future-Urahara sent Ichigo to the Shiba clan. Future-Urahara tricked his little cousin into bypassing his own self-destructive tendencies to seek out family and love and support. Clearly, Urahara would actually be good for Ichigo.
And, you know, Ichigo clearly loves Younger-Urahara, judging by Ichigo's whole... well, everything, whenever the two interact.
(This whole matchmaking endeavor is made easier by the fact that 1) Kisuke is already infatuated, fascinated, and not a tiny-bit madly in love, and 2) Yoruichi is also, from the other end, trying to set Kisuke up with Ichigo.
This whole endeavor is made more difficult by the fact that 1) Ichigo is in denial that he loves this younger Kisuke since he never thought this younger Kisuke could also fall in love with him, 2) Kisuke is in denial that he loves Ichigo because that is a Shiba and he himself is a creepy low-born ex-assassin mad-scientist, and 3) neither Ichigo nor Kisuke know what it looks like when someone is interested in them.)
Poor Kaien. He succeeds eventually, but not before witnessing truly legendary social ineptitude.
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