#uraichiyoru

[cheshiresense]

Oooh! Um... How about Kisuke/Yoruichi/Ichigo? Shadowrun AU (Fantasy AU if you don't know Shadowrun)

Lol I have no idea what Shadowrun is, did a quick google and it’s something like magic + cyberpunk + vaguely futuristic post-apocalyptic setting + virtual reality?? Omg it’s too complicated to write just from reading the wiki lmao, I’ll just give you a cyberpunk fantasy AU.

Edit: This got away from me a bit whoops.

1. Kisuke is your average humble toymaker in the Slums who may or may not supply the underground Robin Hood-esque rebel faction Visored with not-so-average weapons and prosthetics and various repairs and upgrades. The Visored are pretty much wanted in every kingdom in existence, partly because half of them used to be nobles themselves and were part of the minority who hated the way they treated their citizens, mostly because they keep fucking with the other nobles, but no one except said nobles actually wants them to stop because everybody who isn’t nobility pretty much hates those who are. Mostly, it’s the three neighbouring kingdoms - Seireitei, Silbern, and Las Noches - sitting cozy up in their walled off flourishing cities up high, constantly at war with each other but with plenty to eat and plenty of money to fund their large-scale chess games, and paying almost zero attention to the poor and homeless outside their walls. That doesn’t stop them from forcibly conscripting the lower class as cannon fodder or using the Slums as their personal dumping grounds or imprisoning or executing anyone they decide is breaking one law or another. Kisuke’s stayed under the radar so far, so nobody knows he’s the man even more wanted than the Visored, if only for his prodigal skills with cybertech. He’s the one who built their equipment and vehicles, who repaired Hiyori’s spine after she’d been left unable to walk from an ambush and produced a new arm for Hachi after it was cut off in a skirmish, both of which work just as well as the original parts. Most of the nobles either want to kill him or “hire” him. But a toymaker in the Slums who cobbles together tiny cats and dragons and chickens and pixies out of scrap metal for children to play with isn’t anything to look twice at.

2. Here is a secret only a handful of people know - Shihouin Yoruichi was born a cripple. She couldn’t walk, at all, and even the best prosthetics money could buy from the various cybertech companies were clunky and awkward and only allowed her to limp a certain distance. Her family, one of the great noble houses of Seireitei that specialized in seduction and assassination, hid her away out of shame, right up until a rebellious teenaged Yoruichi had had enough and snuck out one night on nothing but her wobbly fake legs and a crutch. She’d spent enough time on her own for the majority of her childhood to know just about every passageway and secret door that snaked through the length and width of Seireitei. She didn’t stop until she appeared in the Slums, and she fainted from exhaustion and hunger only a few days later, but she never looked back. Kisuke found her, took her in, and then made her legs on a whim, upgrading them every time he figured out something new and better that he could add to them. In exchange, Yoruichi used her newfound mobility to retrieve better materials for Kisuke, robbing delivery trucks en route to Seireitei’s cybertech companies or outright stealing from her own family’s weapons storage. Anything they could buy, Kisuke could reverse-engineer and make better. Ten years after she left her old life behind, her legs are a work of art, connected to her nerves to give her complete control over them but granting her superhuman speed and jumping ability, and she’d practiced enough with them over the years that her mind had no problems keeping up with both.  The prosthetics are lightweight but strong enough to withstand the swing of a blade or the impact of a bullet, and she would give a lot to see her family’s faces if they ever realize just who has been ransacking their vaults.

3. Most people carry some kind of weapon these days, but the best - for those who can afford them, or can call Kisuke a friend - can take the form of a companion when not in combat. Shinji’s is in the shape of a sphinx, all sleek lines and feline flexibility, but one that shifts into a sword in a silent whir of pulsing blue lines and polished metal at his command. Mashiro’s is a pixie, not unlike the toys commonly seen in Kisuke’s part of the Slums, except hers includes translucent wings threaded with pale green wiring. It’s perpetually perched on her shoulder, but in a fight, the pixie fuses with her hands and legs, the wings melting and sliding over her skin like liquid mercury to form gloves and boots that increase the power of her kicks and punches.

Yoruichi’s is a black cat but nobody actually knows what kind of weapon it can turn into. More often than not, Yoruichi sends it off as a spy because the thing is so realistic nobody can actually tell it’s not a real animal unless they get close enough to see the delicate wiring in its yellow eyes.

Nobody’s ever seen Kisuke’s either, weapon or otherwise, until a spy from a cybertech company snoops too closely around his shop. Then the other occupants get front-row seats to the bright red threads that extend from his hands - hands that light up with the many, many upgrades inside, a complicated maze of crimson circuits swirling beneath his flesh - and attach themselves to their target like strings on a puppet. At least he takes it out back before he literally rips the spy apart.

4. Once upon a time, before Yoruichi was even born, there were five noble houses instead of four. But the fall of the Shiba Clan is never talked about, and most don’t even remember the details anymore, only that most were put to the sword and the rest were scattered. One of the runners in Kisuke’s employ - the many who scrounge through the Slums’s trash heaps for parts Kisuke might find useful - is a boy on the cusp of twenty who looks uncannily like the last Shiba clan head before the family’s collapse. He goes by Ichigo and doesn’t seem aware of his lineage, and if he notices the way Shinji almost always makes an appearance when he comes in with his haul, and his payment always ends up including several extra portions of food and some high-grade medical supplies and even a new change of clothes now and then, he never says anything. After they find out he has two little sisters to feed, a handful of toys get bundled in as well, free of charge.

Kisuke wouldn’t know a Shiba from a Shihouin, and Yoruichi’s family never bothered teaching her all the things an heir or even just an average noble-born child would’ve needed to know, so neither of them treats Ichigo differently because of his blood or background. They do treat him differently because none of Kisuke’s runners have lasted as long as Ichigo. Sooner or later, they disappear, arrested by guards or killed in a back alley scuffle. Ichigo slinks into the shop at fifteen and still comes around every week like clockwork five years later. He always shows up with a decent haul too, and once, Yoruichi follows him, just to see where he’s getting his loot because surely most of the trash pits in the area have been picked clean over the years? There’s always more added to them, but not at the rate Ichigo is scrounging materials. So Yoruichi follows him one day when he leaves and that’s how they find out about his sisters and the makeshift hole in the wall they live in, shabby-looking on the outside but clean and cozy on the inside and insulated well from the cold. That’s also how they find out about all the enhancements Ichigo has, because Yoruichi makes the mistake of underestimating him and almost gets beheaded when he disappears and almost shivs her from behind with a hand-turned-blade, teeth bared like an animal as his eyes burn with golden circuitry.

(The Shiba Clan had been widely feared, once upon a time, for their genius in the more explosive weaponry and their talent with artificial intelligence and robotics and other biological cybertech enhancements. It was why they’d been so swiftly sentenced to death when they’d come down on the side of the poorfolk. Even one Shiba would’ve been equivalent to having a small army in one’s arsenal.)

Ichigo moved faster, jumped higher, hit harder, than anything Yoruichi had ever come up against. The crack of his heel coming down against the ground shattered rock and cement everywhere, and the only thing that saved her life that day was her dodging ability and a quickly shouted explanation for why she’d followed him in the first place. Ichigo wasn’t unreasonable, even if he wasn’t entirely human. His enhancements explained how he could move further through the Slums for loot and still put down roots in the area. It took some coaxing and several dozen more months of coming and going from the shop, but eventually, he’d also admitted that he didn’t know where his enhancements had come from, he couldn’t remember anything from before waking up the Slums with two regular human toddlers who called him brother depending on him. The only thing imprinted in his memory were the directives: 1) Take Care of Your Sisters, and 2) Survive.

But he was the most powerful thing around for miles, and Kisuke was fascinated because the work done on Ichigo was only vaguely like his own, and far more advanced than anything the nobility churned out these days. Yoruichi didn’t care as much, but she liked having a new sparring partner, not to mention Ichigo was very easy on the eyes, and a few more years on him meant Yoruichi could appreciate the sight without feeling like she was preying on a child.

Ichigo kept coming back, and eventually Kisuke managed to wheedle Ichigo into getting a checkup and upgrades, especially when he started outgrowing a few of his joint ports. Yoruichi watched the two of them make moon eyes at each other, listened to Kisuke ramble about something Ichigo told him the day before, noted the way Ichigo’s eyes sometimes strayed to Kisuke when the man wandered outside without a shirt and his pants on backwards after too many hours in his lab, and she was almost tempted to lock them in a closet together.

(She doesn’t notice the way Kisuke smiles indulgently at her when she comes home from a trip into Seireitei with an icebox of fresh strawberries from the Kuchikis infamous gardens because they’re Ichigo’s favourite, nor does she see Ichigo blink and cock his head in new understanding sometimes when he observes the way she drapes herself over Kisuke, comfortable and relaxed, but never does it with anyone else.)

In the world they live in though, trust is more important than love. Yoruichi has trusted Kisuke since she met him, and Kisuke’s trusted her since she was down two legs and still flung herself between him and a thief with a knife who thought the shop easy pickings. And the day Ichigo brings his sisters over and lets them run around out of his sight is the day they know he trusts them. It’s only natural to offer him and his little family a room of their own at the shop.

5. The day Yoruichi comes back with news of the Silbern Kingdom’s royal family and Las Noches’ royal family both being overthrown by several of their own noble families - the Ishidas and the Kurosakis, and the Coyotes, the Tu Odelschwancks, the Cifers, and the Jaegerjaquezs respectively - is the same day Shinji comes to them and tells them about the revolution movement that’s been in the works for a while now, about the remains of the Shiba Clan currently helping the Ishidas and Kurosakis take over Silbern, and about Ichigo’s own past - memory wiped for his own good because rumours of a Shiba child successfully integrated with his clan’s still experimental but groundbreaking technology had leaked, and if they’d gotten their hands on him, they would’ve turned him into their weapon. Better to hide him in the Slums, along with his two sisters who wouldn’t be of any use in a war for several more years, until they need him again, which they do now, because as soon as Silbern and Las Noches are theirs, they’ll be moving on to Seireitei post haste, and a two-pronged attack while the Gotei is still scrambling to defend themselves would hit them hardest, because for all that the kingdoms have been at war with each other for years, it had never been so direct, nor had their goals ever moved beyond poaching each other’s technologies. But for the revolution movement to succeed, they need Ichigo on their side, and it wouldn’t hurt for Kisuke and Yoruichi to join them too, technically Kisuke’s been their weapons-backer for years, and Yoruichi’s been their ear to the ground in Seireitei for just as long, and they’ll need all hands on deck. The kids can be left with Tessai.

Ichigo storms out. Yoruichi demands to know why they were never told before. And Kisuke surveys a tense-looking Shinji (who explains that it was supposed to be for their safety too - because Yoruichi was their only successful spy in Seireitei, and very, very few could match Kisuke’s genius, and it was just better to keep them out of the way) from beneath his hat before smiling blandly and promptly catching the man with a flick of his hand and five threads, unceremoniously tossing him out the window before he and Yoruichi both go to find Ichigo. It doesn’t take a genius to guess he’d returned to the hole-in-the-wall home he’d made for his sisters, and they join him after Ichigo acknowledges them with a jerk of his shoulders. They don’t speak right away, Ichigo sitting in stony silence, Yoruichi curled on one side of him still seething, Kisuke on his other, absently flexing one red-tinted hand in that way he only does when he’s contemplating murder.

They’ll help, all three of them. They don’t even need to discuss that. It’s high time for the upper-class to get their lives shaken up, the Slums are a disgrace, and if they have the chance to change that, they’ll take it, even if it means working beside people who have been using them for their own ends without giving them so much as a heads-up. Or in Ichigo’s case, will be using him since it’s pretty apparent he might not be the Gotei’s weapon but he is still very much the Shibas’ weapon, reserved for emergencies.

“Regimes come and go every day,” Kisuke remarks first, right hand fanning open, then closing, then opening again, crimson circuits shimmering along the vein lines of his palm.

“What a shame,” Yoruichi agrees with a grin that’s two-parts teeth and all-parts spite.

“…Three of us against three kingdoms that’ve just taken a beating?” Ichigo muses, but his eyes flare gold, and he’s smiling too. “Sounds like fun.”

[rayshippouuchiha]

I know you're a big Ura/Ichi shipper, but what do you think of UraIchiYoru as an odd throuple? I read a fic that had the premise of it that stalled out and felt cheated...

I'd be willing to give it a read but it's not something I think I'd ever write. I tend to background ship Yoruichi and Soi Fong

[cheshiresense]

Just for curiosity, what makes you ship uraichi instead urayoru?

Uh, there’s no real comparison for me between those two? I just don’t ship UraYoru. I ship UraIchi because I like their dynamic, I like how loyal Kisuke becomes to Ichigo as they get to know each other, I like how Kisuke was willing to apologize after the whole Rukia mess, I like how he changes for the better around Ichigo, I like how he was the only one who worked on giving Ichigo back his powers even if it meant begging the Gotei for their help. It’s just a bunch of reasons rolled together that gives so much potential for UraIchi, and that’s why I like writing it. And I think I do a decent job highlighting why I like them in the fics I write? Hopefully anyway.

And if I really have to give a reason for not shipping UraYoru, I guess Straight-Outta-Hobbiton put it best in one of their fics - “He’d always been more… subservient. Following her will rather than chasing his own passion.”

I like them fine as old childhood friends, and I even ship UraIchiYoru sometimes, but UraYoru just isn’t for me.

[cheshiresense]

I was wondering: are there any snippets or some further headcannon for the bleach-khr-fusion you shared a while back for aniseandspearmint? It's an interesting one, especially if Ichigo were to run into other flameactives and grow away from everyone.

Hmmm to be honest, I haven’t really thought much more of this one, but I can do a few headcanons for you (yes this time it really is a few, kind of). Also this just officially became a crossover instead of a fusion gdi send help.

Somehow this evolved to hints of UraIchiYoru pre-relationship.

Pinglist: @yoshifics@bewarethemandragora @runeofluna @selenedreamwalker @hypnos28 @verticallychallengedintrovert@fandommaniac2401 @lovingempress @cynthia-of-the-wallflowers @shadowsofmoonracer @pairp @warriorofbooks @charlottedabookworm @lyra689 @sheyrenawyrsabane @sora-the-empress @xadriannax @yumeniai @arrysa @lirial89-fanfiction @skysong246 @caiahat @grimreaper19 @arosethornbyanyothername @mtkiseki @kaminoko-x @nesskyru @tatarako @parklena42 @zibeth-a @aerdnanocte @timegrenades @healingmichiko @shiko-rae @soraofmelody @fandoms-make-the-world-go-round @north-peach @yannilicious @wolfsrainrules @anaissesteighart

- I imagine at least a few of his potential Guardians would have felt their potential bonds snap. Flames still aren’t something very common though, Ichigo’s the one who brought the concept to the Shinigami’s attention, and most of them still can’t even use them. So I think at least the Shinigami in SS who had the potential to become Ichigo’s Guardians would feel something, maybe a little like heartburn or a nagging sense of wrong, but they’d shake it off or ignore it, especially since Ichigo wouldn’t have had any reason to explain: “This is what happens when you Discord your Sky and this is what a broken Flame bond feels like, the stronger it was, the more it hurts when it snaps.” So none of them know, and they go on with their lives.

- And Shinji and the other Visored are friends (temporary allies, Ichigo knows now) but they’re a full Flame group by themselves and not potential candidates in Ichigo’s circle so they wouldn’t feel anything at all.

- It’s the same with Chad and Ichigo’s other human friends. They don’t know much about Flames either, they’re barely even Flame active, and they’re awkward around Ichigo because they still have everything Ichigo lost, and they don’t want to make him feel left out (they don’t realize they do that anyway). When the bonds disintegrate, there’s a sharp pain in their chests, but it becomes a background ache soon enough, nothing that would make them worry or even connect it to Ichigo, and they don’t realize until far too late that Ichigo has stopped trying to talk to them at all.

- Kisuke though, and Yoruichi to a lesser extent, they feel it, and they might not know exactly what it is, but they probably more than anyone else can recognize Ichigo by his Flames, partly because they’ve been curious enough to ask questions and learn about what Flames can do and what they can do, and partly because they’ve spent too much time around Ichigo, training him, fighting a war with him, and as a result getting to know him– too much time around him to not notice when that Flame sense they’ve been developing - that sense that knows what Ichigo’s Flames feel like by now - practically punches them in the chest when a gaping emptiness rips itself open inside them, in a part of their soul where Ichigo should be. The thing is, they never even realized there was a bond at all - however new - between them and Ichigo before it disintegrated to dust slipping through their fingers. And maybe, maybe they didn’t take Ichigo’s earlier explanations about Flame bonds and Skies and their Elements and Families quite as seriously as they should have. It sounded a touch too idealistic and fantastical, and easy to ignore in favour of the solid evidence of the power Flames can grant instead. It’s not like Flame bonds are necessary, plenty of people go without, as Ichigo told them, and that was as far as they thought they would need to know on that subject.

- So they did not expect this. Yoruichi has been busy with her clan, sorting out inheritances and heirs and all sorts of legalities now that she’s no longer a fugitive but nobody can quite decide if that means she’s the Shihouin Head again, including her. And Kisuke’s been banned from seeing Ichigo by Isshin, who insists it’s for the best that Ichigo should have a normal life again, at least until Kisuke can figure out how to give him his powers back, so Kisuke’s been working as fast as he possibly can, trying to figure out how to do exactly that. He feels more than a little guilty for turning Ichigo away whenever the boy stops by, naked hope on his face, asking to come in, just for a cup of tea, but he tells himself that it’s just a matter of time, he only needs a little more time.

- And then it happens, and Kisuke’s indigo Flames writhe with a moment of absolute agony, almost making him black out, and even when he wakes again and the pain has faded to a near unnoticeable ache, everything in him says to go to Ichigo, now.

- Yoruichi is the same, she’s in the process of getting eyestrain over paperwork that her brother has not been keeping up with as well as he should, when her purple Flames flare and lash out, taking out the far wall and then recoiling and sending her sprawling to the ground and gasping for breath, clutching at something she can no longer find. She ignores the attendants that come pouring in and instead takes off for the Human world at once.

- They both track down Ichigo, and they watch him from the rooftops, out of sight but worried. Ichigo doesn’t seem that different. Sadder, quieter, but he doesn’t look hurt, and he isn’t doing anything out of the ordinary. They decide to give it a few days, see if anything happens. They’re not quite sure what happened, not sure if they should approach him out of the blue about it either– Yoruichi says yes, the direct approach has always worked best with Ichigo; Kisuke says no, it’s a delicate matter, they should observe first, maybe work out what’s going on and at least have an idea about how to fix the problem because what if it affected Ichigo too? What if it was his Flames reacting to something Kisuke and Yoruichi were doing with their Flames? They have been experimenting and training with them after all.

“Later,” Kisuke insists, and it will be another regret he’ll have to carry.

Yoruichi doesn’t speak to him for weeks, afterwards, but she also throws herself into training until she collapses from exhaustion for the first time in centuries, because she should’ve pushed even when Kisuke didn’t, and that’s on her.

- Ichigo had been planning to sit down with all his Flame potentials and go into more detail about it once the war was over and they weren’t all constantly fighting for their lives. He just hadn’t expected everybody to ignore him and push him away the moment he no longer has his Shinigami powers. It’s not like he’s powerless; his Flames still work fine, and they’ve helped him fend off Hollows and yakuza alike for years. And yet nobody seems to think he’s capable of doing anything now that he doesn’t have a sword to swing around.

- So, fine, he doesn’t need them. And with Zangetsu and Shiro’s disappearance, there had already been an ache in his chest, in his heart, in the very depths of his soul. The broken potential bonds add to that pain, but it’s nothing knew and certainly nothing he can’t handle. He does give thanks to every god he’s ever heard of that he wasn’t fucking stupid enough to actually bond with anyone– not because he thought they would desert him the moment he lost his Shinigami heritage but because he’d wanted them to be fully informed of what Flame bonds entail and maybe feel them out a bit too about how they would feel being bonded to him, literally ’til death do they part. He doesn’t think he would’ve survived them walking away if he’d let the bonds form the way they had wanted to, so at least his caution has spared him from that.

- As it is, he gets a few random fevers the first several days, his Flames fluctuating wildly without the support they’ve gotten used to having. And the first few times he summons his Flames to fend off a Hollow or a gang of thugs, they still come out the bright orange he’s always known, but there’s also a murky tint to them that worries him for a little while. He keeps an eye on them, but when they don’t get worse, he counts his blessings and resolves to live with black-tinted Sky Flames for the foreseeable future. They’ll either fix themselves or they won’t.

- Ichigo has family. His Flames are from his mother’s side, and slipped between the pages of one of the books she left him, there are documents - birth certificate, passport, an Italian citizenship, and the contact info of his relatives. His rather infamous mafia relatives, a branch of the Quincy that broke off, disavowed their “King”, and mostly forgotten by the Quincy race as a whole even as they created a new empire for themselves. He never really thought he’d actually meet any of them in person. Masaki never exactly cut ties with them, but once her non-criminal Quincy relatives got a hold of her, and then she got involved with Shinigami, it seemed… wiser to keep the criminal side of her family quiet. She’d told them about Ichigo though, and Ichigo himself has talked to them, chatting regularly on Skype, and they’d made clear that Ichigo was welcome with them anytime if he grew up and decided to embrace his heritage. Ichigo was certain - back then - that while he didn’t begrudge his relatives for their mafia ties, he would never have a reason to join them either.

- But with a dozen broken potential Flame bonds shattered at his feet, no friends, and a family that feels more like people whom he happens to share a house with with each passing day, Ichigo has all the reason in the world to go. At the very least, it will be a fresh start, and he thinks that’s exactly what he needs right now.

- At Ichigo’s request, his cousin gets his emancipation pushed through, quickly and quietly, while Ichigo packs his bags, writes a note for an empty house, and a private jet is waiting for him when he gets to the airport. When he reaches Italy hours later, a limousine, half a dozen guards, and his cousin - sly smile and assessing eyes and all - is waiting for him.

“Ichigo! Welcome to Italy!”

Ichigo gets a hug, one that startles him but he returns it awkwardly after a few seconds. His cousin pulls back, and a plastic bag is thrust under his nose instead.

“Marshmallow?” Byakuran, the young Gesso heir, offers with a smirk even as his own Sky Flames thread carefully with Ichigo’s, lending strength and soothing the tattered edges left behind by the potential bonds.

“They’re too sweet,” Ichigo grumbles but takes one anyway.

“Nonsense,” Byakuran dismisses before slinging an arm over his shoulders and dragging him off to the limo. “Marshmallows are just the perfect amount of sweet.”

They slide into the limo, the door shuts behind Ichigo, and Byakuran’s eyes promptly narrow and frost over. He doesn’t look much like Masaki at all, and nothing like Ichigo, but with his white hair and pale eyes gone dark with anger, all previous airy cheer gone and expression sharpened to something dangerous, he could’ve passed for Ishida Ryuuken’s son.

Quincy blood has always been strong.

“Now,” Ichigo’s cousin says. “You’re going to tell me who Discorded you, and then I’m going to make them very, very sorry.” He pauses a beat. “And of course, you can help me do it.”

Ichigo rolls his eyes, but he has to suppress a smile too, and something in him relaxes for the first time since half his soul was sacrificed for the war.

He’s forgotten just how much he’s always liked this side of his family.

- Back in Karakura, by the time Yoruichi snarls him into obedience and Kisuke admits defeat and they both decide once and for all to ignore Isshin’s wishes, Ichigo is long gone.

[cheshiresense]

Soul King!Ichigo AU where Kisuke doesn't survive the Quincy War. [Headcanons]

It's not like it's that much of a stretch anyway; canonically we never get confirmation that he and Yoruichi and Nel survives, they were never even given cameos in the ten-year time skip at the end, and considering Kisuke was a major influence in Ichigo's life, you'd think Kubo would give him at least a brief appearance if Nel managed to save him.

So he dies, and Ichigo doesn't find out until he comes back from killing Yhwach. Maybe they were already something, or maybe they've been dancing around it. It's definitely a blow though -- Kisuke's always been practically immortal in Ichigo's eyes, too strong and too clever to just die to some  old-as-dirt quincy whackjob with a hard-on for magical balls. Same with Yoruichi, too quick and wily to get caught, let alone killed, and in some ways just as smart as Kisuke. They were cornerstones in Ichigo's life, and Nel was a friend too, probably wouldn't have even been here to help if not for her friendship with Ichigo.

no Inoue can't reject their deaths, then there'd be no story

Maybe it takes him a while to remember. Everybody's already moving on, some are sad but nobody seems particularly grieved that two of their best Shinigami are dead, and ofc who cares about a random Arrancar and former Espada? SF mourns for Yoruichi (doesn't give a shit about Kisuke ofc) but she copes by throwing herself into work. Even Tessai shuts himself away for a few days and then closes up the shop and takes the children back to Soul Society with him and quietly disappears back into the ranks of the Kidou Corps.

Ichigo though, Ichigo misses his people - and yes, Kisuke was his and even Yoruichi was his and Nel too, and hadn't he sworn, after his mother, that he'd never lose anyone again? He misses his people like a severed limb, almost as badly as when he lost Zangetsu-- both of them. He helps with the rubble and the rebuilding, watches the Shinigami drift back into their everyday lives like tiles back into their slots, watches the world move on. Maybe it's a fault of his, to cling to the dead so tightly, unable to let go without regret and guilt and what if I'd been faster festering inside him, always obsessing over what he could've done better and what he would do if he could change it. After all, souls are reincarnated, they would live again, albeit without past memories and as entirely different people. It's why Shinigami are if not fine, then at least relatively indifferent to the mass slaughter of souls when it's necessary. Ichigo can't look at it that way though. Maybe it's because he's half-human, but that's just the way he's always been, and he doesn't know how to be anything else.

Then he remembers, a quincy corpse left on an empty throne up in the Soul King's Palace, just to keep the universe from collapsing. There's no real king though, hasn't been in years, nobody to actually take care of the universe, nobody to ensure souls go where they belong and won't suffer when they don't deserve it. Rukongai is proof of that.

It's that thought that starts Ichigo thinking. The position of the Soul King oversees every soul that once existed and will exist, old and new and born again, in every single world. Hypothetically speaking, the Soul King would be able to find Kisuke and Yoruichi and even Nel's souls. They probably haven't been reincarnated yet - lord knows the reincarnation cycle is a mess with no one actually keeping an eye on it, there have been mistakes before, souls that didn't go where they were supposed to - but the Soul King would be able to locate them in an instant, would be able to affect them, and then-

And then what? It's madness, what he's considering, but Ichigo's already walking around half-mad these days, wandering up and down the street where the Urahara Shouten is gathering dust the same way he once haunted the riverbank where his mother was killed, part of him still expecting to see Kisuke come out to invite him in for tea or for a black cat to drop on his head out of the blue.

He doesn't have the first clue how to be a king either. He doubts reading some books on royalty in the old days would be enough. He would potentially have the power to shape the universe, but it's not something he can stop doing once he's accomplished what he wants to do. Being the Soul King is a job he'll have to take on until someone kills him. The first Soul King ruled for so long that he stopped caring centuries ago, and look what came of that. Ichigo would have to leave behind his sisters, his friends - would he even be able to leave the Palace ever again? And that's only if the throne accepts him at all. Yhwach at least seemed to think he was a possible candidate, a threat to the man's own ascent to the throne (and he was, in a way).

Also... does he even have the right? To pluck Kisuke and Yoruichi and Nel out of their reincarnation cycles just like that? But he could ask them, afterwards, whether they wanted to be returned to their lives in Seireitei and the Human world, or returned to their chance at new lives. If they wanted the latter, he would let them go, however much it would hurt, and however pointless his claim to the throne would be at that point.

He supposes when it comes down to it, the only real question is whether Kisuke and Yoruichi and Nel are worth giving up his own life for. And that makes him laugh, because when has any of the people he cares about not been worth giving up his life for? At least he'd still be alive. He has no real desire to be a king. And he thinks a lot of people would consider this majorly overkill - to take the throne that sits on top of the universe just to bring back a couple of lives who might be angry at his presumption. And he knows, he knows, if he becomes king, this isn't something he can do every time someone dies, even if it's someone he cares about. That's a damn good way to fuck up the flow of souls right there, and if Ichigo is going to do this, he'll have to do it right, or at least do his best.

And shit now I want to throw in a Soulmate Kisuke/Ichigo/Yoruichi Twist, which would give Ichigo the extra incentive to go the extra (Very Extra) mile to make an exception just this once and bring them back.

So okay, these are his soulmates, and maybe he wasn't anything with them yet, not the way Kisuke and Yoruichi were, but they were getting closer, and in those long lonely months after he lost his powers, when everyone stopped talking to him and started avoiding him, Yoruichi was the only one who hunted him down in cat form and curled up on his windowsill while he did his homework or playfully ambushed him on his walks around town or assured him that Kisuke wasn't ignoring him, just that he was slaving away in his lab, trying to find a way to fix Ichigo's soul. So he has to try. He didn't kill Yhwach fast enough to save them. The least he can do is offer them the opportunity to continue their lives. If - once he gets them back - they truly want to move on, then he'll respect that. But he needs to at least ask, he needs to know.

He takes some time to prepare, raids Kisuke's labs for information about the Soul King position. He knows his sisters and his friends will grieve a bit, but... he doesn't think they really need him. The seventeen months when they were perfectly content to all but cut him out of their lives was proof enough of that. So sue him, he's still a little bitter. He loves them all but he needs to do this. It's selfish, but hell, just this once, he wants to do something for himself. He's helped save the world more times than he can count. Just once, he wants to make a choice for himself.

He doesn't really say goodbye. He's been a lot quieter since he lost his soulmates, and people seem to have accepted that as his new norm, they don't even find it all that surprising, he did lose his soulmates. They give him "space", just like they did when he lost two-thirds of his soul, so it's even easier for Ichigo put his affairs in order and write a bunch of letters he leaves on his desk explaining what he'll be doing and why. And then he packs a bag and leaves.

idk how he gets into the palace again, i barely know how he does it in canon, bear with me

The cannon still works, and maybe it's enough that the Royal Guard permitted his entry the first time. He watched how Kisuke fired up the cannon the first go-around, and the thing's even unguarded, so it only takes a bit of trial and error for it to whir to life again. He thinks he hears shouting just before it launches him into the sky, but he's gone in the next moment, leaving Soul Society behind. He meets some resistance as he flies towards the Palace, but a burst of his reiatsu rips through the barriers and carries him through, straight towards the floating throne room where the throne sits and Yhwach's corpse is still slumped in it. It’s easy enough to remove him, and some part of Ichigo can practically feel the grains of sand slip away as the universe begins to fold in on itself.

He takes a deep breath, approaches the throne, and...

Every single plane of existence - Human, Soul Society, Hueco Mundo, from the highest towers of the Soul King Palace to the deepest depths of Hell - trembles as a surge of power rolls through the universe the second Ichigo takes his place on the throne. Ichigo himself chokes from the sheer immensity of the universe flooding his mind, and in that moment, he sees everything - every metaphorical wheel that keeps the universe running, every pillar that holds it up now in his grasp, every soul that was and is and will be, pure and tarnished and all the shades in-between. For a single endless eternity, he thinks the Knowledge might swallow him whole, but then-

Something shines through, two pinpricks of soul-light that draws his attention more than the rest, and he knows instinctively who they are and what they are to him. He reaches blindly for them and anchors himself back to reality with the thought of them, and then he pulls, gathers them into hands that aren't quite hands and Gifts them with life again.

Kisuke and Yoruichi take their first gasping breaths on the expansive floors of the Palace’s throne room, at the feet of the new Soul King, relatively whole and most definitely alive, Returned to what they were before they were killed, their Zanpakutou beside them. They gape up at him, at the familiar face of their soulmate who's apparently pulled another - "Harebrained!" Yoruichi later grouses, twined possessively around Ichigo's neck; "Impossible," Kisuke decides fondly, sprawled at Ichigo's feet, halfway through drawing up blueprints of the Palace now that he's allowed, much to the scandalized horror of the guards - miracle. Ichigo stares back at them, somehow equally speechless and yet not at all surprised, because he is King now and this power is his to wield.

And then the moment breaks, and Ichigo surges off the throne (he has no need to stay in it; in a way this whole Palace is his throne now, his seat at the pinnacle of the universe) and all but knocks Kisuke - who has the misfortune of being slightly closer - over. That's alright though because no sooner does he start turning to Yoruichi when she practically flattens them both, hands white knuckled in their shirts like she might never let go.

There's a lot of yelling once they untangle themselves and a few hows and whys are explained, especially when Ichigo offers them the choice of returning to the Shouten and Seireitei, to their lives, or returning to their reincarnation cycles. They both stare back at him expectantly, and then like he's lost his mind, and then Kisuke sighs and Yoruichi takes off one of her shoes just so she has something to throw at him.

"Are you an idiot?" Yoruichi snaps at him. "Where's the third option? You can't leave this place anymore, so of course we're staying too!"

That... was not something Ichigo thought they might want. They're his soulmates, they have their own lives, and compared to the time Yoruichi and Kisuke have known each other, his time with them might as well have been the blink of an eye. All he wanted when he brought them back was to know that they were still out there, still happy, still alive.

He did not think they would choose to stay for him.

And then basically the three of them Get The Universe’s Shit Together And Fix Everything. Ichigo brings not just Nel back but also Unohana because Soul Society Cannot Afford To Lose Anymore Common Sense. Yoruichi Kicks The Palace Guards’ Asses And Takes Over As Commander In A Month. Kisuke Turns An Entire Tower Into His Labs And Sends Pictures To Kurotsuchi To Troll Him. Ichigo Dismisses Ukitake And Patches Him Up And Sends Him Back To Seireitei To Tell Kyouraku To Quit Moping. Also he eventually figures out how to keep an Open Door Policy. He might not be able to leave but people can totally visit.

And They All Live Happily, Somewhat Sensibly, And Occasionally Murderously, Ever After.

Throne sex is optional.