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Killing people for a living was both as easy and much harder than it sounded. There’s that moment of thrill, the challenge of ending up right where one would never expect an assassin to suddenly appear—or to manage to kill without even the slain bearing witness. Hunter’s blood was millennia strong in her veins and she felt it keenly.
In a way it was so very easy. She was the best in the clan, a mix of natural talent and decades of training to be the head without question because her family was only safe if she was acknowledged untouchable. Every kill, by that reasoning, made those she loved safer.
She would turn the world to ash for her family—what’s a few incarnadine lakes?
The ‘taking a life’ and ‘murder’ bits have never bothered her. If she ever has a qualm she’ll turn the Onmitsukido over and retire somewhere quiet, not fit even to train the greenest. Or perhaps she’ll fully separate the Onmitsukido from the Second; she has always questioned her grandfather’s wisdom in making them essentially one entity. Staffing may well have been an issue but that didn’t excuse the risk of the Gotei—and Central—trying to take over the Onmitsukido as they could, now, if anyone not a Shihoin ended up Captain of the Second.
That concern has made her more cautious than she would have been, so when she felt something shift within her she immediately signaled to her second to take over the mission and faded out. Her men would do the job and given it was Kisuke’s hand instead of hers? It would be done just as well as she could have.
She returned to her room, leaving the subtle sign for those of the house to read that she did not wish to be disturbed and formed a barrier within the walls after settling comfortably so she could drop into her inner world.
All zanpakuto have the annoying habit, it seems, of being too large for proper stealth when unsealed for use. She didn’t openly carry hers for that reason. Her spirit was too proud and unyielding to accept being small enough for proper hiding while still flexibly stealthy.
That didn’t mean they weren’t on very good terms. Yoruichi often sparred with her proud zanpakuto in her inner world; who better to practice against, after all?
The being before her was not her spirit. The only similarity between them was physical gender.
And speed, apparently, as he evaded her lunge and frowned at her. “Well, fuck,” he grumbled.
“You’re in my soul, Mr. Intruder. I suggest you explain before the one you’re attempting to usurp awakens.” It was all bravado and suddenly desperate fear before she felt the lazy disinterested reassurance that said her spirit was fine but had found a sunny rock and didn’t want to be bothered.
She’d actually been kidding about that ‘awakens’ bit… but she wasn’t surprised.
“There was a miscalculation somewhere. I wasn’t meant to land here.”
She grinned. “And that’s better? Whose soul were you aiming for, then?” her hackles were already rising with the obvious. One of her people—possibly one of her family.
“I’m here to give a warning of future problems, not to cause them.”
Her grin only widened.
“And of course you wouldn’t believe me as easily as that. Shit. Fucking overconfident genius idiot.” He sighed and absently pushed his fingers into his hair.
Truly absently. Which greatly reduced the chances of this being an attempted takeover from within the Onmitsukido, at least.
Despite that reassurance, she spotted some gleaming beads fastened here and there in that bright hair. Bone white but with that faint touch of other that she knew so well, carved with the skill she required of her best operatives. While there were many very skilled carvers who worked in animal bone, that was not from an animal rendered for food.
That was a specialty, a secret, of the best of the Onmitsukido.
And a gift like that…
“Future problems, huh? How about you start with how you look like a Shiba.” Despite the vast majority of that clan having ridiculously bland dark brown to black hair and that this man’s hair that could be mistaken for fire. It moved faintly under the flow of his reiatsu, which was not something she’d seen often but she knew what it meant.
“Are you actually going to listen or attack again the second you think I’ve dropped my guard enough for a solid hold?”
“Keep that up and I might think we know each other.”
“We do. Did. Would have?” He muttered something that sounded like ‘fucking time travel’ but there was a small chance she was mistaken.
“According to you, then, what’s our relationship?”
He shook his head. “At the moment? Understandably suspicious Shinigami and soul-scape interloper. Before the attempt was made? Harder to quantify. A weird mix of sometimes close and sometimes casual friends and occasionally annoying siblings.”
Yoruichi’s lips fought for a second to quirk in amusement. That’s probably how most of her friends would describe their relationship with her, if asked while in a mood for honesty. “Have you sparred with a version of me, then?”
He nodded. “Bare hands only or hands and kido?”
That he didn’t mistake her was another point in his favor. “Bare only.”
She leapt and he wasn’t there when she landed. He was fast, and strong, and skilled—but she was better. He wasn’t Onmitsukido. He was a down-and-dirty fighter who didn’t hesitate because she was an ally, a friend, a female—he knew better. The fine edged control, finesse? Not present. He had a certain grace in his movements, though, a fluidity that couldn’t be taught by even the best teachers though they could encourage a mimicry of it and train those with it to use it to best advantage.
Natural born fighter, trained by doing as well as some formal study but as often to save his life and well-being.
Which ruled out pretty much anyone who wasn’t Onmitsukido. The Gotei was far more the fat cat in the fish monger’s window than the rough and tumble alley cat who survived by his wits and wiles.
She made a movement she would never make in a real life-on-the-line fight and knew at once that he really had fought with her before.
Every Shihoin came up with a ‘signature’ move. They were designed to be hard to counter, unexpected, but also with a trick to them so allies could figure out a counter after a few losses that couldn’t be adequately enough explained by one observer to another and, if done very well, even from an experienced victim to another. She had only two allies she’d shown it to, but this man not only knew it but countered it exactly as Kisuke had last month. When she reacted again as she had then he was ready for that, too, and threw her some distance. “Enough.”
He relaxed immediately before straightening his shoulders and shifting his feet back to a readier position. A student of hers, too, then, though quite possibly briefly. Long enough to trust her stopping before he remembered she didn’t know him and relaxing his guard was unwise around a wary Shihoin.
“Start with your name, your relationship to the Shibas and why you wanted to land in Kisuke’s soul.”
He went slightly still before getting a look on his face that said he was internally castigating himself. He muttered a few words and his hand lit with something he should not know. It was a signal, agent to agent, taught—supposedly—only to Onmitsukido agents.
Still… despite being made cautious by the skill it was used between agents often as it displayed reiatsu openly, visibly, and was impossible to control. Oh, the best could keep it steady and calm even when they were far from it themselves, but the colors still changed and the way they changed could easily betray lies, mistruths, and attempts at misdirection. Not a truth spell, exactly, because self-deception was still deception, and not wanting to think about something didn’t mean your subconscious mind or your zanpakuto spirit wasn’t doing so, but at the least an attempt to launch a sneak attack would be easily read.
She cast the same and he sat against a boulder with a sigh of such relief, his orb going brighter, that she found herself sitting rather close across from him.
“Right. I was born Kurosaki Ichigo. My father was born into the Shiba clan. Kisuke planned for me to do so.”
The genius idiot grumble came back to her and she squelched the urge to smile. That he was a bastard explained the hair; as much as his face would fit into the clan his soul had presumably claimed his mother and wouldn’t let anyone forget her. “Why would he do that?”
“It’s… a long story,” he sighed.
“And you can’t tell me as you planned to tell him?”
“He had ideas for that, which I expect were particular for him.” Fingers touch the carved beads, tugged at the unbound hair. A glance down at the outfit… or lack thereof.
The urge to smirk was almost overwhelming. A half-dressed pretty boy with bone-beads in his long bright hair and obvious signs of having been trained by Kisuke himself? As good as he was he wouldn’t miss that the pretty boy was exactly his type. Kisuke would have been as fascinated as paranoid.
“Probably,” she admitted, because while she could certainly understand the attraction to lean and strong and bright she preferred dark and, well, practical for their line of work. Kisuke was excellent but he was honestly a bit too tall. Her uncle had despaired when Kisuke kept growing that he was wasting his potential and all had looked in annoyance at his hair and skin at least once since his arrival.
A proper uniform could hide many things. Height and build weren’t of them.
After a bit of silence his mouth tightened, eyes getting strangely brighter. “I don’t know what to tell you. If I tell you everything and you change anything everything I say will happen differently if at all. Additionally I know when and where I was supposed to end up, but that certainly didn’t work.”
“Fair,” she allowed. “Why not ask me the date, then?”
He gave her an aggrieved look. “Kisuke doesn’t remember dates. Often doesn’t even remember years. We didn’t have time to track down someone who would know them all and some we probably never could as they were things only a few who were dead would know for certain.”
“Events, then?”
“Best chance we’ve got, I suppose. Have you nominated him for Captaincy yet?”
Her eyes widened. She hadn’t even decided to have Kisuke as part of the Gotei, yet. “No.”
“Third seat?”
“No.” She had been seriously considering it, however. She needed someone she could trust to not only do the job but do it as it should be and so many would abuse the position. Or get themselves killed.
Like the last three.
“I take it he does well?”
“How am I to answer that? I won’t be born—if I ever am—for at least a century and a half.”
“Why would he want to send warning back so far? If what you say can so quickly become worthless? And how will you be born while in my soul?”
“I’ve only got hours, at most, and that was when I was expected to land elsewhere at a different time.” He rubbed at his forehead. “He thought—and argued well—that if we could take out one player and convince his past self to do one experiment it might change everything.”
“What did that one player do?”
“Weakened the Gotei to the point that recent academy students were lieutenants.”
Shock broke over her. It was uncomfortable and she hated it; always did and always worked hard to avoid it ever happening. “How?”
“Got…” he paused and thought. “Well, that’s actually harder. He’s been killing people off, here and there, before they—and possibly he—ever reached the academy so there’s a lot of potential lost from the start that no one even knows of. He created hollows that thinned the ranks of those patrolling, while still lowering the numbers in the academy. Then, in one swoop, he managed to take six captains and three lieutenants out of the Gotei ranks, plus both the captain and lieutenant of the Kido Corps and the leader of the Onmitsukido. After that…”
She winced. Obviously not necessarily dead, if this one knew her and a Captain—former Captain?—Kisuke. But he’s very, horrifyingly correct. No matter which captains they were, any five along with her? That would halve the power of the Gotei, hobble the Onmitsukido into being under the thumbs of those she’d rather bleed than submit to and quite possibly weaken the barriers and monitors the Kido Corps were responsible for maintaining.
“Plus his biggest supporter acted big on peace and peaceful resolutions and harmony and managed to get one entire division to seriously slack off on their training. No doubt there were also many subtle things that neither Kisuke or I are aware of, as he never accepted the offer of captaincy again and I was never part of the Gotei at all.”
Plans were already spinning in her head. Clearly she needed to get off her ass and work hard to quickly separate the Onmitsukido from the Second—she’d have to send recruiters out to encourage and escort those with the potential to be either to the academy or the training grounds. Kisuke would have to become her third seat—she needed his help in the Gotei to strengthen their defenses against potential being wasted more than she needed another able assassin; she had a dozen who were good enough to do the jobs he was currently doing but none of them would have the strength of mind, character and will along with sheer power to ascend to Captaincy. Or the trust in her leadership to accept working much harder and faster for a few years for an unstated or nebulous at best goal.
There was also one more kill to add to the docket.
She reached out with as much ‘absently done’ behind the move as she could project and fiddled with one of the longer beads in his hair, turning it to study the carvings, finding the design she expected. “Anything less pressing you want to add before I rejoin the conscious world?”
“Apart from the traitors’ names? Don’t let Kisuke release Kurotsuchi Mayuri from Mugen.”
“The name isn’t familiar.”
“Imagine Kisuke with no morals, ethics, or the sense to care about the reaction of others to that lack, toss in an interest in vivisection and poisons and a weird fetish for body modification and you’ll get the idea.”
She couldn’t quite help making a face.
“Exactly,” he agreed. “Try, if you can, to keep Central from ordering the murder of thousands for not being Shinigami, if they haven’t already killed off all the Quincies they could find. The Soul King himself is as much Quincy as Shinigami and that whole ‘destroy the worlds’ thing is propaganda. The Quincy method shatters the soul, and means it can’t be reformed the same the next time around, but that’s hardly bad, is it? Or do you want to have monsters constantly reforming themselves stronger and stronger each cycle? Shattered soul fragments latch onto others, allowing growth and healing. It takes longer, yes, but it also leads to brand new souls being able to be born. Exterminate the Quincies and… well, things get a bit dire, wouldn’t you say?”
Her heart sank. That would be a tall order, given she had heard some whispers about getting rid of the Quincies already. Still… if he was right… that order would kill off the clans, eventually. If she could prove it…
Damn and blast! She was going to need three Kisukes to get this done in time!
“And the name?” Oh. “And the experiment?”
Yoruichi was exhausted but content as she leaned back against the tower she was perched upon and surveyed Seireitei. She could feel, when she tried, all of the captains except for Kisuke himself—he still shielded his full strength. Too many years having to do so combined with his love of being underestimated to the last final triumph, she supposed.
The proof of what the Quincy compared to Shinigami method of hollow extermination actually did had caused a lot of consternation and a few surprisingly heated debates, for all that no one actually wanted to risk the birth rate falling below what it was. Even with their potential centuries or even millennia of life within which children could be had the population of pure souls didn’t change, much.
It had taken almost a hundred years but there were now Quincy archers in every division that patrolled or were dispatched to the living world. Shifting hollow fighting from short to long range weapons had been difficult for a lot of people, but Quincy powers were limited and that was much more readily apparent in the living world than Seireitei training grounds. If they couldn’t take out the hollow before they could no longer gather enough energy to form arrows or the hollow got within blade range, their Shinigami partner took over.
The mix helped keep the balance stable, as did the Quincy ability to sense souls a bit more easily than Shinigami, letting plus souls be found so fewer hollows were formed at all. Hell, of course, still claimed the worst of the lot.
Occasional romantic relationships arose from the intermingling of Quincy and Shinigami. Not always intentionally and there had been a few scandals. Yoruichi herself had made sure Shihoin were not amongst those disapproving—while they didn’t know what a Quincy and Shinigami child would be like if it was possible she hadn’t seen how having both types of power would be anything but interesting. Even if one or both were on the weaker side that could make an incredible operative.
She hadn’t approved one match on finding out the man was interested in training up such a child, but that had been a clan subordinate to Shihoin and she had earlier that quarter approved of what had looked to be a love match between a distant cousin and a low-ranked Quincy, so the message hadn’t gotten muddled and her Clan knew she wanted and expected acceptance.
The other Great Clans weren’t as sure of allowing the mixed blood; that was how she’d found Kurosaki Masaki and her son—who was obviously a Shiba bastard—barely surviving in the Rukongai. Masaki had heard of the Shihoin and being so poorly used by a Shiba had been dubious when Yoruichi offered them a place in her clan’s holdings.
Starving mothers given any chance to save their starving children were not often proud, however, and Yoruichi had found herself fond of the child Ichigo rather quickly. He soaked up instruction like a sponge but she’d sworn to Masaki that, if anywhere, she’d push Ichigo towards the Gotei, not the Onmitsukido—and she’d never regretted it.
As his other self had been he was a natural fighter, fluid and graceful in his movements but there was enough natural fire that he’d do much better in the Gotei than anywhere requiring stealth more than ninety percent of the time.
Besides, having a clearly half-and-half Shiba bastard in the Second had afforded her a great deal of amusement even before she’d made him her lieutenant and seen the look on Shiba Isshin’s face on hearing the prodigy’s name at a meeting that had Captains and Lieutenants together.
Much had changed, between his birth before and now, but some things were the same. He, now an adult, had his long bright hair that was too often reiatsu-wild decorated by a few carefully carved beads that looked like bone but weren’t, which had been gifted by the blond-haired captain who walked beside him with a small smile reserved solely for moments of utter contentment.
Her lips curled to match.