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Ichigo sat in Kisuke’s lab after another nightmare, hands clenched around a cup of tea. The steam curled with the shadows around him, easing his tension. Ichigo slowly relaxed into the darkness, though he kept his eyes on his tea cup as he began to speak.
“I almost understand Goatface and his insistence to give me a fresh start, but I don’t think he ever understood the difference in our circumstances.”
Kisuke paused when Ichigo started, before quickly relaxing. “Oh?” He spoke as he turned back to his latest experiment. His shadow flickering on the floor between them.
Ichigo nodded, hazy as the months of twitching at every shadow lay heavily on him. “The Final Getsuga Tenshō didn’t really tear my soul apart, I would have lost Shiro and Zangetsu permanently if that was the case. What it did was damage the ability to hold reiki.”
The choking on nothing… on nothing and everything. The shadows surge across the room, reacting to the threat, breaking that thought.
Ichigo took a deep breath before continuing, “The difference between me and goatface is that he was shielded in an artificial shell, while I was in my own body.”
Empty. Everything had been Empty and Flat.
A sardonic smirk crossed his face for a second, “and I have always been terrible at reiki control.”
Kisuke hummed “So your body adapted to high reiki levels.” Shadows were aggressively twisting round Ichigo now.
“As has everyone who has lived in Kakara for an extended amount of time.” It seems so ridiculous in hindsight. But that didn’t change the choking, gasping for air but not being able to breathe that he had gone through back then.
“If my reiki was able to bring out dormant powers in my friends, then why would it not affect me as well?” The shadows thickened, and he had to turn from that thought, before the echoing loneliness ate him.
Ichigo’s fingertips dance over the rim of his cup. “Did you know that I left Karakura for a day back then?”
Kisuke hummed, “Karin had a Soccer game?”
“Yeah,” a soft smile blooming on Ichigo’s face at the thought of his sisters. “That was when I started to understand. The barriers between here and soul society are thin in Kakara, that was why you settled here right?”
“It might have been.” The shadows twirled teasingly away.
Ichigo scoffed “Whatever you say, Hat-and-Clogs.” He shook his head, “The reiki here is thick enough that Goatface’s gigai could slowly build up a storage on what was in the air. That was why he stayed here, whe he would have rather left. Or a reason at any rate.” A shadow brushed across his face when Ichigo’s scowl deepened.
“That had worked for him because a gigai is a barrier to hold the reiki in anyways. That was why Rukia was stuck in one when she gifted her power to me.”
Shadows twined around Kisuke’s ankles. The blond man let out a small huff, and Ichigo hid a smile behind his cup of tea.
“I, on the other hand, was not in a gigai to trap the reiki in. In fact, my body demands a certain amount to function, so stepping out of Karakura’s boundary just made me feel…”
Kisuke paused in his work, the shadows around him hesitatingly reaching towards Ichigo. If being in Karakura felt like he was choking on the air he needed to breathe, then leaving had been like having his breath stolen from his lungs.
The shadows trembled, as Ichigo let out a dark laugh. “It made me feel hollow.”
Kisuke turned away from his work to face Ichigo, “I am sorry that it took so long to return your reiki to you.” The shadows hung limply on Ichigo
“What did I tell you before, Hat-and-Clogs?” Ichigo replied, his voice much lighter, as he lifted his gaze from his cup to look at Kisuke. “You helped, and that’s all that matters.”
He reached out to the shadows, letting them curl around him again. “And Kisuke, it was quicker than waiting to heal on my own would have been.”
Kisuke just hummed at the familiar argument, returning to his experiment. Ichigo sighed.
“The point I was getting at,” Ichigo continued, “is that we are made of reiki, and Kakara has almost as much of it as Soul Society does. Outside that, not only are people less likely to awaken their own reiki, they can’t even register reiki properly.”
He had looked out his window most nights, wondering which shadows had a will behind them. If any of them did. The knowing but not knowing, almost drove him insane.
“It might have sounded like a perfect solution to Goatface. To have no reminders of what I lost. To where I would be on an equal level with everyone else.”
Ichigo took a sip of his tea and grimaced. It had gone cold.
“Even before I knew about the Shinigami, I could never play clueless like he did.” A sad smile drifted on his face with the thought of earlier days. “I can’t know that those who were around me were fighting battles that I couldn’t help with.” He waved a too curious shadow away from his cup.
“And that was where you were. Stuck, unable to do anything to help.” Kisuke continued, “Unable to even notice where the danger was.”
Ichigo shrugged, shadows echoing the movement. “What happened, happened. You helped everyone to get strong enough to handle everything. I got my powers back. It’s over, we made it through. Now we just need to carry on.”
With that Ichigo gulped down the last of his cold tea, “I’m going to try to sleep again.” Flashing the other man a smile, he sent a shadow to tap on Kisuke’s hat. “Thanks for listening to me. Try to get some sleep yourself, Kisuke.”
A soft chuckle followed Ichigo out of the lab.