Chapter Text
Kisuke is huddled underneath a tree on the outskirts of the district he technically resides in. It’s not the best place, but it’s the only place he has and at least the budding branches break up the rain, even if they don’t keep him fully dry like they might if it were later spring or even summer.
It’s still cold, and wet, and miserable – there’d been a brief bit of sunshine last week, but then the weather had turned stormy and the clouds opened up and have been pouring for a week straight. The constant rolls of thunder and popping as lightening occasionally strikes a tree haven’t helped matters.
Kisuke huddles further into himself, against the gnarled trunk that digs into his back to better hide the hollow he puts any extra food he accumulates, and reminds himself it could be worse.
(He used to have something of a house, but then people had found it, found him, found his stash of goods to trade and bits of food to eat and even his pile of blankets carefully, painfully carefully, squirreled away over the years.
It’s not so nice a district that such a find isn’t considered a treasure, especially when it’s been collected for another’s use. He’d been betting that the weather would hold people off from really exploring for another week before he’d finish setting up his deterrents and props. He’d been finishing off finding the materials to create his usual rotation of silhouettes on strings and rods to move in the wind from the back windows and give the illusion that a family lives there. That someone was always awake and ready, even in the dark of night.
It had been enough, previous years, especially with the story that his parents were sick and it was up to him to provide. That had been why he’d snuck around and moved one district closer than he’d been left or shown up in — he could say they moved to try and make money for medicine.
It had worked for a while, but his luck hadn’t held out.
Moving up only one district didn’t improve things very much and there were nearly as many people who wanted to take advantage of those less fortunate or weaker than themselves. Kisuke is scrappy, but he’s better at running, better at hiding, and he couldn’t take seven grown-ups, especially not ones in a gang, anyways.
So he’d cut his losses, as best he could, and fled.
At least he’d been able to flee. At least it had been closer to spring, than the dead of winter.)
His shadow flickers, difficult to see in the gloom, but visible in his peripheral vision as it pools behind and below him, expanding outward and snapping back before repeating the motion like a giant beating heart. It’s been happening more and more recently, which Kisuke isn’t sure how he feels about.
It’s been helpful, but it’s also a distinguishing feature, and his hair gets him enough attention out here as it is.
Still, when he almost got caught stealing food, he’d had the warning to duck the makeshift club that swung at his head when he’d noticed his shadow on the stall. When he had been headed down a dark alley and there had been some of the more criminally inclined grown-ups in the same area — ones he knows to try and avoid based on his observations around the town, he’d had a warning. He hadn’t listened to it, and he’d barely escaped, but he’d had it.
When there was a Hollow nearby when he was gathering roots before winter really set in, his shadow had pulsed and rippled and made sure to distract the Hollow with wild shapes and thrown rocks, somehow, as he’d hidden away in the dense remains of the underbrush. He’d only caught glimpses of what it had done, but he’d still seen that it had saved him.
It hadn’t done anything when he’d thanked it after, though, didn’t seem to require anything but that he manage to eat some more after it had done some of the more bizarre things. Or, at least, the biggest thing so far had been the shapes and rocks being thrown and he’d needed to eat all the food he’d gathered soon after to quiet his stomach in the aftermath, so the food thing is really just a guess more than an answer in and of itself.
It’s been helpful, though, necessity of eating more on occasion aside. He’s taken to using it as a warning system, that something, somewhere near him, is dangerous. Dangerous and hunting.
(His shadow never really flickered when he was near poisonous berries, or when he’s been by the deepest parts of the river, after all.
Or maybe it knew it was a test and he wasn’t really going to eat the berries or fall into the river. He knows better than that, and knew the path he’d taken by the rive was safe, so matter how treacherous it looked in places.)
Kisuke sighs lightly, burrowing into his thin arms and folding himself down to conserve heat, even as a chill races down his spine.
He shivers, and tells himself it’s the cold and, as the thunder rumbles again, the weather. He knows better, but he has nowhere to run now – has barely the energy to. The weather has meant that no one is outside and haven’t been for a week, which means he’s gone through his emergency supplies days ago.
Nonetheless, something is hunting him and his shadow isn’t happy.
Maybe it’s the one man who saw him escape his old hideaway, three weeks ago. Maybe it’s something else. Either way, if he moves his food hollow will get wet and start growing things and he’ll have to find somewhere else. He’ll still have to find somewhere else, but right now he can at least pretend that it will be find…and he’s cold and tired anyways…he doesn’t want to move.
And that’s a Hollow in front of him, the nose of its mask pointed at him and sniffing, the only part of it close to visible in the greyed out world. It’s not a high level one, they usually aren’t, the Hollows that enter Soul Society, but even a low level Hollow can be devastating to the outer districts.
After all, some Shinigami see it as a survival process — a way to cull the herds of souls under their protection. They’re not nearly as subtle as some of them think they are, especially when they get drunk and sway around town “patrolling,” but does it really matter, anyways? No one in Seireitei will ever hear what those from the outer districts of the Rukongai have to say, and so long as they do their job well enough that Kisuke is safe, well. That’s good enough for him.
But the Hollow is approaching now, because, Kisuke thinks in growing dread, that the weather has alsodissuaded the Shinigami from doing even their bare minimum of patrolling these past few days. And if there’s any kind of intelligence to a Hollow, which considering this one is cackling about “tasty, easy meals! Smooth on the outside, just the perfect size to fit inside and crunch!” seems to be the case. They must have told each other, Kisuke thinks in the part that’s not stiff with cold and hunger. They must have passed the knowledge on that anyone outside or even inside in this and the surrounding districts will be easy pickings.
He doesn’t move.
He can’t move.
The Hollow is still sniffing around the path leading to his tree, but there’s not much between it and him besides some grass. He doesn’t even have a stick to try and defend himself with it, because all the sticks in the area have been picked clean to use as fuel during the winter and this tree hasn’t dropped any. The only things he has are the little baby branches that are good for nothing but leaving where they are to return to the earth and feed it.
Kisuke should run. He knows it — he survives, and in order to do so, he needs to run, right now.
But his bones are tired and cold and frozen and he can’t. Not anymore, not today. He’s not resigned, not quite, but he’s not surprised that this is his end.
There’s no cover for him to duck under while his shadow chases the Hollow away. He can’t even climb the tree, since there aren’t any branches low enough for him to grab, if he could get his hands to stop shaking enough to grab something without his knuckles howling in pain.
This is…it. Him and his shadow and a tree and Hollow.
And then something dark and red and black and tall and most of all Hungry rises up behind him like a warm hand on his back, rushes around, rushes past him and then Hollow is no more.
Kisuke blinks.
The Hollow’s footprints are big enough to see clearly, even in the rain. It’s even clearer to see how they stop some distance away. It was here. It existed…until it didn’t.
Kisuke stares for a beat longer before he whispers, “Thank you.”
He pats his shadow and only feels wet grass and mud.
Whatever lives in his shadow vanished — ate a part of him wants to say — the Hollow doesn’t reply, if it’s still present in the first place.
(He’s not any hungrier after that than he normally is, thankfully. Does his shadow like Hollows, then? What about Shinigami? Does it need to eat? Is that why he’d been so hungry after the first time?)
He finally picks his way into town a day later when he doesn’t feel like he’s getting pushed into the ground by the sheer force of the rain.
The west side is in ruins when he arrives. Houses are crushed like something pounced on them, and doors have holes that look like something stabbed into them and then pulled something else out. The blood stains make it all too obvious what happened, there.
Even if a body dissolves into reishi, blood tends to linger longer.
Everyone in the outer districts knows that a little too well, thanks to the various groups that like to grow in the cracks between the Shinigami and the local government and what the people need.
He grimaces when he passes where his old house used to be. It, too, is destroyed.
But he moves on. He changes tress and moves to the southeastern side of town, even if that’s further away from the next district and a little too close to his previous district for comfort.
He makes sure to take advantage of the amount of broken wood to hide bits of it away to build himself a better shelter under a different tree and also earn good will by moving it at the adults’ orders. Sometimes they thank him with a piece of candy or some cloth, if they’re too busy to do it themselves and he volunteers to do it for them.
It doesn’t really matter, though because just a few days later, he runs into a girl with purple hair and gold eyes and a grin fit for a cat when she’s not scowling and struggling out of river-soddened clothes after leading the people after her, two of whom were in the group that stole his house and he definitely took petty revenge on them by throwing things at and inform of them so they’d trip, on a wild chase through the town and surrounding forest.
“Thanks!” She chirps at him. “You’re pretty good at hiding, and your running and Shunpo aren’t terrible, I guess, all things considered, but you could definitely be better.”
“Thanks,” Kisuke replies, tone dry and tired, but not daring to saying anything further because this girl screams that she’s not from the Rukongai, and she kept up with him, or he kept up with her, and that means something. Something like Shinigami, since Kisuke knows most of the adults around can’t keep up with him anymore and he’s had a brief look at how fast some of them can move. He knows he’s not good at it, but he can manage to move faster than any of the adults in town and that’s his major use for it.
Getting away from Hollows would also be a great use for it, but whoever lives in his shadow apparently likes to eat them and there hasn’t been any other ones since he’s learned how to run like the competent or sober Shinigami do, so he’s not sure how well he’d be able to compare.
“Hmm, come back with me! I could use someone like you, who can almost keep up with me! All the other kids and tutors are boring, and I saw what you did to those two who were in the group!”
Kisuke tenses.
“It was funny!” She snorts a laugh, “They we’re so confused about what was happening, and it made the other people in the group super distracted! That was really good!”
Kisuke checks his shadow subtly and allows himself to relax at that.
If he’s not in any danger, or any unknown danger, then, well. Going with the girl is way better than staying out here, even if the past few days have been some of the best he’s known.
He has no love of the Rukongai, so he might as well get out of it while he can. Besides, the girl seems interesting, and like she’d be willing to teach him how to run properly.
So he bows his head and agrees.
(“By the way,” the girl says, half a day later as she’s hauling him into a carriage that she called with a spell and a messenger, staring at him with shining gold eyes, “my name is Shihouin Yoruichi, and you’re going to be one of the best.”
“Urahara Kisuke,” he replies, having no idea what the significance of her name is, but going along with it anyways, because clearly, her name means something and some part of it sounds familiar. Something that just emphasizes her similarity to a cat in his mind, because he can’t possibly be thinking he can trust this young Noble, no matter how un-noble she acts. “Thank you, Shihouin-sama.”
She scoffs and tries to get him to call her “Yoruichi-sama” instead and just. No. Even he isn’t that rude, no matter how bewildered he is by her and his memories.
The name means nothing more than a fancy way to dress and the money to buy it and a fancy carriage to ride in with something of a brat of a friend (maybe) until they pull up in front of an estate and he’s dumped into training and sees his trainers in their black on black robes, and black masks and scarves.
Those in the Rukongai were well aware of Seireitei’s most often deployed group, for all that the specifics were muddy.
They all knew what happened when an entire group that had previously held sway in town were left butchered where they’d slept.
Ah, Kisuke thinks to himself. So this is what she meant by becoming the best.
And when a few days later he’s dragged out to learn Shunpo, well, now he knows what Shihouin-sama really meant by his running, too.)
Next time: fun training times and friendly bonding! Also maybe figuring out how the heck Tessai gets wrapped up in all of this. Maybe the academy. We'll see!
Comments and kudos welcome!
~Fins