Next Generation

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Ichigo stared at the back of his father’s broad back as they walked uphill to the graveyard. So may questions were buzzing inside his head that he didn’t where to start and the silence Isshin upheld forbid him to say anything. The heat of the hot summer day was scorching the sticky asphalt, silencing any life to a nothing. Ichigos wound began to prickle until a wrong movement sent jolts of pain through his body, forcing him to stop in some shadow and lean on the wall that followed the street.

Slowly willing his pain away and taking long and deep breaths he looked through his half squinted eyes towards his father who had turned around. Isshin waited, knowing that any kind of pity would only annoy his son. Ichigo sighed and started walking again. Isshin smiled and continued his ascension of the small hill. His son caught up and in silence they entered the graveyard. Standing before the grave Ichigo prayed shortly for his mother as way of asking her for her forgiveness even if he knew that her soul had been devoured and no longer existed anywhere.

“I met your mother while I was on a trip in the real world.”

Surprised Ichigo looked up to his father and wondered where this explanation would take him.

“I say a trip because I used to be a shinigami. A captain, to be precise. She was being attacked by a hollow and I rescued her. However I was betrayed by my vice-captain, Tousen, if you want to know. Even though Masaki could neither hear nor see me, she managed to carry me to her house and let me rest. Urahara had seen the battle and offered me a gigai while I was on the verge of death. I accepted but the price of the wounds Tousen gave me were my abilities as a shinigami. I was able to move again and live but if I had tried to leave the gigai I would have died. Masaki helped me and somehow… we fell in love and married. For the sake of peace and normality I studied medicine and we pretended that I couldn’t see any konpakus, shinigamis and hollows.

Sould Society had been informed that I had died and already dissolved so they didn’t search for me. Then you were born. Masaki and me were the happiest in this world for we had thought that such a thing would be impossible but it seems that Urahara really did his job to the fullest . Only one thing perturbed me slightly. While pregnant with you Masaki had been able to see souls and after your birth, when I held you for the first time in my arms, I noticed the amount of reiatsu in you.

Up to now I still don’t know if was a natural occurrence that this had happened or if it was my fault. Masaki didn’t care about it so we continued to pretend that you were the only one with these abilities. When Karin and Yuzu were on their way Masaki had also been able to see souls but to a lesser extent. It didn’t really surprise me anymore that Karin as the first one born could see souls and Yuzu as the second could only hear them.

Urahara helped me protect our house with barriers but he couldn’t do more and so this tragedy happened. I was angry at myself for not having been able to protect Masaki and I couldn’t forgive myself. But the fact that you were alive made me the most happy person on earth since you are my one and only son and the first thing that truly tied me to this life with Masaki. To me you and your sisters are the very proof of the love between Masaki and me. And then you had to…”

“… become a freakin’ shinigami on my own.”

“And while still alive, son.”

Ichigo sighed and made a mess of his already unruly hair.

“It’s sooo… wierd.”

“What?”

“Well… the fact that … you are a shinigami. Even in my strangest dreams I would have never even hinted that you were one and this … conversation, confession, situation, whatever is so … unreal.”

Isshin laughed.

“You know, the fact that you became a shinigami is just as strange to me. After I noticed the change in you condition I almost panicked and ran to Urahara. He always keeps me up to date with your progresses or stupidities.”

Now it was Ichigo’s turn to laugh. His father joined him and for the first time in a long while Ichigo felt at peace and with a clean conscience with his father. But one thing still nagged him. He turned to his father and asked him:

“What is actually left of you powers? Can you… leave you gigai now?”

Isshin’s face darkened a bit.

“I have all of your spirit medium abilities and I still possess some reiatsu, but the problem is its instability. It’s dangerous for me to leave my gigai for longer than half an hour or else I’ll start to lose control over it and my soul starts to dissolve.”

Ichigo remained silent. He could hear the pain in his father’s voice and the longing for his original powers.

“But I still managed to kill Grand Fisher.”

With eyes big of surprise Ichigo stared at his father. With a slightly grim smile Isshin continued:

“After you came back from your first trip to Soul Society Grand Fisher showed up again. You were busy elsewhere and so I took the risk. Now the one who killed Masaki is dead too and yet…”

“… you’re not feeling happy. I know this feeling. Killing an opponent never makes me happy or relieved.”

Isshin nodded. Both stood there for a little while before he clasped his hands together and prayed silently. Ichigo looked with a slight wondrous expression. Why would his father pray when he knew what the afterlife looked like and when he knew that the soul of his beloved was no more. Isshin seemed to feel his questions and said while still praying:

“Graves were never made for the dead to dwell but for the living to remember.”

When they were back home they were welcomed by an impatient Karin who instantly dragged the older brother away. She was worried about Yuzu who had a migraine again and Ichigo immediately complied to her request of helping her. Even though she said nothing Ichigo noticed her slightly tumbling and unsure feet, as well as her clenched teeth. He sighed because he remember that unhealthy habit of her to hold everything in and just picked her up while walking up the stairs. She struggled a bit against the sudden embrace but inside of her she was glad she didn’t have to walk around anymore.

Her feet and ankle had started to hurt while Ichigo had been away with their father and it felt similar as if she had sprained them. Being carried like a princess she blushed furiously but she was really worried about her sister. Yuzu had been the one who had suffered more from this changes since they had started occurring and yet she had never complained.

After some delicate maneuvers with the door Ichigo stepped into the again darkened room. With a glance he knew that Yuzu was in a worse state than her sister and when he had gently put down Karin he sat on her sister’s bed. The small frame was shivering slightly and a fine screen of cold sweat covered her skin. She was already laying on her tummy so Ichigo just slipped a hand beneath her shirt, closing his eyes to feel the unbalanced reiatsu.

He could feel it beneath the skin, concentrated at that single point on her back yet too unstable to stay completely in place, flaring the reiatsu through her body, especially reaching her brain. The lines and dots had gotten a bit lager, now almost reaching the area of his whole hand. Quickly Ichigo released his reiatsu in his hand, trying to even out the waves of excited power and adding reiatsu to the surroundings of the amassed spiritual under her skin so as to even out the painful difference in reiatsu levels.

His concern spiked up as he noticed that he needed more reiatsu than before. It was still not even at the level of his shikai but it had doubled the previous amount. He wondered how far it would go and sincerely wished for his sisters that it would soon stop. Before he had met Rukia and become a shinigami he had periodically experienced similar pain though his transformation had settled the whole thing. The reiatsu beneath his sister’s skin had now reached equal level and an relaxed expression covered her face.

“Is it better?”, he whispered.

She nodded and so he pulled his hand out before walking over to Karin. She protested weakly but as soon as the reiatsu had started to flow she stopped, relinquishing in the relieving sensation. While he was working on her second feet, she glanced over to her twin and saw that she was asleep. That was the last thing she knew.

With a soft sound Karin fell completely her bed, snoring so softly that it couldn’t be heard. It was more of a little wheezing than anything. Ichigo smiled at the relaxed face of his beloved sisters before he left the room as quietly as possible. He then went to his room, picking up his phone. For now he would make some calls to get some information. Frowning at his first possibility – Urahara – and pressed the button.

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Windy. Karin felt as if wind was blowing in her hair and on her skin. She felt so light that it made her almost tremble. Slowly opening her eyes she noticed that it was bright outside. As she opened her eyes more she recognized her surroundings and jerked up.

Midair.

She was floating in the middle of an endless sky covered by thin clouds.

But she wasn’t falling. She couldn’t feel any ground beneath her but it seemed to her as if she was floating, carried by some wind. Strangely she wasn’t afraid anymore.

‘This must be a dream’…

“No it’s not.”

Karin turned around in the direction of where that voice had come from and ended up doing a summersault that made her tummy flutter at the sudden recognition that far, far below was something that resembled a ground. As soon as she had stabilized again she looked around but saw none. She stared into the clouds but all she could see were those ever-changing forms of white and silver on a sky so blue that it was overwhelming.

“Who are you? Where are you? What is this?”, Karin cried out into this empty sky.

Suddenly a violent gush of wind enveloped her and she could feel something like two small spots press on her right shoulder.

“I’m you… but it’s too early… “

Karin turned her head around but this strange world was already spinning so fastly that she was drained down into a swirl of color.

“We shall meet again soon…”

That was the last thing she heard before waking up.

Karin was sitting straight up in a split second and breathed heavily. That dream had scared her because it had been so real. She heard someone else pant and she turned her head towards her sister who was on her fours as if she had been woken up just as brutally as her. As soon as their eyes met, they knew what had happened to the other and knew that was the same for both. With shaky legs Kain stood up and went to snuggle next to her younger sister who hugged her immediately.

“What was your dream about?”, Karin asked.

“I was standing in a deep forest and all those leaves were swirling around me. I heard a strange voice talking to me and suddenly… I woke up.”

“I was floating in the middle of a sky and someone was talking to me too before everything began to spin and disappear…”

The two girls hugged each other tightly and stayed like this for a while before deciding to stand up to look for their brother. They could hear him talk on his phone in his room and decided to go in as quietly as possible. Ichigo was sitting at his laptop, typing with one hand as he talked to someone on the phone. They were talking very fast about stuff like reiatsu, konpaku and hollows. Karin and Yuzu climbed onto his bed, making it creak and Ichigo turn his head around to them. He smiled and told the person on the phone that he would call him later before turning to his sisters.

“Did you sleep well?”

Karin answered for both: “More or less. We feel better but we both had a really weird dream.”

Ichigo looked questioningly at them until they started telling him their dreams, interchanging their speeches like twins often did. Their brother was used to this kind of speech they only used when they were going together through something that perturbed them deeply and made them act more like the twins they often didn’t seem to be.

“I see…” Ichigo looked up at the ceiling, searching for the right words to speak after such astonishing news.

“Are you finally going to tell us what’s going on?”

Karin pouted slightly and Yuzu looked a bit scared. Seeing into those eyes that put so much trust into him, Ichigo decided that it was time to tell his sisters the truth. Or at least as much truth as they needed. He sighed and signed them to make some space for him on his bed. As they had finally organized their places as Ichigo leaned against the window, one twin leaning onto him on each side he started talking:

“Karin, Yuzu, there is more to this world than you thought there would be. In fact there are three worlds. The real world where we are right now, Soul Society, the realm of the souls and Hueco Mundo, the world of the hollows. The major difference between the real world and those other two is that the others are completely made out of reiatsu or spirit particles. In the real world, there a few people who can either use the surrounding particles or use the ones they have stored in their soul.”

“Is that the blue light that glows around you when you help us?”

Ichigo smiled and held up his hand, making the reiatsu flow through and making it glow in that bluish white. Yuzu grabbed his hand and said:

“I can feel something but I can’t see anything. What kind of blue light?”

The orange haired teen neared his glowing hand to her ear and smiled as she looked surprised when she heard the faint swoosh of the particles rubbing against each other.

“I guess it has to do with the fact that you are unable to see any kind of reiatsu but as you surely made some experiences with ghosts, you can hear and touch them. Souls are made out of reiatsu so ghosts are made out of these as well. Even now, though only in a low quantity, there are reiastu particles in this world, allowing those ghosts to exists since without reiatsu no soul can exist without a body.”

“But where do ghosts go in the end?”, asked Yuzu.

“The good ones, we call them konpaku, go to soul society which is in fact the afterworld. There they live until they are reborn, protected by an elite, the shinigamis. They are able to use the reiatsu and fight with a partner in form of a sword. … This spring, I became a shinigami too.”

Karin and Yuzu gasped at the news.

“I knew that you were hiding something about those black clothes I saw you once in!”, Karin protested and Ichigo started laughing at Yuzu’s comment:

“But I don’t see any scythe!”

Ichigo nuzzled both of their heads and said with an underlying laughter:

“Dummy, I have a sword and Karin, back then would have been too early for telling you the truth. And I’m not exactly a complete shinigami, I’m just a substitute shinigami.”

With this the orange haired teen continued telling his sisters about some secrets the world hid until a straving father broke into their room and started crying for some dinner. Yuzu hushed down to the kitchen only after having made her brother promise that he would have to continue later on. Karin went with her sister and left Ichigo back, smiling over his unique and warm family.

Just as he wanted to stand up and go back to his laptop he heard a familiar voice in his head.

“Nice tale my king. It was really fun to listen. When will ya tell them that ya have a hollow inside of ya?”

“Shut up. Do you want me to come down or what?”

“I always want ya to do so but not for now. I’d rather enjoy a long and pleasurable night together with ya.”

Those last words were almost as if whispered with that hot and tantalizing breath over his shoulder into his ear and Ichigo had to look back, just to be sure. It was the first time that he had been to speak so clearly with the hollow while still being looking at the real world. Even if it was rather disturbing he preferred this way since those long absence made his body always sore and somewhat tense.

“I’ll tell ya a way of helping your sisters through the night without doing that stupid evening of the reiatsu. It’ll only perturb the process of awakening.”

“Are you saying that all I did was a mistake???” Ichigo was horrified at the thought of having done something bad to his sisters.

“Nah, not really. The balancing of the reiatsu is like a strong painkiller. It helps but if you take too much, it gets only worse. It’s better to provide them with a lower but more constant source of concentrated reiatsu.”

Ichigo sighed in relief. But then he recollected himself and asked: “And how am I supposed to do this? I can’t really perform any kido beside that stupid sphere of abyss.”

“Use Zangetsu.”

Ichigo wondered what he meant and since the hollow felt his thoughts he just said: “Imagine yourself as a shinigami. And now, slowly pull out Zangetsu. Yes, feel him in your hand, feel his weight and power follow his movements.”

The eyes of the orange haired teen were wide with surprise when he saw his long sword Zangetsu materialize in his real hand. He carefully swung it around a bit, just to see if it didn’t disappear.

“Now you just have to leave him in your sister’s room for the night. The reiatsu flowing from him will be enough.”

“And how do I put him back?”
“The same way you pulled him out just backwards.”

Ichigo could feel the hollows smirk and his cheeks grow hot and red as the hollow added:

“As a payment for this information I’ll have a nice blowjob from you tonight.”

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Glossary:
reiatsu = spirit particles
Zangetsu = the name of Ichigo's sword

Yeah, I know... the smut is for the next chapter...