via
https://ift.tt/2YYzy1fcheshiresense:
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.
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