A fic about the older generation.
My first time posting to this community--hello, out there!
Comments and crit warmly welcomed.
Cross-posted to ishidafansanon
Title: Karma
Author: thenakedcat
Fandom: Bleach
Rating/Warnings: PG-13, for references to genocide and mass burial. Spoilers for chapters 186-189 of the manga, and whatever chapter it is where we learn about Urahara’s past. Rampant speculation about Isshin, Urahara, Ryuuken, and Quincy culture.
Summary: The older generation of Bleach learns that the weight of karma endures from one lifetime to the next.
Author’s notes: Thanks to angelynx and dupidnavagog, my betas, who helped me with this, and thanks to hidden_gems for kicking me in the ass to get it in readable form. For the ending, it is helpful to understand that in Japan, unlike in America, medical school lasts 6 years and begins straight out of high school.
Two hundred years ago, in a Japanese village inhabited until very recently by a strange group of heretical Christians, two Shinigami are picking through the ruins and the piles of corpses, one in a state of shock-still unable to fully believe that the order was given and carried out, and the other in resigned grief-thinking of the waste of life and knowledge.
For years they argued this wasn't the solution, that there were better ways of dealing with the problems caused by the Quincy movement...but Kurosaki Isshin never really expected to lose the debate, and Urahara Kisuke had at least dared to hope that decency would prevail for once.
And now here they are looking for survivors, trying to find someone left alive to help. Even the women, the children, the old men who could no longer fight…Isshin remembers entering the house of the village headman, seeing the venerable man dead, dazzling blue eyes wide and unseeing. He seemed to have fallen protecting the young woman who lay dead in the room beyond. A daughter or a niece, perhaps? There is no one left who could say which she had been.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kisuke suddenly signals to him-there is a hushed pair of voices nearby. They move in silently, and come face-to-face with a young man with blue eyes creeping towards the headman’s house carrying a blindfolded little boy, no more than four years old. The child is saying, “Tou-sama, I’m scared and I don’t like this game!”
Isshin knows in a moment that this is the headman’s son and grandson, and the young woman was this man’s wife.
The young Quincy freezes when he sees the two Shinigami, eyes going dark with fear and hatred. He is torn between putting his son down to draw his bow, or holding on and making a run for it.
Isshin and Kisuke very deliberately pull their zanpakutous from their belt and lay them on the ground. Isshin lets the other man do the talking-Kisuke could sell a spider silk thread, or tame a raging tiger with his tongue alone.
The twelfth division captain moves forward slowly with his hands raised. "Please. We won't hurt you or the child. Let us help you-you’re all alone."
The man laughs bitterly and asks, “What can anyone--especially one of you, in God's name!--do to fix things now?” His son shivers at the dark tone, and buries himself into his father’s chest; he doesn’t comprehend what’s going on, but knows that everything is deeply, deeply wrong right now.
Kisuke sounds as collected as ever, but Isshin can tell he’s getting worried. "We know where the patrols are in the forest-we can lead you safely through to the next town. They'll find you if you stay here. And once you're gone we can see that your dead receive proper burial, if you’re willing to tell us how to perform the rite."
Despite everything, the young father can't help being curious. Even as he strokes his son’s hair and whispers to him not to worry, he says, “Surely you’re Shinigami? Why do you care? Why now?”
Kisuke is trying to gauge the correct response-just the right reassurance to allay the Quincy’s fears, since time is critical. "Because they didn't announce the order until it had already been carried out....because genocide was the wrong decision, regardless of the Balance…”
For the first time, Isshin speaks up. He knows that Kisuke, who has never been a father himself, is not going to say the right thing. So he must.
“...because on my last go round on Earth I had a daughter who was killed by a Hollow."
There is a long silence, as the piercing, more-than-a-little crazy eyes bore into Isshin. Finally he says, "If you betray us, Shinigami, may your souls never know rest in either world. There are things I need to retrieve from my father’s house. Then we will trust you to lead us through the forest." He sets the boy down, and leads him by the hand into the ruins of the house. Kisuke follows, then returns a few moments later.
“Lineage charts,” he says in a low voice, not so much to Isshin as to the world in general, “and sacred texts and artifacts. There was a vault beneath the house that the patrols missed. And a lock of his wife’s hair.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Quincy emerges eventually with a bag; as he straps it onto his back he says, “We cremate our dead. Communal pyres are acceptable. Bury the ashes, and mark the site with an unlettered cross.”
Isshin is not a squeamish man by a long shot, but his stomach lurchs at the thought of burning an entire village of corpses. Kisuke just nods and moves to tie his sleeves back. He finds the living pair more unsettling than the dead, and will voluntarily take funeral detail to ease Isshin’s discomfort. “Go with them. I can see to things here.”
The other captain nods gratefully, and motions the Quincies to follow him. The trip through the forest is swift, frantic flight alternated with tense pauses behind rocks and fallen trees to let the boy rest (with the blindfold now removed, Isshin sees by the fading light that his eyes are the same intense blue as his father's and grandfather's) or to wait for a patrol of Shinigami to pass.
During one such pause, while the boy sleeps, Isshin murmurs that he had given up hope of finding survivors when he saw the state of the village. The Quincy starts to laugh, in that quiet yet unstoppable way people do when hysterical.
“The irony…” he gasps, “The irony is that…we didn’t survive because I fought off the Shinigami. Nor because I took the boy and ran like a coward. He and I were out gathering bilberries for ink, you see, when it happened. I was no warrior, never killed a Hollow…I was a scholar, a healer. But for him”-he looks down at his son-“for him I will be a warrior now.”
Isshin tells him, with utter conviction, “For him, you will be a great warrior.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the end of the journey, the Quincy gives him only a long look and a single word of thanks before disappearing.
Names have not been exchanged. They would only be a liability for both sides.
By the time Isshin returns to the village, Kisuke has attended to all the corpses, but Isshin helps him set up the grave markers. Where the ashes of the headman and his daughter-in-law lie buried, Kisuke sets a pair of smooth blue river stones beneath the cross.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back in Soul Society, Isshin and Kisuke do not forget what they saw in the Quincy village, but neither do they speak of it, even as their faith in the Center 46 and the Gotei captains erodes.
Neither of them ever finds out what became of the Quincy and his little son after that night. A day comes when both of them must be already be dead, reincarnated or in Soul Society…or among the wandering ghosts.
100 years later Kisuke manages to do something treasonable enough to be bansished-as everyone who ever knew jack about him expected he would do, eventually-and Isshin follows him into exile.
80 years after that, Isshin falls in love and decides that being a Shinigami is worth less than a single one of Masaki’s kisses. Kisuke obligingly gives him a gigai that will let him live as an ordinary human, and helps him apply to medical school--because Isshin wants to try putting things back together for a change, instead of ripping them apart; because he wants to start over, a new lifetime. When the application is accepted, he even helps Isshin move into his dorm room.
Isshin is facing away from the door putting sheets on the bed when there are footsteps in the hallway and Kisuke’s eyes widen in surprise. He turns around to see what provoked that reaction-it takes something pretty damn interesting to surprise Kisuke-and his jaw drops.
A young man with brilliant blue eyes and a very familiar reiatsu stands holding a packing box, wondering if he’s got a bit of toilet paper stuck to his shoe because the two men are staring at him like he is some sort of exotic bird thought extinct centuries ago.
“Um, hello,” he says nervously. “One of you must be my roommate, then? My name is Ishida Ryuuken.”
Comments and crit warmly welcomed.
Cross-posted to ishidafansanon
Title: Karma
Author: thenakedcat
Fandom: Bleach
Rating/Warnings: PG-13, for references to genocide and mass burial. Spoilers for chapters 186-189 of the manga, and whatever chapter it is where we learn about Urahara’s past. Rampant speculation about Isshin, Urahara, Ryuuken, and Quincy culture.
Summary: The older generation of Bleach learns that the weight of karma endures from one lifetime to the next.
Author’s notes: Thanks to angelynx and dupidnavagog, my betas, who helped me with this, and thanks to hidden_gems for kicking me in the ass to get it in readable form. For the ending, it is helpful to understand that in Japan, unlike in America, medical school lasts 6 years and begins straight out of high school.
Two hundred years ago, in a Japanese village inhabited until very recently by a strange group of heretical Christians, two Shinigami are picking through the ruins and the piles of corpses, one in a state of shock-still unable to fully believe that the order was given and carried out, and the other in resigned grief-thinking of the waste of life and knowledge.
For years they argued this wasn't the solution, that there were better ways of dealing with the problems caused by the Quincy movement...but Kurosaki Isshin never really expected to lose the debate, and Urahara Kisuke had at least dared to hope that decency would prevail for once.
And now here they are looking for survivors, trying to find someone left alive to help. Even the women, the children, the old men who could no longer fight…Isshin remembers entering the house of the village headman, seeing the venerable man dead, dazzling blue eyes wide and unseeing. He seemed to have fallen protecting the young woman who lay dead in the room beyond. A daughter or a niece, perhaps? There is no one left who could say which she had been.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Kisuke suddenly signals to him-there is a hushed pair of voices nearby. They move in silently, and come face-to-face with a young man with blue eyes creeping towards the headman’s house carrying a blindfolded little boy, no more than four years old. The child is saying, “Tou-sama, I’m scared and I don’t like this game!”
Isshin knows in a moment that this is the headman’s son and grandson, and the young woman was this man’s wife.
The young Quincy freezes when he sees the two Shinigami, eyes going dark with fear and hatred. He is torn between putting his son down to draw his bow, or holding on and making a run for it.
Isshin and Kisuke very deliberately pull their zanpakutous from their belt and lay them on the ground. Isshin lets the other man do the talking-Kisuke could sell a spider silk thread, or tame a raging tiger with his tongue alone.
The twelfth division captain moves forward slowly with his hands raised. "Please. We won't hurt you or the child. Let us help you-you’re all alone."
The man laughs bitterly and asks, “What can anyone--especially one of you, in God's name!--do to fix things now?” His son shivers at the dark tone, and buries himself into his father’s chest; he doesn’t comprehend what’s going on, but knows that everything is deeply, deeply wrong right now.
Kisuke sounds as collected as ever, but Isshin can tell he’s getting worried. "We know where the patrols are in the forest-we can lead you safely through to the next town. They'll find you if you stay here. And once you're gone we can see that your dead receive proper burial, if you’re willing to tell us how to perform the rite."
Despite everything, the young father can't help being curious. Even as he strokes his son’s hair and whispers to him not to worry, he says, “Surely you’re Shinigami? Why do you care? Why now?”
Kisuke is trying to gauge the correct response-just the right reassurance to allay the Quincy’s fears, since time is critical. "Because they didn't announce the order until it had already been carried out....because genocide was the wrong decision, regardless of the Balance…”
For the first time, Isshin speaks up. He knows that Kisuke, who has never been a father himself, is not going to say the right thing. So he must.
“...because on my last go round on Earth I had a daughter who was killed by a Hollow."
There is a long silence, as the piercing, more-than-a-little crazy eyes bore into Isshin. Finally he says, "If you betray us, Shinigami, may your souls never know rest in either world. There are things I need to retrieve from my father’s house. Then we will trust you to lead us through the forest." He sets the boy down, and leads him by the hand into the ruins of the house. Kisuke follows, then returns a few moments later.
“Lineage charts,” he says in a low voice, not so much to Isshin as to the world in general, “and sacred texts and artifacts. There was a vault beneath the house that the patrols missed. And a lock of his wife’s hair.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Quincy emerges eventually with a bag; as he straps it onto his back he says, “We cremate our dead. Communal pyres are acceptable. Bury the ashes, and mark the site with an unlettered cross.”
Isshin is not a squeamish man by a long shot, but his stomach lurchs at the thought of burning an entire village of corpses. Kisuke just nods and moves to tie his sleeves back. He finds the living pair more unsettling than the dead, and will voluntarily take funeral detail to ease Isshin’s discomfort. “Go with them. I can see to things here.”
The other captain nods gratefully, and motions the Quincies to follow him. The trip through the forest is swift, frantic flight alternated with tense pauses behind rocks and fallen trees to let the boy rest (with the blindfold now removed, Isshin sees by the fading light that his eyes are the same intense blue as his father's and grandfather's) or to wait for a patrol of Shinigami to pass.
During one such pause, while the boy sleeps, Isshin murmurs that he had given up hope of finding survivors when he saw the state of the village. The Quincy starts to laugh, in that quiet yet unstoppable way people do when hysterical.
“The irony…” he gasps, “The irony is that…we didn’t survive because I fought off the Shinigami. Nor because I took the boy and ran like a coward. He and I were out gathering bilberries for ink, you see, when it happened. I was no warrior, never killed a Hollow…I was a scholar, a healer. But for him”-he looks down at his son-“for him I will be a warrior now.”
Isshin tells him, with utter conviction, “For him, you will be a great warrior.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At the end of the journey, the Quincy gives him only a long look and a single word of thanks before disappearing.
Names have not been exchanged. They would only be a liability for both sides.
By the time Isshin returns to the village, Kisuke has attended to all the corpses, but Isshin helps him set up the grave markers. Where the ashes of the headman and his daughter-in-law lie buried, Kisuke sets a pair of smooth blue river stones beneath the cross.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Back in Soul Society, Isshin and Kisuke do not forget what they saw in the Quincy village, but neither do they speak of it, even as their faith in the Center 46 and the Gotei captains erodes.
Neither of them ever finds out what became of the Quincy and his little son after that night. A day comes when both of them must be already be dead, reincarnated or in Soul Society…or among the wandering ghosts.
100 years later Kisuke manages to do something treasonable enough to be bansished-as everyone who ever knew jack about him expected he would do, eventually-and Isshin follows him into exile.
80 years after that, Isshin falls in love and decides that being a Shinigami is worth less than a single one of Masaki’s kisses. Kisuke obligingly gives him a gigai that will let him live as an ordinary human, and helps him apply to medical school--because Isshin wants to try putting things back together for a change, instead of ripping them apart; because he wants to start over, a new lifetime. When the application is accepted, he even helps Isshin move into his dorm room.
Isshin is facing away from the door putting sheets on the bed when there are footsteps in the hallway and Kisuke’s eyes widen in surprise. He turns around to see what provoked that reaction-it takes something pretty damn interesting to surprise Kisuke-and his jaw drops.
A young man with brilliant blue eyes and a very familiar reiatsu stands holding a packing box, wondering if he’s got a bit of toilet paper stuck to his shoe because the two men are staring at him like he is some sort of exotic bird thought extinct centuries ago.
“Um, hello,” he says nervously. “One of you must be my roommate, then? My name is Ishida Ryuuken.”