Adult-FanFiction.org : Bleach

Comatose	By : ShadowedEcho Category: Bleach > Yaoi - Male/Male Views: 2442 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Bleach, no money is being made by me, this was written purely for entertainment purposes

Chapter List
- 1
- 2
- 3
Chapter One
Rebirthing
Ichigo felt like he was being watched. The hairs on the back of his neck rose, his nerves were on edge, and he kept looking around sharply to the point he appeared to be having some kind of attack. A full school day was spent with those eyes drilling into him, if he could only find the source of it he could beat the irritation away, but none of his classmates seemed to be acting unusually odd. His badge stayed quiet on his hip so he was at a loss for what to do, whoever was watching him would have to make the first move.
His friends should be thankful that whomever it was made themselves known during his walk home, if it had been much longer Ichigo could have went off like a firecracker.
The first warning he had that something was coming was the badge alerting him to the presence of a Hollow. He barely had time to leave his human body behind before there was a sword descending on him. His amazement at a Hollow possessing a Zanpakuto almost ended the game there, he was a hair too slow to block as it was, he felt blood start seeping into his Shinigami uniform even as he jumped back to avoid the swing and get a good look at his opponent.
If he was surprised by the sword he was dumb founded by what he saw now. He wasn't facing any Hollow that he had seen before. The man was built like a human, he was tall and muscular, white clothing with black outlines draped loosely over his fighter's physique, and Ichigo was almost too distracted by the soft blue hair and electric blue eyes to notice the remnants of a Hollow mask running along one jaw. There was more human than Hollow about him.
"What in the world are you?" Ichigo figured that was as intelligent a question as he could manage under the circumstances. All the while he had been looking at the man/Hollow hybrid he had stayed still and let Ichigo ogle him, but as soon as Ichigo broke the silence the man launched forward in his next attack.
"I am an Arrancar," The strange person replied easily even as their swords clashed, "I have conquered my mask and gained power, we are the next step in Hollow evolution."
They continued fighting for a few moments, until a new voice, one all too familiar to Ichigo, cut through their fight. "Grimmjow that's enough!"
Ichigo heard the blue haired Arrancar swear sharply before sheathing his sword and leaping back out of the skirmish. Apparently, he was Grimmjow, and just as obviously, someone had a lot of explaining to do because that was Urahara commanding that thing.
"I told you to find Ichigo, not fight him!" Kisuke chastised, but even Ichigo could hear the rueful humor in the sentence, he had known full well Grimmjow wasn't going to be happy without a brawl.
"Ah come on, I wouldn't have hurt him too much!" Grimmjow protested, not liking the mirth in the former Shinigami's eyes.
"Really, so that isn't blood I see on him?" Urahara pointed out, reminding Ichigo about the wound himself having forgotten in the battle and subsequent shock that his mentor knew this creature.
As Ichigo set about inspecting the wound he didn't quite miss the grumbled, "Well if he had his guard up that wouldn't have happened."
"Okay now that you found me, what do you want?" Ichigo asked crossly, not protesting Grimmjow's grumbling because the Arrancar was right.
"Ichigo meet your new teachers they are here to help you control that little parasite problem of yours." Urahara answered unhelpfully, but he did point out another of those human looking Hollows, this one was smaller and slimmer than Grimmjow, with medium length black hair, and bright green eyes. This one also had a Hollow mask fragment, his looked like a half helmet with a horn sticking up, and he looked like he was crying as there were two streaks of green running down his cheeks one from each eye.
An angry tic appeared above Ichigo's left eye, "That doesn't tell me anything except you passing your position onto them." He protested.
"Look this isn't the place for this discussion, come back to the shop and I will explain. Don't forget your body though, it would be a pain if someone found you in a coma," Kisuke still had the same half-teasing tone he usually used, but Ichigo could tell he was being more serious than he had ever been, the light grey eyes hidden under the hat had darkened with the strain of maintaining his carefree attitude.
Ichigo knew better then to reply verbally, he would just end up saying something that would get him in trouble. Sliding back into his human body he felt vulnerable next to the three armed people next to him. An odd thought popped into his head, and he asked before he could stop himself. "Hey Kisuke, how can you keep Benehime with you at all times, but as soon as I return to my body Zangetsu disappears?"
Kisuke's only response was a mysterious smile, and Ichigo wondered why he'd even bothered asking.
The walk to the shop was tense, but passed without further incident. Once they arrived Ichigo knew something was up, the two children that were usually found doing chores in front of the shop weren't there. Tessai was making tea for them, but his face held a shadow of something dark and painful, a bad memory maybe? Yoruichi was there, sitting calm and relaxed in her human form, but the sheer oddity of her choice of form was enough to persuade Ichigo that there was something wrong. Ichigo also felt a tingle of strange spiritual pressure coming from the back room, but since he was horrible at analyzing that kind of thing he didn't know who or what was back there.
"Sit down, make yourself comfortable, this is going to take awhile," Urahara invited, both in courtesy and so there was a table between them, if Ichigo lost his temper he would have a few moments lead time to get the orange haired teen settled down.
Ichigo sat gingerly, on edge with all the oddities around him, "All right start talking. What is going on?"
"When was the last time he tried to take over?" Kisuke asked oddly.
"What do you mean? What he?" Ichigo was going from uneasy to angry rather quickly.
Kisuke glared at him pointedly, "Every one in this room is aware of your extra spirit, now answer the question, when was the last time your Hollow tried to overtake you?"
Ichigo scowled deeply, not wanting to acknowledge the beast inside him at all, but finally growling out, "When I was fighting Byakuya, he took over for a few moments, I beat him back though."
"What if I told you there was a way to control your Hollow so that he doesn't take over?" Kisuke inquired.
"I would have to ask how you know so much about it," Ichigo pointed out with narrowed eyes, "I know you had a part in my Hollow being inside me, so where did that come from?" Ichigo unconsciously asking the one question Kisuke was not looking forward to answering.
"You know more about me now, I was the founder of the Research and Development department in Soul Society, one of my more consuming obsessions was figuring out how Hollows worked. I found that if the soul has a high enough spiritual pressure, a Hollow can gain the skills of a Shinigami, and a Soul Reaper can gain the skills of a Hollow. Two of my successful projects are sitting in this room." Urahara replied as simply as possible, gesturing towards the Arrancar seated at the table with them when mentioning his projects.
"So I am an Arrancar then?" Ichigo was impulsive, but not stupid, he followed what Kisuke was saying easily. He wanted to know why it was used on him though.
"No, you are not. These two started out as Hollows, you are coming from the other side. You are a Visored, a Shinigami with a Hollow trapped inside." Urahara explained.
Something seemed off with that in Ichigo's mind, "Wait, so I was a Shinigami first? I thought it was at the same time, didn't Byakuya take all the power Rukia had given me?"
"I'm not the one who should answer that," Kisuke replied quietly, before turning his head and yelling to whomever was hiding in the back of the shop, "You can come out now, he is going to want your side of the story."
Ichigo watched in growing rage as Isshin stepped into view, a sheepish look on his face, "Ichigo, you were born a Shinigami, giving you a Hollow was the only way to awaken your own power before it would naturally occur. If we hadn't done it you would have been lost to us, as it was there was still a heavy price." Isshin didn't get to explain any further because Ichigo had risen from his spot at the table, and punched his father squarely in the jaw, sending the older man flying. The tattered white haori tied around his black clad arm flapping in the breeze his movement created.
Ichigo rounded on the other members of the table, luckily for them he was too angry to switch into his Soul Reaper form with access to Zangetsu, instead he settled for yelling, "You knew! All of you knew, why the hell didn't you tell me!"
"Yes we knew," Yoruichi spoke, the most level headed one at the table since Kisuke had gone to see if Isshin was still conscious, "Isshin, Kisuke, and I were all captains at the same time. We didn't tell you before because, when your father came into the living world to be with your mother, Head Captain Yamamoto put a seal on his powers, and he was not allowed to speak of his past to any possible children until they awakened to their own powers. Under normal circumstances that means death."
"How much more is there?" Ichigo demanded, "What else haven't you told me!"
"Plenty, but you weren't ready to handle it." She snapped at him sharply, "Think about it Ichigo, you were saving Rukia, do you really think you could have handled that, and knowing everything about your history at the same time? No one could, no matter how strong they are. So sit down and let us talk to you now, without you throwing temper tantrums."
A deep scowl still on his features, Ichigo slowly lowered himself back down, willing to at least try to keep his temper, only to hear a quiet mumble from the dark haired Arrancar, "Kami help me, there's two of them."
Grimmjow beat Ichigo to the response, "Just what does that mean Ulquiorra?"
"Exactly what it sounded like, I'm going to be stuck with two of you. You two act exactly the same. How am I supposed to deal with that without killing something?" Ulquiorra demanded, not caring if his commander heard him or not, he didn't like this at all.
"Well you will be in Heuco Mundo for most of it, you could kill a few dozen Gillian or something," Yoruichi offered, well acquainted with the Arrancar's violent side.
Ulquiorra looked slowly between Grimmjow and Ichigo, noting identical scowls, "Something tells me that won't be nearly satisfying enough."
"Now, now, Ulquiorra give our young hot-head a chance, he isn't quite as stuck in his ways as the old panther here." Kisuke chastised, arriving back at the table with Isshin. The black haired Kurosaki still looked slightly dazed and had a large bruise on his jaw from his son's punch.
Both Ichigo and Grimmjow growled at Kisuke, before catching the reaction and glaring at each other before looking away darkly. "Scary isn't it?" Kisuke commented.
"Are you sure he should have anything to do with training my son? I don't think Ichigo needs any more bad habits." Isshin protested, only to quiet down as Ichigo brandished his fist readying another punch. "All right, all right, I take it back. Now are you calm enough to continue?"
"I'm fine, get on with it already." Ichigo grumbled, remembering what Yoruichi said.
"Good, now remember what I said you were born a Shinigami. At the end of your natural life span you would have gone to Soul Society and taken your place as one of us, or at least that is what the Head-Captain assumed would happen to my children, because he was under the assumption that Masaki was a normal human." Isshin paused long enough for that to sink in to Ichigo.
"Wait, Mom wasn't human either? What was she, another Soul Reaper?" Ichigo asked, figuring he better get used to shocks, he doubted this would be the last one.
"Well not exactly, she was human as far as species went, but she had spiritual power. One of your friends has the same I believe, your mother was a Quincy." Isshin explained, wondering how much Uryu would have told Ichigo about the Quincys.
Ichigo shook himself quickly out of his shock, that was less of a surprise then he thought, at least he knew what a Quincy was. "Okay, I know what they are. Yes, Ishida is a Quincy, he takes pride in being the last… Wait, if he knows he is the last, they must keep in touch somehow, did he know about Mom?"
Isshin took a deep breath, but he had made a promise to himself to answer all of Ichigo's questions, no matter how painful. "He may not have, but his father did. Masaki was Ryuuken's sister, he hated me to start with because she married me, but his hatred turned even worse when Masaki died, he saw it as my failure to protect her. He may have only told his son enough to hate Soul Reapers, but maybe not enough to make the connection between him and Masaki."
"So if Ryuuken is my uncle, then Uryu is my cousin?" Ichigo grasped onto the easiest to deal with part of the explanation.
"Yes, though that isn't the important part about your mother being a Quincy. The point is she had high spiritual pressure, which added to mine, ended up with all three of you kids showing signs of power long before your deaths. You and Karin inherited most strongly from me, but Yuzu will likely end up a Quincy. Yuzu has enough Soul Reaper in her it's keeping her power suppressed, but it won't be much longer until the Quincy wins out. If you hadn't had that extra boost of spiritual power, your soul would have immediately crossed over, and we wouldn't have had time to awaken your true power rather than what you borrowed. Like I said though, there was a price, but not as bad a one as Yamamoto thinks it was, or not quite anyway," Isshin continued, once again stopping so Ichigo could have a chance to absorb what he was saying.
Bracing himself, knowing this would be the worst shock yet, "You can tell me, what was the price?"
"A soul can only take so much, even one with strong spiritual pressure. The only way to save your soul from crossing over was to give you a Hollow, but in doing that, a piece of your original soul had to be given up. In a Soul Reaper's soul when they gain a Hollow what they give up is their conscience, they cannot tell right from wrong, creating highly destructive monsters with only a slight grasp on sanity. You, teetering on the brink of life and death, had another option. What was taken on your part to make room was the remainder of your mother's Quincy powers, in other words the part of you that was truly human. Yamamoto didn't know about Masaki he thinks you died, but didn't cross over, fortunately that isn't quite true. You are still alive, but you are no longer human. Ichigo you are a new type of spiritual being, neither Shinigami nor Hollow, but at the same time both, and without ever crossing over into death." Isshin tried to break it to him gently, while still telling him what he needed to know.
Ichigo wasn't sure whether he needed to pass out or throw up, the information was just too much. He couldn't move, could barely breathe. His brain locked down, refusing to deal with any more. This couldn't be happening. Soul Reaper he could handle, there was a lot of those. His Hollow terrified him, but it saved his life. To hear the very thing that saved his life, for all intents and purposes, had ended it too. Too much. So much. He couldn't take it. He threw himself at his father, but not to hurt him, he simply lay there sobbing in Isshin's lap, as he hadn't done since his mother's death. He didn't even care about all the other people in the room.
It took him a good hour of sobbing before he started pulling himself back together, there was nothing that could be done except move on and learn what he needed to do. Pulling himself off his father's lap he was surprised that the table was still surrounded by people, he blushed as he realized they had been there for his entire crying jag.
"What does this mean? How much do you really know about what I am, and how much more can you guess?" Ichigo thought that was a pretty coherent question for following up a breakdown with.
"Are you sure you want to keep going? We don't have to finish this all in one night." Isshin offered, still shocked that Ichigo had leaped onto him for comfort, that was more what Yuzu was prone to do.
Ichigo nodded slowly, "I need to do this, I wouldn't be able to relax until I knew everything I could. I would just keep worrying about it. I think it's better we finish this."
"All right, what we know," Kisuke took over now, Isshin's story complete. "We know that your organic body will not hold up under the strain of your new spiritual power, it will begin to deteriorate, so its probably best if you say your goodbyes soon. Once it does deteriorate your soul will emerge intact, hopefully at that point you will have control over your Hollow, if you haven't noticed it is much easier for him to try and take over if you are purely spirit. That is what we know from studying Hollows, and the previous Visoreds, the thieving idiots. There is no way a human body can cope with the pressure of a Visored's power. You have a bit more time to conquer your Hollow, because unlike the others, you are still alive. Now we already know more about your spiritual form because of your rescue mission, you were a Visored then even if you didn't know it. "
"Wait stop for a second," Ichigo interrupted, "If my body is going to deteriorate, isn't that the same as death?"
"No, like Isshin said, you are not human anymore. If you hadn't acquired your Hollow, then yes that would mean death, but now all it means is your true form will be released. You are more like a Hell Butterfly than a Soul Reaper at this point, they are spiritual beings belonging to the plane of death, but haven't actually died to get there." Kisuke answered his questions.
"Will normal humans be able to see me or not?" Ichigo honestly didn't know, he hadn't been back long enough since he awakened his new powers to see.
"Probably not to begin with, but with practice you may be able to condense your spirit pressure down until you are visible, might not be for long periods of time, but long enough to say hello anyway." This was very much theoretical at that point, but it was just as possible as it was not, so he didn't see a problem in giving the kid hope.
"Okay, you can keep going now, what do you know about my Spiritual form?" Ichigo allowed the conversation to continue from where he had interrupted Kisuke.
"Your power level is about twice that of a high class Captain, but don't let that get you cocky, you may have power but you still have to learn to use it. Your soul is exceedingly durable, Yoruichi has told me of the wounds you received, you can die just as Shinigami and Hollows do, but it seems it will take quite a bit to kill you. The only difference is where your soul will go after you die, Shinigami are reincarnated when they die, but Hollows go to Soul Society as a purified plus soul; what this means is we have no idea where you would end up if you die. It is possible your soul would split and your Shinigami side would reincarnate as your Hollow went to Soul Society, but we just don't know. As far as aging goes, we doubt you will age much at all, muscle mass may change, but overall age shouldn't. At the very least you would age as Shinigami do, and since we can live for hundreds of years you still have quite a few ahead of you." Kisuke explained as much as they knew, and a bit about what they guessed.
"How long do I have before my body gives out, and how do I control my Hollow before that happens?" Ichigo was running on autopilot, needing the information, but too emotionally drained to react.
"At most a year, at least a few weeks, it depends on how much time you spend in it, though I recommend staging your death while your body is mostly intact. If there is no body it creates loose ends and doesn't give your remaining friends closure. While I know most of your friends and family are spiritual aware the few that aren't deserve that much," This was surprisingly Yoruichi talking, she was just as involved with this as Isshin and Kisuke.
"As for controlling yourself, that's where these two come in." Kisuke picked up from her, gesturing to the bored looking Arrancars.
"We will be taking you back with us to Heuco Mundo, there we will force your Hollow to come to the surface. From there it will be your job to subdue it. By going to the land of Hollows we reduce the risk of a human getting hurt in the cross fire." Grimmjow spoke with a fire in his eyes, looking forward to seeing what the orange haired male was capable of with the pedigree he had.
"How exactly do you plan to bring him out?" Ichigo asked suspiciously, not trusting the feline Arrancar one bit.
"Why we take turns fighting you until all that's left is pure Hollow instinct." He explained as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
When Ichigo's head impacted the table with a solid thud, no one was real surprised, "Is there anything else I need to know?" He mumbled against the solid surface.
"Only that once you have successfully conquered your Hollow, the Soul Society wants you training with them to develop your Shinigami side. They might not know the whole story, but they know you have two sides to your soul. To reach your pinnacle of power you need to train both." Yoruichi advised.
"My life is over," He grumbled, in total mental overload.
"I think you're wrong," Kisuke disagreed, "Your true life is just beginning."
- 1
- 2
- 3
You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.You need to be logged in to leave a review for this story.
Report Story

Comatose