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Inconceivable	By : wolfkin59 Category: Bleach > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 1392 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach, and I don't make money from this.

Chapter List
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Title: Inconceivable
Author: Cuzosu
Rating: Eventually M, but this chapter's not too bad. Mostly. Language, though.
A/N: Based off of black.k.kat's "Incalculable" and can be read as a side version or an extended story, but I might mess with the timelines a little bit.
::blah:: means mind to mind speech/telepathy
blah as a full sentence means thought.
Otherwise, italics are just emphasis.
Hope you enjoy!

Inconceivable:
Chapter One
Urahara Kisuke can't remember the last time he slept on a real bed; he's been on the road for so many years that he's almost forgotten what a bed is. At one time he used to have a home, and he even remembers his old shop. But that's in the past now, and as fond as he is of his friends and the children, there are two things he has to do.
He has to find as many surviving dragons as he can, and he has to return to his lover, his dragon, and his lover's dragon.
Kisuke knows if his friend Isshin was still alive, the man would kill him for being intimate with his son. And really, Kisuke knows he deserves it. But Kurosaki Ichigo has an inner fire that lures him in, and the blond man hasn't the will to resist.
Being away from that enticing fire, that intensity that has drawn him in from the start, is not something Urahara Kisuke wants. But for the dragons and for his own and his lover's future, he will deal with the younger man's absence.
Which is why he's riding a horse instead of his dragon - he always thinks of Benihime as his dragon, though really it might be better said that he is her human - he will do anything, anything at all, for the dragons and his lover alone.
Blond hair waves in the wind as he nods to another person who is riding with the caravan. He doesn't trust anyone here, but he knows he can fool them, can act as if he is nothing more than a naive, eccentric fool, so he doesn't worry.
Everyone here sees him as harmless, and the night that bandits attack the camp, Kisuke casts the spells Benihime taught him to and sends the caravan people to sleep. He isn't worried, doesn't need to be. All of his life, he's been using magic instinctively, protectively, and the only reason he knows now is because Benihime taught him how to cast a few spells on purpose before he left. Really, mere bandits are nothing. Not a threat, not even worth killing, but he'll knock them out and tie them up, and maybe leave a note explaining things before he goes. Maybe.
Can't stay with the caravan once he's cast magic, and for a moment he almost regrets that. But he has too many secrets that aren't his alone, and he won't risk the others so he can't stay. He has to go, and he will, and just as soon as he's finished moving and tying up the bandits, he does. Magic leaves traces, and if he remains with the caravan he will be found by those who brought about the downfall of the Dragon Lords in the first place. So he saddles his horse and gathers some supplies just in case, and he goes.
Leaving in the dark of night, without most of the pay he was promised, Kisuke feels as if he's skulking about, and the thought makes him smile. It reminds him of Yoruichi, and isn't that nostalgic? Once he's found more dragons and rejoined his lover, they'll have to go visit everyone at the shop.
As he rides off into the woods, enjoying the irony that his penchant for instinctive magic means he never has to worry about disguises or hiding his face, Urahara wonders that Ichigo chose him for a lover. Contrary to his idiot act, Kisuke is a genius, the kind of man who invents fifteen things in one night and shows them off at breakfast because of a comment made the night before. But for all his intelligence, Urahara Kisuke doesn't understand what exactly drew the younger man to him, and so sometimes he worries that Ichigo will find someone else, someone new...someone younger.
It's a depressing thought and he tells himself not to worry, the dragons have seen them together in the future, but what if the dragons aren't telling him something? What if, after the dragons have returned to their rightful place, Ichigo leaves him? The dragons wouldn't care about it at that point, if they'd already gotten what they wanted, right?
Part of him knows better, knows that Benihime wouldn't lie to him and that she is the one who pulls details from the oracle's mind so they can act on things now instead of respond to events later, but Kisuke is a man with a brilliant mind and too much idle time, and his mind is analyzing and picking apart everything it can. Hopefully he can stay sane as he goes dragon-finding...

It's already been six months since he left his lover, and the separation is hell. Kisuke is perverted and sneaky, with a tendency to hide his emotions behind facades of carelessness or humor, and without Ichigo to call him on his bullshit and make him unwind...this is a lonely trip.
He says a faux cheerful goodbye to the caravan people as he watches them ride away, knowing they wonder if he is a treasure hunter or one of those people who likes finding relics of lost ages. Kisuke hides a knowing smile behind his fan and lowers his head until his hat shades his eyes. Dragons could be called relics of a lost age, he supposes, but since they're going to make a comeback he doesn't consider himself a relic hunter, and treasure doesn't have a mind of its own, so that one's out too.
When the caravan has wound its way out of sight, Kisuke turns his reluctant horse and sends her up the poorly maintained road. Is it insane to be eager to meet creatures that could kill him with almost no effort? Because he wants to meet more dragons, wants to help them and reunite them and save them. He wouldn't even mind babysitting for them.
Urahara doesn't pay attention to the time, just keeps an eye on his surroundings and watches his horse to make sure he won't have to go the rest of the way on foot. He finds the first keep by following a dirt road that's so overgrown no cart would get through. Settling the horse in doesn't take long, but he knows searching the keep and its caverns will take days. But first things first, he has to find a room to sleep in, somewhere to stash his supplies and tack.

Urahara Kisuke has searched through seventeen small keeps in the mountains so far, and hasn't seen a sign of dragons yet. It would be disheartening except for the fact that the more he searches, the closer he gets to finding them. Which is why he's here, at a keep that's not on any map. He has seen it before, very faintly, from the tallest tower still standing at the previous keep, and something inside him has whispered, This is it. That's the place where dragons are.
He stables his horse and rubs her down, knowing she'll spook if she meets dragons herself. So he allows her the run of a paddock that still has decent fences and goes exploring.
Compared to the other keeps he's seen, this castle is in decent condition. It's not crumbling, which is always a plus, and it still has most of its walls, even if some of them have scorch marks from the battle. (And if that sight makes Kisuke's blood boil at the thought of someone trying to kill the dragons he loves so much, well, only one other human knows about his feelings.)
It doesn't take long to find a suitable room and stash the tack, and Kisuke goes dragon-searching with two of his packs slung over one shoulder. He dislikes being unprepared; in one pack is clothing, bandages, and rope. In the second pack is dried food, a pot, a skillet, flasks of water, and the rest of his first aid kit. Urahara doesn't need tinder to start a fire any more; Benihime taught him fire spells before he left, and they're good ones. They're the spells dragons use for long distance demolition and destruction, except for the small one their riders use for starting camp fires.
The first place he checks is what would have been the dragons' weyrs when the Dragon Lords were still around - he chuckles at the thought, because technically there are Dragon Lords again, but it's a lonely notion, being one of two Dragon Lords and in hiding. He finds nothing, but he wasn't expecting to, not when that had to have been one of the places laid to waste by those damned invaders -
Unable to bear the thought of humans slaughtering helpless nesting dragons and breaking open eggs to murder the young before they, too, become a threat, Kisuke's scruffy blond head shakes.
He visits the training arenas next, still not expecting any discoveries. And he's right, there is nothing. So Kisuke turns his attention to the castle roof, thinking that either he may get lucky and see dragons from the heights or at least another place to look.
Finding a way onto the roof proves problematic. It's not that he's looking in the wrong places, it's that whoever the architect was really didn't want people getting on the roof without permission, because the final staircase is hell to discover. Hand raised to scratch at blond hair in mild confusion, Urahara pauses in the throne room to take another look around.
Bland is the first word that comes to mind. The throne room is bland. Kisuke would like it much better if it had a splash of color here and there, say, some green, perhaps? Maybe red, or orange... No! This is a horrible time to be thinking of Ichigo! Taking a deep breath, Urahara pushes thoughts of his lover aside and concentrates on his task.
Right. So, if a throne room is bland, it's probably hiding something. Something like a staircase? But who would hide a staircase in plain sight?
Someone who doesn't want it found, someone who knows it will be overlooked.
Well, that makes sense.
So gray-green eyes take another look around, and notice... There are corners that don't look right on either side of the doors used by supplicants and visiting dignitaries. Something about the chairs seems off, all throughout the room. The roof is very well supported. Too well supported? As in may-have-been-built-for-dragons kind of sturdy support arches and beams?
A delighted smile dawns on that sneaky face, and Kisuke isn't sure whether his lover would smile with him or get annoyed and smack him for not immediately stating his thoughts to the younger man. (But that's just part of the fun that comes of being with Ichigo; so little surprises him any more, whereas the orange-haired, fiery man has a knack for it.)
After a few mistakes, Urahara finds a passageway hidden behind the remains of a once-heavy tapestry. The tapestry is too faded for him to make out the scene woven in thread, and the passage entrance is really more of a window, complete with glass that had at one point been deliberately colored to look like stone. In the dim interior of the passage, it looks too flat to be stone, and has fallen out of place, instead leaning against wood a short distance further in.
Untying a torch from his belt, he lights it with a minor fire spell and sighs. "Crawling through ruins... The things I do for dragons." And he enters the passageway.
It is a long, twisting thing, and probably winds its way through walls and under floors, but eventually it does indeed emerge just where he wants to go. The door at the end has been warped by weather, lodging itself solidly against stone. Standing well back, Urahara softly invokes one of the long distance demolition spells Benihime has taught him and watches the door erupt with flames.
Stepping through the doorway right after the flames die down is probably not the brightest idea Kisuke's ever had. He immediately finds himself knocked sideways and pinned to the nearest wall by something that, from the feel of things, is quite a bit bigger than he is.
His first thought is, Oh, shit. The second is, Here be dragons! Really, considering he's pinned to the wall by a creature so many times larger and harder to hurt than he is, his enthusiasm would confound anyone else. And it does, if only because of the gleeful grin on Kisuke's face.
The dragon pulls away from Urahara with a baffled snort and the smell of heated stone and ash. ::Explain yourself, human!:: it snarls in his mind. Upon not-so-close inspection, the dragon looks to be colored like a cream-and-gray tiger striped cat...and is female. Something in the way she bristles gives her away.
Kisuke grins and tilts his head slightly, gray-green eyes dancing with triumph and laughter. "Senbonzakura was right, I did find you! Ah, but I have to arrange a rendezvous with you before I can rejoin my Ichi, my hime, and Zangetsu, though..." His voice trails off with a sad tone, a downcast look on his face. Then he glances up at the dragon still glaring intently at him, and his eyes are innocent and playful at the same time. "So, interested in meeting more of your kind?" They aren't speaking aloud... Are they wary of people, too? Or do they just not see the point in spoken words?
Wings flaring and flexing with ire, the female snarls at him and whips claws around to strike, but another dragon - a larger one - gets in her way. This one is male, with scales like ice and the coldest aura Urahara's seen in a long time.
::No, Haineko.::
::But Elder - ::
::No, I said. He knows a name he shouldn't, and I want to know why.::
Gray-green eyes blink. I know a name I shouldn't? ...the only name I actually mentioned was...oh. They probably think he's dead, hm?
::Human, who are you, how do you know of Zangetsu, and why do you speak as if he's still alive?:: rumbles the male. He makes an imposing figure, but Urahara has never been particularly daunted by anything except perhaps Ichigo, and he doesn't intend to start getting scared now.
"Urahara Kisuke, at your service," he smiles, bowing. "Didn't you know? Zangetsu's still alive; currently - "
::You lie!:: comes the low, furious growl. ::His rider died, I saw it! Zangetsu would never have chosen to live on after such loss!::
One ash blond eyebrow rises. "It's rude to interrupt, you know," he chides the dragon, as if there is no doubt he'll survive the encounter, come out whole and sane. (Or at least as sane as he ever is.) Fanning himself lazily, he says, "But I suppose you won't listen until I tell you why he's still alive, hm... Well, that's Senbonzakura's fault. He's an oracle, you see, and he saw that the Dragon Lords would not win the next war if Zangetsu died. So he badgered and bullied poor Zangetsu until he agreed to live on."
The ice dragon ponders these words for a time, and then rasps a quiet query. ::Why would Zangetsu's survival be key to winning the next war? And for that matter, what war?::
Gray-green eyes gleam merry death for future enemies. "The war to retake dragon-kind's homeland, of course! And his survival is key because, according to Senbonzakura, Zangetsu and Ichigo - his rider - are supposed to act as a leash, of sorts. Well, my hime probably needs one, I think, but usually it's me who keeps Ichigo calm so him being my leash doesn't make much sense to me. Still, Senbonzakura is the oracle, so I guess I can wait and see. Might be fun to be the one needing leashed sometime." He shrugs with an air of I-don't-know-anything, but neither dragon falls for it.
::...your hime?:: a voice asks after a short pause to assimilate information.
A broad grin spreads on Kisuke's face behind that damnable fan. "My dear Benihime. Only mind I've ever found as conniving as mine." He chuckles, smirking. She's every bit as bad as he is, maybe worse.
Cold blue eyes all but bore holes in the former shopkeeper. ::Benihime. You ride the bloodthirsty Crimson Princess?:: That she-dragon has a reputation, and it's not good. Hyorinmaru knows her of old. ::The same Benihime who fought riderless in the last war because she hadn't found a human she deemed worthy?:: Inwardly, he thinks, If he's her rider, he's probably as manipulative as she is. Unflattering, but Benihime is an experience in her own strange way, and the big male is wary of this human standing before him so fearlessly because of it. Truthfully, he isn't sure if the human is a danger to dragons or to humans, and the man is proving to be as unreadable as the dragon who has claimed him. ::So she survived. When she left that last field of battle, she was so badly wounded it didn't seem likely she'd live.::
Under the hat, one blond eyebrow rises. "Mm, well, she was hurt pretty badly, but the wounds healed fine. Her real problem was poison. Buuuuut I was climbing around near the lair she'd made one day, she sensed me, and she cast a spell that brought me to her. Surprised me some, but when she described the symptoms to me it wasn't difficult to mix up an antidote for her." One hand reaches up and adjusts the hat as he looks the ice dragon in the eyes. "Ichigo came looking for me - he's young yet, for a mage-born human, and his hair is orange, so you'll probably recognize him when you see him - and tripped over Zangetsu's tail on the way down." He laughs softly behind the fan. "Zangetsu caught him before he did himself harm, Hime decided she liked having someone who knew how to make antidotes on hand, and...somehow it all has gone according to Senbonzakura's predictions so far."
Hyorinmaru is silent for a time, digesting the information. He isn't sure what to think of Zangetsu living to have another rider; typically dragons only allow one person to ride them, ever. But maybe that's part of why they were so overwhelmed in the last war?
Finally he says, ::Urahara, was it?::
Kisuke nods. Gray-green eyes darken as seriousness dawns on the blond man. For a human so frivolous, he seems to use his somber mien as a coat, as something to put on and take off.
::I am not sure yet if I trust you.::
Crestfallen, Urahara asks, "How long is it going to take? I want my Ichi!" And he pouts for good measure. Can't I get a break, here? I've been on the road for a year already, just searching for kin of friends, and I can't even get them to arrange a rendezvous when I do find them? ...fine, how can I turn this to my advantage...? Kisuke is not a genius for nothing; if anyone can get the dragons to set up a meeting in the current climate of distrust, he will do it. It amuses him that Ichigo would probably get mad and swear and call them names as he raged on behalf of their dragon friends.
Humans look ugly when they stick their lower lips out, thinks the ice dragon. ::Why don't you go find the dragons you know, then, and bring them all here?::
Sharp gray-green eyes flick an assessing glance in Hyorinmaru's direction. "You have room for twelve more dragons?"
Mildly, the old male tells him, ::If you really are Benihime's rider, if Zangetsu really is alive, we will find room somewhere.::
Somehow Kisuke thinks this is not quite the answer Senbonzakura was hoping for, but seeing Ichigo again is too tempting to pass up. And perhaps it is petty of him, but as he nods his acceptance and turns to go, he says over his shoulder, "Summer thunder, dragon cries, Dragon Lords make war with lies."
The looks of consternation that greet his words make speaking worthwhile, and he smirks to himself as he takes his leave. No one but a Dragon Lord has ever said those words; they're in the pledge that binds dragon and rider, as sacred as the first flight. Let them chew on that while I'm away.
As the blonde walks back into the castle and makes his way to his horse and the rest of his belongings, Hyorinmaru can't help but think, That human's an ass. He probably is Benihime's rider; he's so much like her.
This is not the most flattering thought, when the dragon and rider he thinks on are two of four prophesied as saviors of dragon-kind. But who has ever said heroes and princesses can't be manipulative bitches and bastards?

Blood-red and black scales gleam as the battle-hungry female dragon raises her head. Eyes the same gray-green of her bonded rider's turn in Ichigo's direction. ::He comes,:: she tells him, mind to mind. The seaside caves are too close to too many humans for any of the dragons to speak aloud here, and none of them want to be discovered. ::Kisuke has found others, and returns to us. He will show us prime caves to raise young in, where no human who is not one of ours will ever find us.:: Her giant head tilts as she huffs smug amusement. ::See,:: she tells the other dragons, ::this is why I would not take a rider before Kisuke; his odd behaviors are merely distractions so his true purposes go unnoticed and humans think him harmless. How many other humans do that, especially to such an extent, and are still loyal and worthy of becoming Dragon Lords?::
It's Zangetsu who snorts softly and says what no other dragon present will dare to. ::You sound jealous, Benihime. Mad that you can't appear harmless as well?::
She snakes her head in his direction, careful of the orange-haired human sitting next to Zangetsu. ::Actually, I've been thinking about that... I think I've found a way to make myself take the shape of something more harmless, and it should be easily dispelled. When Kisuke gets here, I'll get his opinion, and if he agrees then we'll try it.::
Silence seems to echo in the cave. There is no need to state that Kisuke is a brilliant inventor and can account for damn near anything even if his methods are strange and unorthodox. It makes Ichigo proud of his lover, though his heart hurts due to the prolonged separation.
Sensing his mood, Benihime turns her great head to him and nuzzles him gently. ::Don't worry, youngling. He is mage-born, canny enough to outwit any but me, and has already started his journey back to us. Kisuke won't let mere humans stop him, and the other dragons have sent him to fetch us.::
The other dragons stir restlessly, anxious to be among long-lost kin.
Orange hair looking like flames in the sunset light, Ichigo finally falls asleep, cradled between dragons of blood-edged black and silver-edged black. His last thought before dreams sweep him under is, The only thing missing is Kisuke...
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Inconceivable