#Shiba Kaien

[stormsthatrage]

Have a Bleach extended-winter-war time-travel-fix-it idea. In this AU Kaien's death happened before the whole turn-back-the-pendulum arc. (Yes, another Bleach time-travel AU, I know, shut up.)

As Ichigo and Kisuke are planning to go back to the past, Kisuke makes sure to emphasize to Ichigo that they have to protect Shiba Kaien. Apparently, it's of the utmost importance.

Ichigo doesn't know exactly how Kaien's continued well-being plays into saving the future. Kisuke never really explains it, or gives him a straight answer when he asks. But Ichigo knows that the Shiba Clan-Head carried a great deal of political power, and Ichigo also knows that Kaien -- according to Kukaku and Rukia -- was highly competent, incredibly noble, and fundamentally kind. It's not exactly unintuitive that a person like that could be important to bringing down Aizen.

So Ichigo listens, when Kisuke tells him to protect Shiba Kaien. He memorizes how Kaien died in the original timeline. He's attentive as Kisuke reiterates for the thousandth time that Aizen will keep trying to assassinate Kaien until he succeeds. He takes notes when Kisuke hypothesizes about what Aizen's various assassination attempts might look like -- poison during a meal, hired assassins at night, an ambush during a mission.

Ichigo ingrains the assignment into his core: protect Shiba Kaien, because if Kaien falls, the mission fails.

So when Kisuke slips a paralytic into Ichigo's tea and places Ichigo in the middle of the time-travel kido array and drains the entirety of his own spiritual energy to activate the array, a sacrifice that Ichigo never would have agreed to--

Well. The first thing Ichigo does when he arrives back in the past, numb and alone and only able to function by focusing on the duty that is his purpose -- is track down Shiba Kaien.

After all, if Ichigo is going to kill Aizen -- and he is, no matter what it takes -- he needs to keep Kaien alive.

Ichigo goes straight to the Shiba family grounds. In true Shiba fashion, they accept him immediately as family. They tend to his wounds and give him a meal and welcome him home. They let him get away with his weak excuses and explanations, and they defend his presence to the rest of Soul Society.

Kaien, in accordance with everything Ichigo has heard about the man, personally takes the newest addition to the family under his wing.

Ichigo's plans to deal with Aizen take shape around his need to keep an eye on Kaien.

Ichigo, instead of running as far and fast as he can from the Shiba clan, accepts the offer to live in the Shiba compound. He gets to know every clan member and retainer, subtly vetting for traitors. He sleeps in a room near Kaien's, allowing him to both guard against assassins at night and place warding runes around Kaien's door without having to worry about being caught somewhere he has no business being.

He joins the Court Guard in the 13th division instead of the 5th, because the only real way to protect Kaien on a mission is to be there with him. Ichigo knows that if there's an ambush, or if the mission details have been tampered with, he'll be more than enough fire power to get Kaien out of it. And it's easy to always get paired with Kaien; Kaien -- reliably taking every opportunity to hover around Ichigo that he's offered -- does most of the work, leveraging his status as lieutenant and Ichigo's combat ability to keep them together.

Ichigo finds himself frequently taking meals with Kaien and Kaien's friends. Kaien always invites Ichigo, and Ichigo accepts so he can subtly check the food for poison.

(Ichigo does not tell Kaien about Aizen. Ichigo is still unsure what Kaien's role is in the whole fight, and in the meantime, telling him about Aizen is a sure way to get him killed.)

Things heat up. Ichigo prevents both Miyako and Kaien's death, killing Metastacia before it can hurt anyone. Ichigo's shadow war against Aizen gets more intense. Ichigo sneaks out regularly to dismantle Aizen's illusions, destroy his labs, and attack his network of power, slowly weakening him.

Ichigo waits for the assassination attempts against Kaien, but they don't come, even several weeks after Metastacia fails. Ichigo takes it as a sign that he's got Aizen distracted.

Things continue for a while. Ichigo falls into a strange routine.

(And Ichigo tries not to break, seeing so many of his loved ones alive and unknowing of him. It is agony, to be around Shunsui, who is not his mentor, and the Visored, who are neither visored nor pack.

But the worst is when Captains Urahara and Shihouin catch on to his war against Aizen. He finds himself working with them as allies.

Allies. Mere allies, instead of --

Well. Not that it matters anymore.

All that matters is his duty.)

Time passes. Aizen weakens. There are no attempts on Kaien's life yet.

And then Aizen's web has unraveled enough for Ichigo to attack.

It's a long battle. It's a bloody battle. It's a very public battle.

Ichigo wins.

And it's only after it's all over -- after Aizen's crimes are revealed and Soul Society is at peace and the future is saved; after Ichigo finds himself still alive and adrift, with nothing left obligating him to keep going and everything telling him to give up; as Kaien refuses to leave Ichigo alone and escorts him to regular appointments with Unohana and forces him to talk about the truth of his past --

It's only then that it clicks.

Ichigo is whispering secrets about the future into Kaien's chest, Kaien's arms wrapped tight around him, when Ichigo confesses that he messed up, that he put the Shiba clan in unnecessary danger. Ichigo tells Kaien about his death in the original timeline. He talks about how Kisuke told him that in this timeline, Aizen would try and kill Kaien again if the first attempt failed. Ichigo promises desperately that he never would have sought out the family -- would have kept the danger far, far away from them -- if he hadn't thought he had to watch Kaien's movements so closely.

And Ichigo admits that Aizen never actually tried again. Ichigo admits that he and Kisuke miscalculated, that Ichigo brought danger to the Shiba's doorstep for nothing.

It happens like this:

First, the words leave his lips, "Kisuke" and "miscalculated" in the same sentence. Hearing himself say it lays bare the absurdity of its premise.

Then, Kaien draws away slightly, to look Ichigo in the eyes. Ichigo sees, plain on Kaien's face, a terrible, damning gratefulness.

Then, Kaien says -- fierce and defiant in the face of what could have been -- "I am so glad you came home."

And it clicks. At last, Kisuke's final manipulation reveals itself to Ichigo's eyes.

The emotions flash through him: the sting of betrayal; a flavor of love that bursts across his tastebuds as hurt; a familiar brand of exasperation that, a split second later, has his knees giving out under the weight of old pain made fresh.

Kaien catches Ichigo before he hits the ground and holds him as he shatters. And Ichigo can barely breathe through the knowledge that Kisuke would have been so smug to see them.

A sob rips itself from Ichigo's chest, and it's followed by another, and another.

Ichigo's older cousin holds him, in the home of their family, through it all.

_________

THE END except not really.

This must immediately be followed by a whole arc where Kaien, much to his own dismay, finds himself trying to hook Urahara up with his little cousin.

After all, Future-Urahara sent Ichigo to the Shiba clan. Future-Urahara tricked his little cousin into bypassing his own self-destructive tendencies to seek out family and love and support. Clearly, Urahara would actually be good for Ichigo.

And, you know, Ichigo clearly loves Younger-Urahara, judging by Ichigo's whole... well, everything, whenever the two interact.

(This whole matchmaking endeavor is made easier by the fact that 1) Kisuke is already infatuated, fascinated, and not a tiny-bit madly in love, and 2) Yoruichi is also, from the other end, trying to set Kisuke up with Ichigo.

This whole endeavor is made more difficult by the fact that 1) Ichigo is in denial that he loves this younger Kisuke since he never thought this younger Kisuke could also fall in love with him, 2) Kisuke is in denial that he loves Ichigo because that is a Shiba and he himself is a creepy low-born ex-assassin mad-scientist, and 3) neither Ichigo nor Kisuke know what it looks like when someone is interested in them.)

Poor Kaien. He succeeds eventually, but not before witnessing truly legendary social ineptitude.

[handsome-kakigori]

“His Eyes”

It’s finally our team’s time to post for the @ichirukicollab 👀✨

Lines (left) by me, colors (right) by @maisonnicolette

Fic by @/childestation (twt)

Betad by @/theyoungfan0 (twt)

Fic link: His Eyes

[evilkitten3]

bleach lieutenants in this (edited sorry) meme by @half-filled-sketchbook (no clue if you're still using that url or how old this is, i just kinda stumbled into it)

not taking arguments at this moment and apologies for all the lieutenants that couldn't fit in here

[littleeyesofpallas]

ya know for a hot second i thought i had a solid rant i could go on about these guys and their overlapping motifs and the presence of this weird theme of "reversal" that Kubo seemed to keep comign back to as if he really had something to say, but kept fumbling it... and then just kinda ended the series without ever actually finishing whatever the fuck it was he'd seemed so dead set on starting...

but after distracting myself with clipping out images i feel like i've lost the thread, so i guess just have this dopey venn diagram, and some other random bits, and i'll just kind of vaguely gesture at those instead of putting my thoughts into words ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[o0o0thorn0o0o]

First post of June; R.I.P. me.

Ok, so that combo of the color palette with the doodle style? I might sorta kinda just maybe be a tiiiiiiny bit obsessed with it. Just low-key, y’know? Haha, but yeah, I’ve since expanded it, as you can see, to include more colors.

I really do like this palette, like a lot, and it’s been making Orgo/Lab slightly less of a drag. Do expect more of it. It’s really fun to play with, and it makes me wanna draw a lot of characters. I should probably post now, though, haha.

Ah, for the last one—Uryuu’s a pediatrician, yeah? Thought it’d be a cute idea if he was also Kazui’s ^^

Now… onto tagging… :,)

[bleachbleachbleach]

[Bleach 094]

I honestly forgot that Rukia had, to this point, spent nearly two weeks thinking that Byakuya had destroyed Ichigo's spiritual powers, effectively obliterating the previous way he'd existed in the world and his link to the ghosts he's shared the world with all his life!!!!!!

Which would means there would never be a Grand Fisher revenge/redemption plot for him (cue thoughts of Kaien); but also-- I feel like Rukia must know who Isshin has to be (even if she doesn't know him personally). Knowing this, surely the result is that Rukia can think about what went down with Ichigo and understand herself to have also shattered something profoundly familial (cue thoughts of Shiba Kaien). And, dear god, how many times can she do that to one family? Why is her whole life so dead-set against theirs?? (Cue long trauma flashbacks about Shiba Kaien while she sits in her prison cell.)

THE LAYERS. THE WARP AND WEFT. I'm thriving and I'm dying

[bleachtitlepages]

[sunflowersandcherryblossoms]

I loved this explanation of what happens to a Shinigami after they died.

It made sense.

The more powerful, the more the Soul Society could we grow and evolve, creating better conditions for the souls residing in it.

And then Tite Kubo proceeded to forget whay he'd already written and made up that crap about the Captain level Shinigami going to Hell...

[makirinawa]

君を思い出す夏の色が消えない // The colors of summer that remind me of you won't disappear

ただ、透明ーユノギシロfeat.yin

[alexiethymia]

piercing through the heart

In a manga chock-full of swords, it would make sense that in combination with the theme of ‘the heart’, one of the most visceral images in Bleach is that of one character piercing another with their sword, and not just in any place either, but through the chest, or where the heart physically is. 

You have the iconic scene of Rukia piercing Ichigo through the chest which kickstarts Bleach in the first place, but also the Gotei 13, with Rukia as representative, giving him his powers back by piercing a sword through his back in the Fullbring Arc. 

And you also have scenes, where most often it’s one character admiring or both in admiration  (‘akogare’, if I can use the term) of another being pierced and/or doing the piercing, whether unintentionally or not. 

You have Rukia and Kaien

Gin and Rangiku (ok this may be cheating since we don’t actually see him stab her)

Hinamori (my beloved)

and Unohana and Kenpachi

If I was a better writer, I could articulate the symbolism better, but I guess it has a lot to do with how shinigami live side-by-side with death, the violence interspersed with deep emotion. For moments like these where violence couldn’t be helped or was instigated, it couldn’t be impersonal at all. It had to be the exact opposite of impersonal, whether to convey something or to cause the maximum amount of pain. 

I love the headcanon that Unohana Yachiru despite being one of the most powerful shinigami ever, and the Gotei 13′s healer never chooses to heal herself of the scar given to her. Whether as a reminder, or because even if she did want to, it was a scar that could never be physically healed because  of the imprint behind the act. 

[ukitakejuushiro]

MOST especially the first one 🥲

[irlkisukeurahara]

This came to me in a fever dream

Live footage of Kaien Shiba's babysitting gig

[tachipaws]

you don't know real pain until you've looked into the eyes of someone you love and they look away.

RUKIA WEEK 2023 ↳Day 2: Everyone's First Love

[ramblingkat]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Bleach (Anime & Manga) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Kurosaki Ichigo/Urahara Kisuke Characters: Kurosaki Ichigo, Shihouin Yoruichi, Shiba Kaien, Urahara Kisuke Additional Tags: UraIchi Week 2023, arranged marraige, based off art, All sorts of non-human aspects, Fantasy AU, Blame the UraIchi Discord, Blame the Rat Pit Series: Part 18 of UraIchi Week 2023 Summary:

Ichigo gets to meet his husband to be. He's curious what sort of person the Shihoin picked out.

[sekainofantasy90]

家族 • Familia • Family ❤️

手数料 • Comisión • Commission

Request: https://linktr.ee/Sekainofantasy

Illustration by https://linktr.ee/lenacringe ❤️🥰

Concept: Art Book Yose Atsume / Bleach Calender art etc.

Please do not repost without permission.

[bleachpolls]

Sibling Smackdown Round 1