#aside from possibly refuse to scatter rose petals for kyouraku during his fight with chad

[recurring-polynya]

~ This is the last TBTP What If? I send you, I swear: Option a) What if Ginrei had been sent in place of Love? Option b) What if Sojun had been sent in place of Lisa? Option c) What if both?

I have stated before that I am just “no thoughts, head empty” when it comes to the Vizard, generally. Like, I like them just fine, I just don’t have anything interesting to say about them.

On the other hand, I have always wanted to write a Soujun story and I’ve never come up with a good hook. The thing I like about option b is that, because Soujun canonically died not super long after the TBTP arc, from Soul Society’s POV, this possibility would be pretty much exactly as in canon up until basically the Fake Karakura Town arc.

Well. Unless the most face-blind teen in Karakura manages to put two and two together.

Did Polynya stay between 500 and 1000 words?: 3049. I will be in the dumpster if you need me.

| ao3 | ff.net |

🌙      ☕     🥧

“Renji! Hey! Renji!”

The lump of blankets groaned and shifted slightly.

Ichigo looked around for something to poke him with, but Renji was bunking in Urahara’s storage room, and Ichigo really didn't want to touch anything. There was Zabimaru, but it seemed deeply disrespectful to prod a man with his own zanpakutou. He resorted to nudging what he guessed was Renji’s shoulder with his foot.

“Renji, it’s only 9pm. Why are you asleep already? Are you someone’s grandpa?”

The tip of Renji’s nose emerged from the blankets. “Train hard, sleep hard. I did Hikotsu Taihou twelve times today. Leave me alo--Ichigo?” The a pair of squinty eyes joined the nose. “‘Zat you? Where you been, man?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Ichigo replied. “Where’s Rukia? She wasn’t at my house.”

Renji started to retreat back under his covers. “‘Where’s Rukia?’ ‘Renji, I can’t find Rukia.’ Is that all the good I am to you? What makes you think I even know where Rukia is?”

“Do you know where Rukia is?”

“Well, yes, she took Inoue back to Soul Society.”

Ichigo felt like a bucket of cold water had been dumped on his head. Inoue had left the entire plane, and he’d been so busy training, he hadn’t even noticed. His stomach knotted. His training was important, and obviously, Inoue was in good hands, but still... “For…for Inoue’s protection?” he stammered, immediately hoping that Renji wasn’t awake enough to notice how pathetic he sounded.

Renji was too busy yawning, his already long face stretching out to comic proportions. “Naw,” he said, when he had gotten his jaw back where it belonged. “They went so her and Rukia could punch each other in the face. There aren’t that many safe training areas here in Karakura, and Chad and I are already using the training buttes.”

“I honestly cannot tell if you’re kidding or not, but I am going to take you at your word that Rukia is not available.” Ichigo took a deep breath and hoped against hope that Renji didn’t sleep in the nude. He reached down and, in a move his old man would have been proud of, whipped off Renji’s blanket and hurled it across the room. “Get up. You’ll have to do, instead.”

---

Ten minutes later, the two of them set out into the night. Renji was scowling, his hands shoved deep in the pockets of his leather jacket.

Ichigo jerked his chin at the big grump. “I can’t believe you sleep with your hair in a braid.”

“You can fuck right off, it prevents breakage and locks in moisture. You gonna tell me where we’re going, now?”

“The all-night coffee shop down the street.” Ichigo sucked his teeth. “Say, Renji… you know how sometimes you’re a pretty chill dude who does what he knows what’s right in his heart, and other times, you’re a huge, bull-headed shill for the Gotei?”

Renji’s eyebrows furrowed with suspicion. “Yeah, what of it?”

“This is one of those times I need you to be the first one. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“You know I can’t make promises like that.”

“Dude, you’re staying with a guy who was banished from Soul Society for unforgivable crimes.”

“Believe me, no one hates that fact more than me. Besides, the higher-ups know about him, they’re just pretending they don’t.”

“I’m only bringing you because Rukia isn’t available. I tell you, Rukia would be copacetic with this.”

“Rukia doesn’t have to write official mission reports and then give them to her brother to sign.”

“I’m almost positive that Byakuya would let this slide, too.”

Renji stopped dead in his stride. “Who are we going to see, Ichigo?”

“You’ll see,” Ichigo replied, as he closed his eyes and kept walking.

“No promises!”

Ichigo knew Renji well enough though, to recognize that he had what he needed in that shouty defensiveness. Rukia sometimes insisted on extracting ceremonial promises from the man, and Ichigo often wondered if she realized how unnecessary it was. “I’m just trusting you to be a bro, then.”

There was a heavy sigh, and then some heavier footsteps as Renji trotted to catch up again.

The coffee shop was painfully dated, and not in a cool retro way. Isshin hung out there occasionally, for the purposes of checking in with some of his older patients who didn’t always come by the clinic when something was bothering them. The seats were big banquettes covered in old, cracked red vinyl. The smell of coffee only took the edge off the cloying undertone of cigarette smoke.

Ichigo had a flash of misgiving at having left a person from Soul Society out of his sight for an entire fifteen minutes, even though, strictly speaking, he was the one who wasn’t supposed to leave the Vizards’ warehouse hideout without a chaperone. Fortunately, the chaperone in question was exactly where Ichigo had left him, although he had since obtained a cup of coffee and a large slice of sweet potato pie.

“You’re back!” he said cheerfully as Ichigo and Renji slid into the seat across from him.

“So…” Ichigo said slowly. “The person I wanted you to meet wasn’t available. This guy’ll have to do.” He jerked his head to the left. “This is Renji. He’s Byakuya’s vice-captain.” Ichigo paused. “Renji, this is Soujun. He’s one of the people I’m training with. He’s… um…well…”

A strangled choking noise was coming out of Renji. “You’re…you’re Kuchiki Soujun. You disappeared a hundred years ago.”

“How did you know?” Ichigo asked, surprised. Soujun looked mildly embarrassed, his cheeks coloring slightly.

“Dumbass, look at him! All Kuchiki look like that!” Renji’s face suddenly paled. “Ichigo, you know he’s not just…any…Kuchiki, right?”

“Well, yeah, ‘cause he told me.” Ichigo hadn’t actually expected Renji to know Byakuya’s dad by name, but on the other hand, he’d always been of the impression that Renji slept with a huge scrapbook of Byakuya’s stat sheets and press-clippings under his pillow. Furthermore, out of all the Vizard, Soujun was by far the most normal looking, with his floppy haircut and his math teacher sweaters and his wire-rimmed glasses. He looked like a neighbor you’d see buying bok choy at the supermarket or waving to you on the way home from school as he pruned his boxwoods. Ichigo had seen swap between that snarling samurai-faceplate of a mask away and his doe-eyed, kindly dad-face a dozen times already, and he still had trouble believing that a Hollow lurked beneath the surface of Soujun’s soul.

“Hello there, gentlemen.” An elderly waitress with a nasally voice greeted them. “Can I get you anything?”

“Coffee,” Ichigo replied.

“Coffee,” Renji seconded.

“Since when do you drink coffee?” Ichigo demanded.

“Chad turned me onto it!”

“You sure you want to drink it this late at night, Grandpa?”

“You woke me up, and it helps me think, so shut it.”

“Bring them each some of this pie,” Soujun added. “It’s got really wonderful flavor! I think it’s the nutmeg.”

“Thanks, sweetie!” The waitress gave Soujun an all-too-saucy wink that made Ichigo shudder deep in his soul. “Be right back.”

Ichigo briefly considered if they ought to be more circumspect about their discussion topic, but he figured that ancient all-night diner waitresses must hear all manner of crazy stuff and probably believed almost none of it.

Soujun was squinting curiously at Renji. “Which…which branch are you from? You aren’t… you aren’t related to Kuchiki Kouga, are you? My sister was sent away so shortly after his death… oh… oh no…”

“I am not related to you at all, sir!” Renji sputtered, waving his hands frantically. “100% Rukon-stock, me!”

Soujun’s face screwed up in confusion. “You…must have married in, then?”

A loud snort escaped through Ichigo’s nose, and Renji stomped on his foot under the table. A stony cast had come over Renji’s face that took Ichigo strangely back to the second time they fought each other.

“I’m not connected to the family at all. I realize that’s unusual, and if you’re pissed off about it, you’re not alone.”

Soujun blinked, confused. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it! I just…” He sighed.

“You’re such an ass,” Ichigo kicked Renji in the ankle. Unfortunately, Renji was wearing leather boots, and Ichigo’s toes took the worst of it. “He just wanted to know how Byakuya is doing and I didn’t know anything beyond the basics. He’s a super nice guy, so get outta here with that chip on your shoulder.”

Soujun waved his hands, an exact mirror of Renji thirty seconds before. “No, no, Ichigo! I can only imagine how my family reacted, and it would be very natural to assume I would have similar feelings!” He sighed and then carefully arranged his face back into his usual cheerful smile. It would have been mildly creepy if Ichigo hadn’t seen Rukia do the same thing a dozen times. There was probably a whole chapter on it in the Kuchiki Textbook. “There’s no Heir, is there, Lieutenant?”

“No,” Renji replied frankly. “Captain Kuchiki was married briefly, but Lady Hisana passed away before they had children.”

Soujun’s face fell. “He’s alone, then. Ichigo said that Byakuya is clan head, so I assume my father has passed.”

“Well, he’s got Rukia!” Renji defended. “Lady Hisana’s sister. He adopted her.”

“She’s the one I wanted you to meet, but she had to go back to Soul Society,” Ichigo clarified.

“And Captain Kuchiki Emeritus is still kicking around! He retired and lives up North Rukongai way. My impression was he did that to show how much confidence he had in Captain Kuchiki, y’know, when he turned over the reins.”

“Oh!” A strange look came over Soujun’s face. If there was something he was going to say, though, he held it, as pie and coffee arrived, including a refill for Soujun.

Renji played with his fork as he watched the waitress depart again, then turned back to Soujun. “Look, I don’t want to be rude here, but I gotta ask… where have you been, Lieutenant Kuchiki? It’s been, what, a century?” His nostrils flared briefly. “Don’t mean to be pushy, but Soul Society’s got a lot of enemies right now and you’re asking me to speak freely about a man I’m duty-bound to protect.”

Ichigo watched both of them as he chewed his pie slowly. The fact was, all of the Vizard had been maddeningly noncommittal about what their stake was in the coming conflict. It actually hadn’t occurred to him that Soujun had been a lieutenant, but he supposed it made sense, being Byakuya’s dad and all.

Soujun took a long sip of his coffee and very carefully put his cup back down again, turning it with his fingertips until the handle pointed exactly to the right. “I’m sorry, I never caught your family name.”

“It’s Abarai.”

“Lieutenant Abarai. It’s your title now, not mine. And as someone who once held that title, not to mention the father of the man in question, I appreciate your circumspection. May I ask…what do you know about my disappearance?”

Renji took a bite of pie. “This is good pie.”

Soujun beamed. “I told you!”

Renji took a deep breath. “You know how Soul Society is,” he said slowly. “It likes to forget. It especially likes to forget the things it isn’t proud of. You were ‘lost.’ That’s what people say. After twenty years, they fill out a death certificate and close your file, but people still say ‘lost.’ Lotta vice-captains get lost. It’s a shit job, but I’m sure you know that.”

Soujun gave a soft snort through his nose.

Renji pretended to be engrossed in dumping a rather upsetting quantity of sugar into his coffee. “But if you know who to ask, there are always people in Soul Society who remember.”

Soujun narrowed his eyes while Renji tasted his coffee, and then proceeded to add even more sugar to it.

“So while it doesn’t get talked about too much, I happen to know you didn’t get lost by yourself. I also happen to know that some important people got banished not long after, which mighta been warranted or it might be some classic Soul Society scapegoating, who’s to say?”

A chill ran down Ichigo’s spine. Was Renji talking about Urahara and Yoruichi? None of the Vizard had ever mentioned them, but it suddenly defied belief that they wouldn’t know about one another. Then again, Soul Society probably banished a lot of people.

Also, since when did Renji know things? Ichigo had expected him to be at least as confused as Ichigo himself had been upon meeting the Vizard. He sure did hope Renji was gonna stick to that chill bro thing.

“But you don’t know what happened to us.”

“My understanding,” Renji replied, while vigorously stabbing off an over-large bite of pie, “is that information was restricted to the captain level.”

Soujun gave off a rueful laugh. “Ah! So my father knows. Perfect.”

“Would you come back if you could?” Renji asked, and there was a weight to the question that Ichigo hadn’t expected.

“Yes,” Soujun replied instantly. “I would anyway. I can’t speak for the others.”

Renji tipped his head to one side, as if he were talking to Ichigo. “Hollows are nasty creatures. Sometimes they can fuck you up without killing you. All shinigami understand this. A shinigami would rather face a noble death than become the thing we hunt.” Renji shrugged. “In theory. In practice, one of the reasons so many people get ‘lost’ is ‘cause it’s a lot nicer than saying we had to hunt ‘em down as a monster.”

“We’re not monsters,” Soujun said stiffly. “We pose no danger to innocent souls.”

“Why not report back, then?”

“That wasn’t the case at first. We’ve got a handle on it now. But…well, historically, the leaders of Soul Society have been much less willing to listen to reason than you, Lieutenant. In classic Soul Society jurisprudence, you get declared dead after twenty years missing, but an execution order is good until it’s rescinded. Furthermore, there’s…some business that we need to take care of. But when that’s done…well, some of us would like to try. To come back. I guess…what I really want to know is…” He squeezed his hands into fists. “Byakuya always liked things to be clear-cut. He always wanted to do what was right, he always wanted to follow the rules. I just want to know if he would want to see me again.” He sighed. “Or if he would rather I just stayed lost.”

Ichigo chewed the inside of his cheek, wondering what he would say, if he were the one who had to answer this question.

“He still likes his rules, for sure,” Renji said airly, scraping the last of his pie from his plate. “But he knows people are more important. At least the people he cares about.” He ate the crumbs off his fork. “Which doesn’t add up to very many people, to be honest, but I’m absolutely sure you’re one of ‘em.”

Soujun’s eyes had gone very soft and very misty.

Renji jerked his chin at Ichigo, and in the exact same gruff tone of voice that Rukia used when she felt things were starting to go sappy, grunted “Oi, Ichigo, you gonna eat that pie? I’ll take it if you don’t want it.”

Ichigo realized suddenly that he hadn’t even touched his. “Try it and you’ll pull back a stump,” he snapped.

“I’ll buy you more pie,” Soujun promised Renji.

---

A short time later, Ichigo and Renji stood in front of the diner while Soujun settled the bill.

“Thanks for trusting me on this,” Ichigo mumbled. “I understand how you’re putting your neck out.”

Renji squinted up at the stars. His breath was visible in the cold air. “I got a lot of plausible deniability on this one. So I ran into some guy in the Living World who’s got the same nose as my captain. How was I t’know? This is what the Gotei gets for pretendin’ people are dead and tryin’ to forget them away.” He was thoughtful for a moment. “By the way, you can tell Captain Outoribashi that his old lieutenant still misses him and rails about his disappearance to her son and his shithead friends when she’s had too much to drink.”

“Captain?” Ichigo echoed.

Renji looked back down at Ichigo, cocking an eyebrow. “Pay attention to what’s around you, kid.”

Ichigo suddenly wanted to tell Renji everything, to ask for his advice. Renji had just extended an enormous amount of trust to him, and he didn’t even know what the Vizard were, what they were capable of. “You weren’t lying, were you? I mean…you really don’t know what happened to Soujun and the others. It’s not just--”

“Did I say I didn’t know?” Renji interrupted. “Think about the time you fought my captain, Ichigo. Think real hard about it.”

Realization crashed into Ichigo like a Rukongai boar. Byakuya had seen him turn into a Hollow. The man had barely reacted to it, which Ichigo hadn’t thought much about, because he was busy trying not to be a Hollow at the time, but looking back on it, it wasn’t a non-reaction, it was a controlled reaction. Which was pretty in-character for Byakuya, sure, but you’d think that most Gotei captains would at least be a little surprised by the idea of a shinigami who could pull out a mask. And…and Rukia had known about his Hollow, although she’d never said how. Renji said the captains at the time had been told the truth…and Byakuya’s grandfather had been a captain…

Ichigo’s eyes darted back to Renji, who was just watching him patiently. “Byakuya knew?”

“He didn’t know, but can recognize a trail when he sees one. Geez, dummy, do you really think I would be staying at Urahara’s if I wasn’t under Captain’s private orders to try to get some info outta that guy?”

Ichigo realized he was making the face of a landed fish.

“Speakin’ of which, I’m not a huge fan of this training you’re up to, but I’m trusting you that you think it’s necessary. If you can bust out again, though, come see me.” A smug smile crept across his face. “I will be at Chad’s.”