#i also want to see how theyve gutted healers

[raijinhasverybigpecs]

i mean i couldn't play smite for ixchel even if i wanted to on aus servers, for the birthday celebration the aus servers were dead all night

[cheshiresense]

for your SP au if u have time, how about a scene with injured/close to death!ichigo and kisuke losing it big time? idk i just feel like in this universe where even tho they're surrounded by people they know, theres also a sense of them only having each other, and after everything theyve been thru, one of them facing the possibility of losing the other could be rly trauamtizing.

Uhhhh… okay. Wow, alright, let’s see…

This takes place sometime far into the future. Well, not that far but like at least a couple years after the convo with Kaien and Shinji I guess?

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Later, Kisuke would be able to tell you exactly what happened. His mind automatically breaks down an attack blow by blow, every strength and weakness catalogued just in case he would need to counter it in another fight, because that’s just how his brain works, and for once he wishes it wasn’t.

He’ll have nightmares about it for years to come.

One moment, they’re scattered across the skies of Soul Society, either fending off the hoards of Hollows Aizen has released into the heart of Seireitei or confronting Aizen himself, and the next, Kisuke loses track of the traitor for a split second, too many illusions overlapping each other and too many useless bodies in the air who haven’t the first idea how to shake off Aizen’s Shikai but insisted on fighting anyway because Yamamoto ordered all Shinigami Ninth Seat and up into battle.

He feels more than sees what happens next, at the very edge of his peripheral vision. He and Ichigo have split up, both of them still in the same piece of battlefield but no longer covering each other’s backs because they’re too busy trying to simultaneously make sure Aizen doesn’t gut one of their colleagues or friends and launch an attack that’ll actually stick at Aizen himself at the same time. Of everyone here, Ichigo and Kisuke are the only ones who’ve gone toe to toe with Aizen, which was a difficult enough task without throwing in the dozen or so handicaps around them.

One moment, Aizen is smirking, monologuing, boasting about everything Kisuke’s long since learned to tune out. The next, the Fifth Seat from the Ninth Division rushes him like an idiot, and as if on cue, half the other Shinigami also surge forward as if they think Aizen has left any openings for them to get a hit in. It distracts everyone there, and Kisuke mentally curses when more than one person obscures his line of sight. He shifts, steps to the side, trying to keep all his senses honed on Aizen, but a breath and a blink later, the man has disappeared, and Kisuke is turning before he’s even consciously aware of doing it, his gaze cutting through the throng of Shinigami around him, searching frantically for-

Aizen doesn’t attack Ichigo. Of course he doesn’t. But Fujiwara Asuka is there, and to her credit, whatever illusion Aizen weaves around her doesn’t make her hesitate from bringing her Zanpakutou up to block a strike Kisuke can’t see, nor does it stop her from following through, just as Ichigo taught her. She remains on the defensive, wary of attacking and hurting a comrade, but she doesn’t stay in one place, deflecting whatever sword she sees and then throwing herself to one side, obviously trying to get clear.

It’s just not enough, because she throws herself to the left, and Aizen materializes there to meet her, Kyoka Suigetsu thrusting forward and-

Kisuke knows what will happen before it even happens. Somehow, the sound of a Kidou spell eating through flesh echoes loudly even with people shouting all around him and the shrieks of Hollows in the distance.

These are the things Kisuke notices in a single snapshot of time: Fujiwara’s wide, distraught eyes; the smug, satisfied smile on Aizen’s face like he expected nothing less; and the shock-tinted pain splashed across Ichigo’s features as he shoves Fujiwara to the side with one hand and deflects Kyouka Suigetsu with Zangetsu, only for Aizen to bring his other hand around, the light of a Raikouhou already glowing in his palm before he releases it straight into Ichigo’s abdomen, a sizzling ball of yellow lightning that slams through one side and out the other and leaves the stink of burning flesh behind.

Ichigo staggers, chokes, wobbles in the air like someone’s cute first attempt at Shunpo, and for a long frozen second, Kisuke tries to draw breath and can’t seem to find the lungs for it.

Then Fujiwara screams Ichigo’s name, and it’s as if everything fast-forwards again, flooding the area with noise and colour all at once.

Kisuke covers the distance between them in one desperate flash-step. The incomplete Espada that gets in his way is bisected right through the middle, Benihime singing through the air like a cacophony of screaming symbols, and the nameless Arrancar doesn’t even slow Kisuke down. He barrels into Ichigo, catching his lover just as he begins to fall. He barely notices Kyouraku covering his retreat, appearing a half-beat behind him, dual swords swinging at Aizen to force him back, his eyes a hard slate grey as he stares down the traitorous would-be overlord.

Instead, Kisuke’s already trying to calculate the damage before they’ve even reached the ground - front torn open, shattered ribs, not as much blood as there is charred flesh, but Kisuke can see his insides anyway and it’s a mess of hemmorhaging viscera.

He lands on a rooftop, out of the way of any immediate enemy fire, and sets Ichigo down as gently as he can. Even then, Ichigo convulses and then coughs, spilling slick crimson over his bottom lip, and the spasms that wrack him shifts his broken ribs in ways that can’t be good for his continued survival.

“Ichigo, it’s going to be alright, just try to hold still-”

Ichigo makes a rough sound that’s half-laugh, half-splutter of pain, and then he coughs again, unending and terrible, and Kisuke can see the way blood is bubbling up and around the hand Ichigo’s instinctively braced against his front.

Fuck. Fuck.

Kisuke is usually calmer than this. He prides himself on remaining calm at all times, no matter how dire the situation. But right now, as he pins Ichigo down with one hand to Ichigo’s shoulder to prevent him from doing more harm to himself while his other flickers green in an attempt to start healing the worst of the damage, he can’t seem to stop the way either of them are shaking. There’s a funny roaring noise in his ears, and every time he blinks, all he can see is Ichigo lying too still, Ichigo’s face twisted up in agony, Ichigo dead and gone and leaving him behind, and he can’t-

A hand appears in his line of sight, and he’s not even holding his Zanpakutou anymore, having dropped it beside him the moment he landed, but Benihime’s still unsealed, and her signature reiatsu snaps out like the fangs of a beast and nearly takes the limb off, hand and arm and all. Whoever it belongs to swears and snatches it back just in the nick of time. Kisuke doesn’t even look up, too busy staunching blood flow and holding the ribcage together and making sure nothing slices into a lung and-

Fuck. Fuck. There’s just so much damage, and at the end of the day, Kisuke’s no master healer-

“Urahara-taichou, you will get a hold of yourself.” A female voice calls, not quite raised but sharp enough to cut through the haze of terror clouding his mind. Coupled with the hand that suddenly finds his, slippery with more blood but with enough coordination to squeeze down hard and anchor him back to the present, Kisuke suck in a breath, then another, then another, until he’s almost dizzy with it.

He looks at Ichigo first, and while his face is white and creased with pain, he meets Kisuke’s gaze steadily enough, and it’s enough for Kisuke to at least shove aside the panic and think.

He looks up next, right into the looming figure of Unohana, waiting for him to shuffle aside so she can tend to Ichigo. She’s already casting a critical eye over Ichigo’s injuries, and Kisuke should, he should move over right now because on a regular day, if Kisuke could have his pick of healers, Unohana would be at the top of the list. There is literally no one better for the job, and he should be thanking the Soul King that she was even nearby enough for someone to fetch her here so quickly.

But even just the thought of passing Ichigo’s wellbeing to anyone makes him want to lash out.

Benihime, Kisuke thinks for one wild moment. Benihime could probably fix him. Even if it means a patchwork of scars inside and out by the end-

She’s never had to restructure so many broken pieces of bone before though, never had to work with half the internal organs fried and nerve endings destroyed by such a close-range, point-blank electric explosion. What if she can’t-

Benihime stirs at the back of his mind, all affronted pride and snarling wrath with a seething sort of fear underneath. And yet-

He looks at Ichigo. Ichigo, eyes at half-mast and dazed now, Ichigo who is depending on him to make the best choice for him. And-

And that’s enough. Barely, but enough.

He rounds on Unohana again, and if he looks a little manic and more than a little mad, no one calls him out on it.

“If he dies under your care,” He bites out in a voice even he almost doesn’t recognize, soft and flat and no less vicious for either. “The Fourth Division will require a new captain by the end of the day.”

There are scandalized gasps from more than one person, and Yoruichi hisses a warning, “Kisuke!”

Only Unohana remains entirely unperturbed, looking back calmly even as she inclines her head in a nod. “I understand.”

Kisuke watches her for a moment longer, weighing her answer, then he turns back to Ichigo. The stasis spell he resorted to earlier begins fading as he lets it go, and he takes those few precious seconds to reach up to cup Ichigo’s face in his hands instead, bending low until the brim of his hat brushes Ichigo’s forehead. “Ichigo, you listen to me.”

Eyelashes flutter like it’s a struggle for Ichigo to keep them open, but he opens them anyway, and even though it takes a few blinks, his eyes are clear and focused when they look at Kisuke, and Kisuke holds that gaze.

“You will live. Do you know why?” His fingers curl into Ichigo’s hair, probably gripping harder than he should, digging bruises Ichigo can’t afford into his skin, but he needs this, needs his promise, needs his word. “Because if you die, you know perfectly well I will follow you and I will find you, no matter how many reincarnation cycles I’ll have to tear apart, even if that means razing the Soul King and his whole palace to the ground. So you will live because I will set the universe on fire if I lose you, and you have too much of a saviour complex to let that happen.”

There’s a hush all around him, the kind that comes from a stunned, maybe even appalled, sort of disbelief.

Kisuke ignores them. None of them matter right now.

(And if they don’t believe him, don’t believe he’s capable of it or don’t believe he really would do it, then the joke’s on them.)

All his attention remains on Ichigo, who blinks at him once, twice, and then even manages a hoarse chuckle as a bloodstained hand comes up to tangle in Kisuke’s own hair, as possessive as Kisuke at his worst and not at all ashamed to show it.

(Yoruichi knows what people say about Kisuke, both within and outside of the Onmitsukidou, with admiration or with contempt. But Kisuke’s problem has never been an inability to love. His problem has always been that he loves very, very few, and of those he does love, he loves with a world-burning passion that halts for no one and nothing and consumes everything in its path if allowed to run its course.

It makes her wonder, sometimes, whether Shiba Ichigo is very brave or just very oblivious.

Or maybe he’s like Kisuke, loving with a ferocity that’s equally devastating and unstoppable, and isn’t that a terrifying thought?)

Ichigo swallows, and his reiatsu surges with the solid resolve shining in his eyes, not even slightly dimmed, even now. Or perhaps especially now.

“You’re such a drama queen, Kisuke,” Ichigo rasps out, but his grin is all teeth, stained with blood but bold and bright and brilliant. “Go kick his ass. I’ll be right behind you.”

Kisuke gives himself another second, curled over Ichigo like he could protect him this way, clutching at him like he’s Kisuke’s last lifeline.

(He is. He has been for so long now.)

Then he exhales and lets go. He presses a kiss to Ichigo’s temple and then eases back and clambers to his feet, retrieving Benihime on his way up. “I’ll buy you time. Catch up when you can.”

Ichigo nods, and Kisuke steps away, finally letting Unohana take his place. He starts walking, and the Shinigami in his way automatically part for him. There’s Kaien, whom Kisuke vaguely recalls as the one who tried to get his attention and almost paid for it with his hand.

Kisuke might apologize later.

Then there’s Yoruichi with Suì-Fēng at her side, Rose and Love look like they’ve just arrived, and Matsumoto stands a few feet away, her arm around Fujiwara’s shoulders. Hachigen is farthest away, hands pressed together and a yellow barrier erected around them. A handful of battered-looking seated officers Kisuke never bothered remembering the names of complete the ensemble, and up above, Kyouraku and Lisa are keeping Aizen at sword-point.

Or at least Aizen is allowing them to keep him at sword-point. It’s about time Kisuke changes that.

He strides forward. Three feet and he’s shrugged out of his captain’s haori. Five feet and he’s dropped it behind him. Seven feet and his hat follows. He’s in full Shinigami garb today, all black uniform and flat sandals meant for fast and easy movement.

“Open it,” He orders in placid tones as he approaches the barrier, and Hachigen wastes no time releasing one wall of the barrier.

The moment Kisuke steps out and looks up, Aizen glances down and smiles like he’s been waiting for this.

“Urahara Kisuke,” He calls out with his trademark mockery lilting each syllable. “You should keep a closer eye on your-”

Kisuke disappears from the ground and reappears behind Aizen, Benihime angled for the man’s heart. Aizen dodges, but he also has to stop talking, and he doesn’t see the glint of silver in Kisuke’s other hand before the dagger sinks to the hilt in the soft flesh just above Aizen’s hip.

“Hadou #11,” Kisuke intones as Aizen’s smile thins. “Tsuzuri Raiden.”

An electric current sparks and crackles down the hilt just as Aizen wrenches himself off the blade and Shunpos away to safety.

He’s still smiling when Kisuke looks over. The injury is already healing with the power of the Hogyoku even as blood drips from the dagger in Kisuke’s hand, and yet something uneasy lurks in the tightness around his eyes, like he wasn’t expecting Kisuke to attack him so ruthlessly.

Kisuke hasn’t the faintest idea why. Everybody knows which military organization groomed him after all.

Ah well. He’ll learn.

Kisuke tosses the blade aside, then twists his fingers together, activating the seal he planted underneath the Tsuzuri Raiden just as he recites, “Bakudou #61, Rikujoukourou,” and six beams of light bursts from the newly healed wound in Aizen’s side, enveloping him in a brief burst of yellow before settling evenly around his midsection and paralyzing him to the spot.

Aizen looks momentarily surprised before his usual confidence slides back into place. “Do you think such a simple Bakudou can capture me?”

Kisuke huffs out a breath that’s barely a shadow of his usual laugh. “Capture you? I don’t want to capture you, Aizen-san.”

He brings Benihime up with a deliberate sort of careless grace, and this time, for the first time in this time, when he looks at Aizen Sousuke, the Shinigami is no longer smiling. Maybe he finally sees the rage in Kisuke’s eyes, pulsing with every breath he takes and every beat of his heart.

“I just need you to stay still for a bit,” Kisuke explains lightly, and behind him, her reiatsu jolting with an abrupt sort of urgency, he can hear Yoruichi yell for Kyouraku and Lisa to get back, right now.

“Bankai,” Kisuke commands, and distantly he hears the triumphant laughter of his Benihime’s bloodlust. She laughs, and he smiles. “Kannonbiraki Benihime Aratame.”