Bleach: And I Won't Make You Watch Me Leave
She was just standing on the street in front of the Kurosaki Clinic, staring at the room on the second floor where Kisuke could sense Isshin and his three children. Her clothes were still bloodstained, but Kisuke couldn’t see any physical damage, so he wasn’t quite sure where the blood had come from.
“You’re Kisuke Urahara, aren’t you?” she asked absently, most of her attention focused on the house before them.
“I am,” Kisuke confirmed.
“My name is Masaki.”
Kisuke smiled painfully. “I know.”
“Yes…you do know, don’t you?” she asked slowly, starting to focus more on the conversation and less on the inside of her mind. “You know my name, my children’s names…” She paused, as if trying to find the right words, then continued in a stronger voice. “You know the names of all the nightmares my husband is afraid to speak of in my presence, don’t you?”
Kisuke wasn’t really sure how to reply to that. “I…”
“You don’t have to answer,” Masaki said with a soft smile. “We both love the same man, but as very different people. I probably wouldn’t recognize your Isshin at all, I think. He was different before…”
“Before,” Kisuke said sharply, cutting her off before she could reopen old wounds. “Yes. He was.”
“Yes.” She turned to face Kisuke for the first time, wearing a look of intense concern. “Do you know what comes next?”
For the first time, Kisuke felt the conversation was on solid ground. “I do,” he said calmly.
“And you won’t leave it in Isshin’s hands,” Masaki continued.
“I will not,” Kisuke assured her, a bit surprised to find that he meant every word. However much he had hoped to avoid this moment, he knew he would never ask Isshin to send her on himself.
“Then I have something to ask of you.”
“I…am listening,” Kisuke said warily. He had long ago learned to fear “last requests.”
“You can’t take my place, just as I never took yours. It would be disrespectful to both of us to try. So I want you to make a new place-not just in Isshin’s life, but my children’s as well.” Suddenly, painfully, Kisuke saw why Isshin had fallen in love with Masaki. She was stronger than both of them where it really counted-stronger than he could ever have imagined.
“Why?” he choked out, trying to stall for time. She couldn’t-he couldn’t…could he? He closed his eyes against the understanding he’d fought for so long. Without even the miniscule distraction of the sight of his surroundings, Masaki’s next words pierced right through him.
“Because they’ll need someone to help them after I’m not here. Because you need them more than you will admit. But most of all, because I will not have my family fall without me.”
Benihime smiled her approval in his mind. Kisuke felt the cool touch of a disembodied hand on the back of his. When it faded, he was holding Benihime’s original katana form. He supposed he had his answer.
“Very well,” he said sadly, but not reluctantly. “You have my word.”
Masaki gave him an incandescent smile. It was, Kisuke thought, a good expression to leave this broken world with. “Then I am ready,” she said simply.
Kisuke pressed the seal on Benihime’s hilt to Masaki’s forehead, and watched as the blue light carried her away. He was so distracted that he didn’t notice someone coming up behind him until the other man spun him around and punched him in the jaw.
“You bastard-!”
Kisuke staggered back, Benihime slipping from his hand as his grip loosened. His instincts kicked in, and he threw up a wall of reiatsu between himself and his attacker. That bought him enough space to look up.
“I-Isshin…? What-“ His old lover was nearly unrecognizable in his grief. His reiatsu was dark, chaotic, wounded in a way Kisuke had never seen before, not even when Isshin left Soul Society. He tried not to be hurt by what that said about what he’d been to Isshin-what they’d been together. Tried, and failed. Almost without realizing it, Kisuke let his shield fall.
“HOW DARE YOU!” Isshin roared. Kisuke desperately hoped that none of the kids would hear them and wake up, and that none of the neighbors decided to call the police.
“Isshin, calm down,” Kisuke hissed. “You’re going to-hgck!” Kisuke struggled to breathe around Isshin’s iron grip on his throat and cursed himself for dropping Benihime. Sorry, Isshin, he thought. I know you’re hurting. But I can’t let you kill me, no matter how much I deserve it. With that, he raised his reiatsu again, this time using his old friend-the resolve to kill-to give it a razor’s edge. Unfortunately, the lingering pain that only Isshin could really bring out in him turned it into a double-edged blade. Both Kisuke and Isshin decorated the sidewalk with their blood as they separated.
“What do you want, Kisuke?” Isshin asked tiredly. “Why are you still here? You could have just-just left.”
He knew he shouldn’t, knew it would only make things worse, but Kisuke felt compelled to say it anyway. “I promised Masaki-“ he started, before he was cut off.
“You don’t make promises!” Isshin yelled despairingly. “You make plots and plans and excuses and abominations, but never promises!”
“And you’ve never run away from anything in your entire life,” Kisuke said flatly, just to see Isshin flinch.
“You bastard…”
“Shut up, Isshin,” Kisuke snapped, needing to get it all out before he lost his temper entirely and completely ruined their friendship, as well. “I’m not going to try to replace Masaki. The very idea of trying to take on the same role as the mother of your children is ludicrous, as is the idea of trying to pick up where we left off. But I promised Masaki that I would be here if you needed me. And fuck you if you don’t believe me, but I did not lie to her.”
Kisuke abruptly ran out of steam. He stopped, and watched as Isshin deflated. Too late, he realized that he’d gone too far. What he’d just said had no place being said in Isshin’s hearing. Not tonight, and maybe not ever.
Isshin turned away from Kisuke and from the last place his wife’s ghost had stood. Kisuke knew what he was going to say even before he opened his mouth.
“Get out. Please. Just-“
Kisuke turned away sharply. He picked up Benihime and began walking away before Isshin had even finished speaking. I’m sorry, Masaki, he thought dispiritedly. You were wrong. I can’t help him at all. He felt dead inside, himself, and emptier than he’d been since that night long ago, when he’d lost something he’d been too afraid to admit he couldn’t live without.
“Kisuke-!”
Kisuke closed his eyes and shifted into shunpo, trying to outrun the pain he still carried with him, trying desperately to leave Isshin behind.