Ichigo exhaled through his nose, slow and sharp, his eyes narrowing in thought as the strawberry-sweetness of his own scent still clung to the air like humidity. It wasn't oppressive, but it was noticeable, apparently. Too noticeable. If two untrained kids from Rukongai could pick it up this strongly, then the last thing he needed was to wander too close to actual trained shinigami.
He needed a seal or something to suppress it... But maybe he could make something better.
He lifted a hand to his chest and a thin layer of spirit particles responded immediately, drawn from the ambient air and shaped by force of will and memory. Not pure Quincy technique, not anymore. It was something hybrid—Quincy logic woven with transcendent energy. The barrier formed just above the surface of his skin, thin as a breath, humming like tension before a storm. A containment field. Dense enough to muffle his scent. To mute that part of himself.
He turned to the kids, still watching him with wariness and curiosity.
"Try now," he said simply, folding his arms.
Gin and Rangiku blinked. Then, with the serious air of small children given important instructions, they leaned forward and cautiously sniffed.
Ichigo stared up at the sky, trying not to die of embarrassment.
Gin leaned back first. "Huh. You don't smell anymore. It's like you vanished."
"Yeah," Rangiku added, sniffing again with less subtlety. "I can barely even feel your smell now either. How'd you do that?"
Ichigo let out a breath of relief. "It's a technique."
They both stared at him.
Then, as if realizing he was serious, Gin gave him a thoughtful look. "Are you from one of the noble families? You act like a weirdo but you know stuff no one out here does."
Ichigo scratched his head. "Not… exactly."
"I thought nobles didn't die like the rest of us," Rangiku muttered.
Gin elbowed her. "Everyone dies."
"I just mean he's—y'know. Weird."
Ichigo sighed. "Yeah, I get that a lot."
.
They began walking back toward the ruins where the kids had been hiding, an old bathhouse half-sunk into the earth with sun-bleached beams and broken tile. Ichigo kept his senses open, filtering through the lazy threads of local reiatsu. No pursuit yet.
Just breathing.
He watched them out of the corner of his eye—how easily Rangiku skipped between cracked tiles, how Gin dragged a stick along the railing and looked over his shoulder often, like he expected to lose something.
Familiar. Painfully so.
"Can I ask something?" he said at last.
"Yeah?" Rangiku chirped.
"You said this world's always had this… biology. Even the living world?"
They both stopped and turned to him slowly.
"Of course," Gin said, his squinting eyes opening a fraction. "Why wouldn't it?"
"I mean…" Ichigo tried to explain, but the words tangled. "I… don't remember much. About being alive. Most of my memories are around fighting. Combat. Training."
"Whoa," Rangiku whispered, eyes wide. "Were you a soldier?"
Gin looked visibly impressed. "Cool. Like in the shinigami or something?"
"No," Ichigo said quickly. "Not like that."
He didn't want to lie. But the truth was tangled in broken timelines and a dying world.
"You're really strong," Gin said, more softly this time. "If you fought a lot before you died, can you… teach us?"
Ichigo blinked. "Teach you?"
"Yeah!" Rangiku grinned. "We want to get into the Academy in Seireitei one day. But it's far, and hard to get into. Especially now that my scent is getting stronger."
"And since you're hiding out here," Gin added with a pointed look, "maybe you can help us get better while you're… hiding."
Ichigo opened his mouth to say no. To remind himself that he had no time. That every moment he wasted here was another Yhwach might use to grow roots in this world. But then Gin tilted her head like he used to, all snake like but with an innocence the old one couldn't really pull off. And Rangiku scratched his cheek and looked everywhere but directly at him.
It wasn't them. But it was. In all the ways that made it hard to turn away.
He exhaled. Again. Again.
"I can stay through the mornings," he said at last. "Maybe part of the afternoons. But the evenings are mine."
"Why?" Rangiku asked curiously.
"I need to… search for something."
They exchanged a glance.
"Like a family member?" Gin asked. "That's gonna be hard out here. Rukongai's huge."
"No." Ichigo shook his head, gaze turning distant. "Not a family member."
He didn't explain.
Couldn't.
Because how do you explain you're looking for a monster only you remember? That you came from a dead world? That you're a being made from vengeance and regret?
No. Better to keep moving.
Better to give these kids a little strength before the world darkened around them.
He would find Yhwach. Soon.
But for now… he'd teach them to stand.
Even if they never knew why.
Gin turned around. "You must have heard already, but she's Rangiku and I'm Gin. We haven't heard yours yet, so what's your name?"
Rangiku elbowed him, hissing something about being more polite.
Ichigo chuckled and introduced himself. "I'm Ichigo, Ichigo Kurosaki."
.
The clearing was deceptively quiet.
Not unnatural. Not wrong. But muted—like the grass and trees remembered too much and had gone still out of caution.
Shinji Hirako crouched near a scorched patch of dirt, his fingers brushing the topsoil thoughtfully. There was no scent of ash. No lingering reiatsu like there would be after a hollow strike or a captain-level spar.
But the feeling in the air? It wasn't nothing.
It was what came after.
After pressure. After weight.
Like a boot had been lifted from the chest of the world, and now the grass dared to breathe again.
"You getting anything, Kisuke?" Shinji Hirako called, eyes scanning the treeline.
Kisuke Urahara stood a few meters away with his latest invention strapped to his arm like a gauntlet, its multiple metal spokes and talismans flickering as they spun and clicked. He adjusted a dial, squinted at the reading, and hummed.
"There was definitely something here. A few seconds of massive distortion. Like a tear in the barrier between planes, but… refined. Smooth. Like a surgical incision rather than a hollow's rift."
Hiyori Sarugaki stood beside him with arms crossed, face scrunched in irritation. "And yet no residual reiatsu? That doesn't make sense."
"I didn't say no reiatsu," Kisuke murmured, tapping the side of the scanner. "Just none that our instruments can track. This… wasn't a spiritual pressure you and I can measure. It's either too far above us or—"
"—not meant to be noticed," Shinji finished, straightening to where his lieutenant was. "Great. We've got a shady being on our hands."
Sousuke Aizen, standing near the far edge of the clearing, paused mid-step. His eyes narrowed. Then he crouched, gloved fingers brushing along a shallow impression in the grass.
There, nestled between flattened stalks and a faint dent in the dirt, was something delicate.
A scent.
Faint. Fragile. Almost floral.
He leaned in, nose twitching slightly. His expression didn't change, but his voice was quieter when he spoke. "There's something here. Sweet."
Shinji turned. "A trace of reiatsu?"
"No." Sousuke looked thoughtful. "A scent."
That got Kisuke's attention. He walked briskly over, his long white haori trailing behind him, the scanner still chattering softly on his arm.
He crouched next to Sousuke and inhaled slowly.
A pause. Then, "...Strawberries?"
Hiyori leaned in suspiciously. "The hell?"
"It's not natural to have a scent and not a hint of reiatsu," Kisuke said, flipping open a compartment in his scanner. He pulled out a small vial and unsealed the top. A second device, smaller and flatter, unfolded from his sleeve and began whirring as it hovered near the indent. It pulled the air toward itself in gentle puffs, sampling data.
"Definitely a scent marker," Kisuke confirmed. "Faint. Mostly dissipated. But strong enough that it hung in the grass. I'd wager it was saturated for several minutes before fading."
"Does it match anything in our records?" Sousuke asked.
Kisuke tapped his device. It whirred. A series of lines scrolled across the display.
"No match," he said, eyes glinting behind his shadowed hat. "Not registered. That narrows things considerably."
"You think it's an omega's scent? And it's a strong one." Shinji asked, mouth quirking. "I've only smelled something like this in the noble quarter. Usually when someone's in heat and their whole house is trying to act like nothing's happening."
"Mm. It fits," Kisuke replied. "But it's odd. It doesn't smell new. It smells… balanced. Controlled. Like it wasn't intentionally released. More like it bled out from someone's skin without them noticing."
Hiyori wrinkled her nose. "Gross."
Shinji rubbed the back of his neck. "So. We've got a massive, untraceable energy distortion, no lingering reiatsu, and the soft scent of an omega left like a love letter in the grass."
Kisuke smiled. "Either someone passed through and wasn't supposed to… or they were the cause of the event."
Sousuke didn't speak. But his gaze lingered on the indentation in the grass, the way it seemed too perfect—like someone had sat there, briefly, before vanishing into the air.
"I've marked the coordinates," Kisuke said, snapping his scanner shut. "We'll record the scent and catalog it under unregistered spiritual anomalies. Maybe next time it shows up, we'll get lucky."
"You think they'll come back?" Hiyori asked.
"Maybe," Kisuke said softly. "Or maybe they're already watching us from farther than we can sense."