Desolation

Quetzal- hello! This can be considered a part of "Down Time" if you want, but its mostly a stand alone thing. It always annoyed me that ichigo never seemed to have suffered any from loosing Zangetsu. He's a part of Ichigo's soul its not like loosing him just left him back where he started before meeting Rukia. Zangetsu had always been there and loosing him would be like cutting off a limb somewhat. You don't just walk away from that kind of trauma like its a skinned knee.

Summery - Theres a difference between being told something and experiencing it, ichigo thought he understood that the Final Getsuga would destroy his powers, but he didn't truly understand what that meant and what it would do to him until it was far to late

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Ichigo had known objectively that he would loose Zangetsu, and he had thought that he would be able to deal with it, but looking back, he hadn't understood in the least what he was about to do to himself. Tensa Zangetsu had understood far better then him what loosing the spirit was going to do to him, it had been why he had fought so hard to stop him, and why was truly willing to hurt him if thats what it took. In the end however Ichigo's ignorance and stubbornness had won out, but they both understood that there was really no choice everyone else had tired and failed, if they didn't do this they would die anyway. Ichigo just hadn't understood that there were things so much worse than death. For that first week after feeling Zangetsu fade away the sheer agony of loosing him had almost done him in, but he had pushed on refusing to give in to the pain. Even then he had thought he could handle it, but after just three weeks ichigo was on the verge of killing himself because he couldn't stand the silence anymore. Only Isshin proving for once that he did have an iota of common sense kept Ichigo from ending his own life that day. Ichigo had cried himself to sleep in his fathers arms for the first time since he was 9 when Isshin had stopped him.

His father hadn't said anything, knowing that telling him he would be alright wouldn't help, because they both knew he wouldn't be. Isshin was the only person that had any true idea of what Ichigo was going through. Sure the others knew objectively that loosing ones zanpakotou was the most terrible thing that could befall a shinigami, but they didn't know. Isshin had been cut off from Engetsu for years after they had used a much less powerful version of Mugetsu, the only thing that had kept him alive was Masaki and the knowledge that Engetsu wasn't gone just too weak to even be felt by him. But Zangetsu would not be coming back under his and Ichigo's own power, nor was there any known way to bring back Ichigo's power and the blade that was a part of his soul. Isshin could only hope that Kisuke came up with something and soon. They both had no illusions of Ichigo being able to last more then a year or two in this state with no hope. It killed him to watch his son go back to something resembling normal for a few minutes only for something to remind the teen of the silence in his own mind. Ichigo's eyes would hold a look of such agony for an instant that whoever was talking to him would recoil in horror.

A little over a year and half a dozen more suicide attempts later, and Isshin knew instantly that something was up when Ichigo walked into the house with that glint in his eyes and faint smirk on his face. He had actually given the girls a real smile and punched him in the face when he had taken an experimental swing at him. Oh yes he was going to be interrogating Kisuke later, he knew the mad scientist had finally had a lead on something to bring Zangetsu back, but it was still at least a week or two away from being even remotely usable. There was no way Kisuke had told Ichigo, he had been adamant about not giving him false hope. Honestly, sometimes he had to wonder if Kisuke had forgotten that Ichigo wasn't actually the crazy scientists own son.

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Quetzal - And if that wasn't depressing enough for you I might have pneumonia again! Joy. Hopefully it wont get to the point again where the doctors going to look at me seriously and tell me I have a 50/50 chance of dieing if I don't take my meds (not fun). Then again I might just have a cold, but considering all I'v got is that same deep hacking cough from before and nothing else I think I'm going to err on the side of caution. Me thinks a little paranoia is forgivable ^_^

the next part of "Down Time" Doctors Orders should be up in a few days and it will be distinctly more cheery than this.