Title: Down for the Count
Author: darkling59
Rating: T
Date: 1/19/2014
Disclaimer: Bleach and all related characters, plots, etc. do not belong to me.
Warnings: fix-it fic, now AU
Summary: After the battle of Karakura Town, our favorite simple shopkeeper and part time mad-scientist finds the mostly-dead primera buried beneath the rubble and reacts...characteristically. Starrk is not amused. Urahara is intrigued.

It was over.

Starrk sprawled unmoving under a collapsed building, alive but breathing shallowly. Tier lay amongst the rubble, dead or dying. Barragan was definitely dead, dissolved in front of them all. The fraccion fell before their espada, reiatsu flickering out like candles before the shinigami captains.

From his prone position, Starrk wondered tiredly if there had ever been a possibility of winning. The three of them against all of those captains…how many were there? Seven? Eight? Going in, they'd known the fraccion would only be fit to fight the lieutenants but, in their folly, they'd thought the primera, segunda, and tercera would be enough to defeat the most powerful of the shinigami, regardless of their opponents' strength in numbers.

They believed as such because Aizen had faith in them, had told them they would be sufficient. He had planned every little detail, down to the exact minute each of them should join the fight.

And, apparently, the exact minute each of them would die.

They were never meant to succeed, Starrk understood now, Aizen had brought them to buy time for the Hogyoku to awaken. He'd never intended them to survive, or even make a dent against the shinigami.

Their God had watched them get cut down with a smile on his face.

Starrk gave a quiet, resigned sigh, sending up a cloud of dust from the coating that had settled over him, and on the ground he was lying on, with the destruction of the surrounding buildings. He'd suspected midway through the fight that things would end badly. Despite Lilynette's violent encouragement, he'd been right.

With a grimace, he flattened his palms against the ground, pushing futilely in an attempt to get to this hands and knees. Unfortunately, there were literally tons of rubble from collapsed apartments and office buildings pinning him down, keeping him immobile. Normally, no amount of physical weight would matter, but the wound he'd received stole a lot of his energy…he still saw spots if he moved too fast or pushed too hard, and he didn't even want to consider what would happen if he attempted to summon a Cero or open a Garganta.

Giving up the attempt, he rested his arms back on the ground, propping his chin up with one fist. He'd been fortunate a support pillar fell in such a way as to shelter his head and shoulders. Even in his weakened state, his heirro would keep him from being crushed to death, but it would have been damned uncomfortable for his head and neck to be pinned.

He gave another sigh and closed his eyes. The only thing that would get him out of this mess would be his own strength, and that would return with time and rest. It was too bad didn't have healing kido capable of fixing wounds within minutes, like the shinigami, but he could make do with his natural abilities. With that thought in mind (this was hardly the worst condition he'd been in over his long life), he diverted as much energy as he could spare into fixing his injuries and allowed his breathing to even out, propelling himself into deep, healing sleep.

In his state, it was more akin to hibernation than true sleep and the only reason he chose to indulge was because he was absolutely certain no one would come looking for him.

That wasn't an assumption he should have made.

Kisuke Urahara discovered the former primera less than three hours later, zeroing in on his reiatsu signature via technological means. Starrk was so deeply asleep that he didn't even wake up when Kisuke freed him from the rubble, and only gave a sleepy snuffle when the shopkeeper applied a binding/stasis kido to keep him asleep and immobile for transportation back to the lab beneath Urahara shoten.

Author's Notes:

Happy Birthday, Lilynette and Starrk!

I really wanted to update some of my chaptered stories for the occasion, but I wasn't able to finish in time. But I still hope y'all enjoy this!

Please read and review!

(A/N: So it got updated a little late...I suppose this is happy belated birthday. Whoops.)