Operation: Big Brother Ch 1

Summary: Urahara waved his fan. "Based on my psychological analysis of Aizen's personality, all you have to do is go back in time and give him a hug, and all our problems will be solved!" Ichigo rolled his eyes. "Whatever." Aizen/Ichigo friendship, humor and fluff. No yaoi. Child!Aizen, time travel, pre-series canon, not quite crack.

(Originally posted 7/6/2014)

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"Ichigo, Soul Society is in a real pickle since Aizen's last attack after he escaped from prison." Urahara leaned against a table in his lab. "If he combines forces with Juha Bach, we may not be able to survive." He adjusted his striped hat, opened his fan and fluttered it back and forth.

Ichigo scowled. "So what else is new? I'm doing everything I can, but even powered-up I'm still not up to his level, unless I work with others."

"Exactly!" Urahara shut his fan with a snap and grinned. "You and I need to work together again." He gestured at what looked like a huge machine covered in a drop cloth. "Which is why I built this special machine just for you, so you can solve all our problems!"

"Fine. But what does it do?"

The shopkeeper patted the machine proudly. "I've figured out exactly what it's going to take to stop this war with Aizen, and that you are the only one who can do it."

"I get that," Ichigo said. "How is this machine going to let me do that?"

"Good! I'm glad you've already agreed to participate! Of course it's still in the experimental stage, but I'm sure none of those little software and hardware bugs will be a problem." Urahara whipped the drop cloth off the machine and fiddled with a dial. The machine began to emit a loud hum. Crackles of electricity and long sparks zipped from one end of an electrode to another.

"Uh," said Ichigo, looking a little nervously at the device, "exactly what did you say this thing does?"

"Step right up." Urahara gestured to a large metal plate at the rear of the device. "It won't hurt a bit! Or at least not very much. If you survive that is," he added, twisting another dial and frowning over a readout.

Ichigo rolled his eyes. "Whatever." He stepped onto the plate and loosened Zangetsu in its sheath. "So what am I supposed to do?"

"I've completed my psychological analysis of Aizen's personality, and fed the results into the supercomputer I built last week." He frowned at a display on the side of the machine and tapped it with one finger. He scowled when nothing happened, and rapped on the display sharply with his fan. An array of lights immediately popped into existence, winking in an elaborate pattern. "Eh. Just what it needed, a carefully-calibrated percussive input."

"Yes?" demanded Ichigo. "You were saying about your psychological analysis of Aizen's personality."

"Of course I'm only a humble shopkeeper and not a psychiatrist, so don't hold me responsible, but you see, based on what you yourself told me when you crossed swords with him, he was lonely. You said that ever since he was very young, he always had far more power than everyone around him, and that he was always searching for an equal. Then he finally gave up on ever finding someone like that and decided that instead, he would take over the world."

"Riiight, so what did you say I have to do to stop him?"

"I'm getting to that, don't be so impatient. You kids. Everything has to be done yesterday." He laughed loudly as Ichigo stared at him in mounting annoyance. "That's a joke, Ichigo. You'll see in a moment. Lighten up." He flipped a few more switches and the ominous hum increased in volume. "Good, I think it's going to work after all." He straightened and peered at Ichigo from under his hat. "Here we go!"

A bright light began to glow around Ichigo, making it hard for him to see or hear anything that was going on in the lab. "Hey!" he shouted, as sparks arced up all around him. "Hurry up and tell me what I'm supposed to do!"

"All right, calm down. What I've done here is build a time machine."

"A what?"

"Time machine. No self-respecting scientific genius can be without one. This will be the crowning achievement of my career. At last everyone will forget all about the previous failures…well, we won't go into that." He paused in his adjustments of the levers and buttons to gaze off into the distance. The lights and noise around the machine intensified.

From atop the glowing plate, Ichigo interrupted. "Will you stop blathering and tell me what's going on?"

Urahara started. "Ah! All you need to do is go back in time to when Aizen was a boy, get to know him, since you're the only one with the power to be his equal, and befriend him. Let him know that this whole trying to be a god thing is a bad idea! Problem solved!" He tipped his hat down over his eyes. "I really am a genius."

"What? Befriend Aizen? What the fuck? The guy's an evil scumwad!" Ichigo shouted. "How can I make friends with someone like that?"

"Oh, you can do it, Ichigo." Urahara waved his fan again. "The fate of the universe hangs in the balance."

"No!" shouted Ichigo, almost completely obscured by sparks. He crossed his arms. "I won't do it."

The shopkeeper looked nonplussed for a few long seconds. Then he heaved a sigh. "Well then…" He rubbed his chin. "I've got it! You have to do it to protect your friends!"

Tufts of Ichigo's orange hair stood on end, and he scowled and uncrossed his arms. "Well, in that case then." An expression of extreme resolve appeared on his face, and he unlimbered his sword and got into a ready stance. "I'll do it! But… how does one make friends with someone like Aizen?"

"That's easy, Ichigo!" Urahara declared. "All it takes for you to save the world is… give Aizen a hug! That's all he needs!"

The light around the platform flared more brightly than ever, and the crackling intensified. With a loud bang, all the lights went out.

A few moments later, the emergency generators kicked in and dim lights came on all over the lab. The platform was empty.

XxXxXxX

"Aaand a-one two three four! And a-one two three four!" the Shinigami Academy drill sergeant bellowed. "Keep going, ya maggots!"

Ichigo grunted. The old-time training methods they used in the past were already getting pretty annoying. But he had managed to complete the first part of his mission correctly: he'd found himself in the forest outside Seireitei, asked for directions to the Academy, presented himself as a shinigami candidate in training, and, after much head-scratching and moaning over paperwork by Academy officials, had been admitted.

The way they ran things here it was surprising Aizen hadn't snapped earlier. The entire Academy was extremely regimented, with no allowances made for individual differences or advanced skills. Unlike in Ichigo's time, everybody had to complete the full six-year course regardless of ability. For Ichigo, placed in first-year classes and forced to learn basic techniques he had already mastered long ago, it was pure torture.

At least he had made contact with his target. Aizen looked like he was about nine years old, but there was no missing his reiatsu. It was overwhelming, even for someone at Ichigo's level. Other students frequently had to be removed from class whenever Aizen released his energy to perform an exercise. As a result, the boy had been ostracized, and was frequently punished by the teachers. In these days imprisonment and corporeal punishment were common in the Academy. After yet another scene where Aizen had completed a task that had knocked out about a dozen of his classmates and been hauled away in punishment, Ichigo asked if there was any way Aizen could be moved to a more advanced class or perhaps allowed to graduate early, since he was clearly an unusually gifted student.

The shinigami instructor snorted, "Gifted? His power appears high now, but it'll all even out by third year." He puffed out his chest. "Here at the Shinigami Academy, we believe that every candidate is gifted."

Ichigo rolled his eyes. "Isn't that just another way of saying no one is?"

"Silence!" roared the instructor. "Fifty laps around the barracks for insolence!"

Of course, using flash step, Ichigo could complete that in about a minute, so it was a relatively ineffective punishment. Afterwards, he returned, not even winded, to the instructor who had barely finished speaking.

The instructor glared at him, his face still red. "Well, since you and trainee Aizen seem to have the same ignorant, pigheaded views, you can join him for the night in the Repentance Cell!" He gestured to two other trainers. "Guards, take him away!"

The boy was sitting in the corner of the cell when Ichigo arrived, thick, messy bangs flopping over his glasses, a frown on his face as he stared off into the distance, refusing to acknowledge his new cell mate. He was painfully thin, his wrists pale and lined with blue veins; his shinigami outfit hung loose on his small frame. Bruises peeped out from under his collar.

Ichigo sat down beside him. "Hey."

The boy glanced at him and then away, but said nothing.

Ichigo tried again. He indicated the bruises. "How'd you get those?"

The boy shrugged.

"I mean, I get bruised all the time during the workouts, but those look worse than usual."

The boy responded with a huff of annoyance, not looking at Ichigo, "It's nothing. They'll fade as soon as I get out of the reiatsu-limiting area." His gaze returned to the far end of the room.

Ichigo persisted. "Did you get them in training?"

This time, intense brown eyes focused on Ichigo, eyes appearing larger than usual in the thin, pale face; a penetrating stare that appeared to take in everything about him. "No, the guards accidentally knocked me into the wall when they were bringing me here." He paused and looked Ichigo up and down. "Seven or eight times."

Ichigo winced. "Does that happen a lot? Because I used to have the same kind of problems with bullies back in middle school."

The boy shrugged. "It's unimportant."

"Can't you fight back?"

"If I do, then I'll get expelled, and I need the degree. It's only six years."

Ichigo raised his brows. Apparently patience had always been one of Aizen's virtues. The boy looked around nine, but had to be no older than Ichigo's own age of seventeen, and six years seemed like a really long time to him. Nearly half his own lifetime. (Well, if you weren't too good at math.) If Aizen was already capable of making plans that involved accepting abuse for half a lifetime merely to get a piece of paper from the Shinigami Academy, no wonder he could plot for a hundred years to become God. "What's your name?"

The boy gave a long-suffering sigh as though he hadn't wanted to be engaged in conversation with a stranger, but was forcing himself to be courteous. "Aizen Sousuke. Pleased to make your acquaintance," he returned politely but with an edge of hostility.

Ichigo suppressed a grin. At least the mask wasn't yet completely in place. "I'm Kurosaki Ichigo. Pleased to meet you. I just arrived here and entered the Academy."

Sousuke rolled his eyes. "I know. You showed up last week, and already the instructors are talking about your power levels. Not in six hundred years have there been two first-year students with such destructive amounts of reiatsu."

Ichigo was impressed. "How'd you know all that?"

The boy appraised him coolly. "I watch and listen. It's not that hard. No one notices you when you're small and know how to hide."

"I'm not too good at that." Ichigo ran a hand through his hair, wondering what abilities Aizen had already developed that he might be using for his clandestine information-collecting activities. "It seems people are always noticing me. Can't imagine why."

Sousuke offered him a small grin and his eyes flicked to Ichigo's mop of bright orange hair.

"I've always wanted to learn how to be more unobtrusive," Ichigo said. "You seem to do a good job of reining in your power when you want to. Care to teach me?"

Those all-too-sharp eyes examined him once again. Ichigo could almost hear the gears churning in little Sousuke's over-powered brain. "Why should I give an advantage to someone who is likely to be my only competitor?"

Ichigo shrugged. "Who knows, maybe I'll return the favor and help you someday."

Sousuke looked skeptical, but then he mused, "Of course, it is boring sitting in here, being the only one singled out by the instructors. If I help you develop your powers, maybe some of their punishments will fall upon you."

Ichigo smirked and lifted a shoulder. "That seems like as good a reason as any other."

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A/N: Please review and let me know what you think of this story.

Virtual cookies to anyone who gets the movie and TV references in this chapter. Bonus points: how many clichés and tropes can you find? :)