"...And time!" Karin called out.

Bruised, winded, and maybe sulking just a little that all three Kurosakis hadn't been able to pull off more than a 2-1 victory, Ichigo flopped onto the grass by the picnic cloth. "Dead. So dead."

Mao snickered, as Hei took Yin's hand to help her off the concrete. "For a dead man, you gripe a lot."

"Hah! You should hear some of the other shinigami. One little sword-wound to the chest and they're moping like girls who broke a nail." Ichigo lifted his head to see his sisters slap hands in a high-five. "Um. Not that you guys ever..."

"We know, Onii-chan." Yuzu's smile was bright, if breathless. "And you two didn't know how to play soccer?"

"I couldn't see. Before." Yin blinked as she sat down, taking a long sip of her drink. "...That was fun."

That got Ichigo to sit all the way up. Because the tone of that was so odd, like a question and a revelation all at once-

"Did you like it?" Hei said quietly. "We could try it again another time, if you're not sure."

"I think so?" Yin tilted her head, thinking it over. "That was fun. Fun is... different."

The twins traded a glance. "Different?" Karin ventured.

"A little like happy?" Yin glanced down. "But also... excited? And focused. Like trying to find one subject in Tokyo-" Pale lips clamped together.

"It's okay, kiddo." Huang patted her shoulder, gruffly gentle. "They already know you find things. They're smart kids; they figured it out."

They'd figured out enough, Ichigo knew, as his sisters blanched and gave him a look of, why are we only meeting your friends now, if things were this bad?

To which Ichigo could only shrug, sheepish. Because he hadn't known. Sure, he'd seen Yin was shy and quiet, and Ryuuken had said her soul was hurt, bad as a living person could get - but he hadn't realized what that meant.

She didn't remember what fun was? Ow.

"What about you two?" Yuzu asked, glancing between Hei and Mao. "I mean, our brother says you were hurt, but - we don't know enough about souls yet. Are you okay with- I mean..."

"Oh, I get my fun snarking at these two," Mao grinned. "It took a while, but I think my sense of humor was the first thing to come back." A liquid black stretch. "It kind of had to. You can't live as a cat in an organization that will kill you if you're not useful if you can't laugh at the whole mess."

"Mao!" Hei hissed.

"Hei." Mao shrugged, unimpressed. "As our resident grouch said, they're smart kids. They need to know that if the Syndicate does find us, the safest thing they can do is run." Violet eyed the twins. "Seriously. Run, get help if you can, but get yourselves out of hostage-taking range. None of us are helpless, and Hei fights best if there's no innocents in range to shock."

Yuzu swallowed. Karin frowned, but nodded. "That makes sense," she said grudgingly. "I can fight monsters. I don't know about people. We'll get Ichigo. Or Chad. Or somebody."

Ichigo let out a breath of pure relief. If his sisters said it, they meant it; they'd get help, not try to throw themselves into the middle of a fight they couldn't win. They were smart about stuff like that.

...Probably smarter than he was. Go figure.

"I don't know." Yuzu had a look of sisterly mischief. "Our brother went and got help, and he still jumped into a whole other dimension when Orihime was in trouble..."

Argh. "Promise I'll try not to do that again?" Ichigo said sheepishly. "But Captain-General Yamamoto said Orihime was a traitor. That was crazy."

"Orihime," Karin said flatly.

"Yeah."

"The girl who puts jelly on leeks and thought the Mafia held a boxing championship match in her living room, and that explained all the Hollow damage."

"Yeah," Ichigo sighed.

Very deliberately, Karin clapped a hand to her face. "You know, Toushirou being such a grump makes so much more sense."

"Toushirou?" Hei gave her a tentative smile. "Is he a friend?"

"He would be, if he could ever get any time off to relax from the paperwork and the crazies in his division," Karin grumped. "For a hundred-years-old shinigami, he plays pretty good soccer..."

Ichigo sat back and listened to the story of a crazy kid's pickup game, with strait-laced Hitsugaya Toushirou, Captain of the Tenth, succumbing to Karin's prickly charms enough to partner her on the field. And then saving her one-handed from the Hollow who'd landed on the victory celebration.

Wonder how much she's cleaning it up for Big Brother Who Worries Too Much.

Probably not nearly as much as Hei had the story of the Baby Yakuza and Doll calling for help. Ichigo'd seen Hei's knives, and the matter-of-fact way he'd handled the razor-sharp black blades. They were not for show.

But whatever had actually happened, Hei had... well, tried to tone it down to PG. Mostly. Not enough for the usual twelve-year-old, and thank goodness his sisters already knew a few of the nastier facts of life.

He tried, anyway. How many kids does an assassin talk to?

Anyway, the violence hadn't been nearly as interesting to his sisters as how Hei had described using his power in ways that didn't kill. Faking a taser, for instance, to take unwary Yakuza down in a way that didn't mark him out as anything more than a prepared clumsy waiter. Zapping another guy through a car, so it looked like an ungrounded battery. And the whole completely powerless episode of just dodging an angry Yakuza that had started the mess...

That had made Ichigo sit up and pay attention. Because that clueless act was important.

I know what I can do, Hei's actions said. It doesn't matter what other people think.

Ichigo wanted to know how to do that. How to be... grounded enough, confident enough, that it didn't matter what his enemies thought. Because he had a temper, he knew it, and it had gotten him in so much trouble. If he could just figure out how to make idiots' taunts not matter, if he could get to the point that he could just casually mention, and then they started shooting at me and Baby Yakuza charged one of them and knocked him out, so I didn't have to do anything drastic...

If he could get to there, it'd mean a lot. It'd make his sisters, everybody he cared about, safer. So how?

He mulled that while they started cleaning up. Huang and Mao looked after the bento boxes; and if the cat might be snarfing another scrap or two of fish as they went, that was his business. Yin was helping the girls pick up plates and stuff. Ichigo blinked at the little specter in the iced tea pitcher, wondering what it was like to navigate the world seeing through something that wasn't your own eyes.

Weirder than stabbing ghosts. I think.

He and Hei swept around the edges of where their game had been, making sure any stray napkins got snatched and trashed and otherwise patting turf and stuff back into order. Karin played hard.

Hei had played just as hard right back at her. He took her seriously. Kid or not. Girl or not.

Which made the looks Hei was sliding the twins' way right now even weirder. They were quick, and Ichigo'd bet Hei was trying to hide them, but - that was beyond worry. That was...

Oh. I know that look. From the mirror.

Heartbreak. Something broken, in a way that'd never really get fixed. Just patched over and lived with.

Ichigo eased over that way as he poked for leftover trash, waiting until Hei really looked at him. "Like somebody said once. I don't know what I can do, but it looks like something hurts. And it's... not my sisters?"

Don't shrug. A shrug's wrong here, this is serious. Just wish I knew what was right.

"It could have been them." Hei's voice was almost too quiet to hear. "Years ago. What I did in Heaven's War... it was wrong. I was protecting Bai, but - so much of what I did was wrong."

Ichigo told the hairs on the back of his neck to stand down, damn it. Hei had tells; hard to see, but he had them. If the ex-assassin had suddenly decided he wasn't ex anymore, he'd know.

I hope.

"So back then you might have hurt them," Ichigo got out. "But you wouldn't now."

"No!" Blue eyes flashed wide; almost as wide as Li at his most innocent. "Nothing's worth that now. Bai is gone." Hei looked away, pale. "Bai... is gone."

Ichigo tried not to breathe too loud. One wrong move, and Hei would curl into the same spiky ball of grief he had, when it'd finally hit that his mom would never come back. "I'm not going to ask," he said carefully. "I'm no good at this, I know I'm not-"

"...Xing was nine."

Nine. Oh man, Ichigo remembered being nine, with two little sisters clinging to him after their world fell apart. Yuzu had cried, and that had been bad; Karin hadn't, and somehow that had been worse.

Hei glanced over his shoulder, checking that none of the girls were likely to wander into casual earshot. "Do you remember when the skies changed?"

"Not much," Ichigo had to admit. "I kind of remember a lot of people being worried? But that's when the twins were born, and I was just getting used to being a big brother, so..."

"Nothing else matters as much," Hei agreed. "In China... I remember everyone was afraid. Almost everyone. The shadows ate the skies, and the old stars weren't there anymore - a lot of people went crazy."

Listen, Ichigo told himself firmly as he nodded. Don't ask, just listen.

"There was a couple," Hei went on. "Older man, younger woman; I think we'd seen them before, walking home from school. They never looked happy. That day we were out a little late, near the top of a hill by town, there was a curfew but Xing wanted to see how the shadows looked at sunset. She was trying to draw it, and that street had the best view. She got so frustrated when the yelling started..." He looked away. "Blood has different colors. The movies don't show you that."

"No," Ichigo agreed, heart a lump in his throat. He remembered blood. At nine. He wished he didn't. "No, they don't."

Hei nodded. "Now I know that was arterial spray, and there wasn't anything I could have done."

Ichigo tried not to gulp too hard at that one. Details like that - the day had to be etched on Hei's memory, like rain and the riverbank were on his.

"Back then I just knew he had a knife." Hei's eyes were distant. Almost dead. "The woman was reeling. Blood all over her neck, her shoulder. Spots on the paper. Xing was screaming. I grabbed her and I made us run."

Caught in the middle of someone's murder and a twelve-year-old kid had still protected his sister. Ichigo hadn't been impressed by much after Soul Society's Flaming Chicken of Death, but that qualified.

Hei's shoulders twitched; the bare minimum of a shrug. "I found a policeman. There were a lot of questions. Our parents took us home. And Xing... stopped talking. Stopped drawing."

Ichigo winced. Oh, here it comes.

"Our parents thought it was what she saw," Hei reflected. "And they were... distracted. The power kept flickering. That wasn't new, it was China, but - it started happening a lot."

Ichigo waited. Nodded, just a little; yeah, I'm still listening. Because he could feel his own nerves going taut, picturing a little sister turned living Hollow and no one had a clue.

Worst. Horror movie. Ever.

"It was - three days later? Maybe four? I wasn't sleeping well; I went to bed early, even before Xing. I woke up to a noise. I'd never heard anything like it before." A slow blink. "These days I know what a body falling sounds like."

Ichigo swallowed. So do I.

"The lights were on downstairs, but they were flickering. I started down... and our mother started screaming. She called Xing a monster." Hei hesitated. "I got there just in time to see Xing... blink at her. And then - she just shrugged. And touched her." His voice was almost soundless. "She glowed like a heavenly maiden. And our mother died."

Ichigo tried. He did. But he couldn't help but shiver.

Hei glanced his way, with a soundless sigh. "Xing said Mother didn't want to live knowing her daughter had become a monster. So now she didn't have to. And then - my sister fell asleep."

The shivers didn't want to stop. Because Hei hadn't even mentioned his dad, and if their mom had been screaming about monsters something had to have happened, something Hei was stepping around in his own mind-

Like another body on the floor?

And it scared Ichigo that he knew what that was like. In his gut. In his bones. Because horrible as dead bodies were, they were just bodies. Living people - surviving souls - had to come first.

But there'd been something in Hei's words. Something important. "That's how you knew how to handle her," Ichigo realized. "If she was taking what people said literally..."

Hei nodded; shoulders tight, eyes bleak. "I didn't think it through right then. My - our parents were dead, something was wrong with Xing, and I knew the cops would never understand. Two children, parents dead like something out of a ghost story; we weren't poor, but we weren't Han, we'd be lucky if we didn't end up in an asylum-"

"Wait, wait." Ichigo shook his head. Because something didn't make sense - and if Hei wound himself up any tighter, there'd be a lightning strike right on the riverbank. "You're not Chinese? I thought you said there were a million Li's in China."

Hei stopped, and mouthed something that did not look like Japanese under his breath. "Han is not all people in China. Just most of them. We were not. Like - being Korean, here."

Oh. Oh. Oh hell, no wonder a twelve-year-old kid had panicked and run. Ichigo'd seen Chad have enough trouble, and he was half-Japanese. If Chad had been caught with a pair of dead bodies and a crazy story... yeah, no, he wouldn't have gotten loose from people with white coats and hypodermics, ever.

"So I found what I could that we could use to run, and when Xing woke up I told her I wanted to live," Hei went on. "She said that was good, because using her power made her sleep, and she needed me. And... we left."

Ichigo drew a breath, ready to say how much that must have sucked-

Wait. That's not everything, not the way he's fidgeting. Just wait.

"If you've ever thought about running away from home - it's a bad idea," Hei said, very carefully. "The streets are a hard place to live. They attract desperate people... and people who know you're desperate. A nine-year-old girl, who's pretty - there are scum who'd do anything to get their hands on her. And what they want-" Fingers clenched on a stray napkin, knuckles white. "At least the Hollows are hungry."

Oh hell. Ichigo had to swallow hard. "They tried to touch her - like that. And she killed them."

"Not all of them." Blue eyes were haunted. Cold. "They wanted her so much... they'd forget about me."

I want to throw up. Ichigo gulped it back, because he was sick but he was also so angry. That shouldn't have happened. To anybody. And it was no damn wonder Hei had gotten into being an assassin. If someone had laid hands on Karin or Yuzu like that, if they'd ever tried-

I'd kill them. And I wouldn't be sorry. Not ever.

"And then the Syndicate found us, and I was glad," Hei said quietly. "I was glad. Because whatever they wanted us to do, whoever they wanted us to kill... no one ever tried to touch Bai like that again. Ever."

"You owed them," Ichigo said, just as quiet. Because it wasn't nice, it wasn't right - but if the whole mess with Aizen and the Vizards and everything had taught him anything, it was that the world was not fair. And it wasn't fair that it wasn't fair.

Hei nodded. "If they hadn't tried to kill my team, I might still be there."

Ow. And ah-ha. Ichigo knew this nasty little mind-weasel so well.

I did something horrible, I don't deserve nice things - take the warm fluffies away from me before they get hurt, too.

Granted, the twins were very fluffy. Maybe a bit too much for Hei to take head-on. But Ichigo was going to try.

I could tell him about Mom, I know what it's like to hate yourself-

No, that wouldn't work. Ryuuken said everybody hit by the Gate had been damaged, right in the middle of where human emotions ought to be. If Yin couldn't even remember what fun was, then Hei... Hei probably hadn't been trying to tell Ichigo what he felt, and why. He'd been saying what happened. Because he'd thought he was a Contractor for five years and Contractors were supposed to be rational. Meaning he'd had all the feelings a terrified, ticked-off human should and jammed them down so deep he thought he hadn't felt anything. And now everything was bubbling back up and Hei was trying to figure out the whole tangled mess. Ow.

Okay. If feelings are all screwed, maybe I can just try facts. "You owed them then," Ichigo said bluntly. "You don't owe them now."

Hei blinked, blue eyes a little more alive. "No."

"Right now you owe your team, and you owe yourself," Ichigo nodded firmly. "You don't like who you were with the Syndicate. Fine. Change that. Karakura's got plenty of room for weird." He snorted. "Heck, my dad's a doctor and no one even blinks."

Ooo, that won him a little twitch of a smile. Progress.

"But if you wanted to try... something..." Ichigo hesitated. Hei was older, sadder, and had seen way more death than Ichigo hoped he'd ever see. Who was he to give an ex-assassin advice?

Ah heck. I give it to Sandal-Hat, and Urahara's made nastier mistakes than all of us put together.

"Was there something you and your sister liked to do together? And I don't mean you and Xing," Ichigo stated. "You said Contractors were getting feelings back. Was there anything you and Bai did together? Something good. Something you can hang onto."

Because if Sora was Orihime's brother even after he Hollowed - then Bai was still your sister. There had to be something. I hope.

"...Oh." Hei looked aside, thoughtful. "That's right. We're not being tracked here."

"Um?" Ichigo managed, as Hei snagged a last stray wrapper and headed back to the girls. "Wait. You mean, Bai used her power for something besides zap?"

"She didn't call it fun." Hei stuffed the trash in its appropriate bag. "It was field-appropriate research. We both did it. Trying to find out what a Contract was, what she could do. Sometimes missions called for killing, but a lot of the time we were more effective if we only hit one target. That's how I know how to knock people out. Scramble memories so no one remembers seeing me. We looked up everything on electricity. Some of the stuff was pretty weird." He snagged a water bottle, pouring a spoonful into a cupped palm. "Sometimes we'd run short of water purifiers. Bai learned how to yank anything but water out, so we had something safe to drink. And while we were figuring that out, she came up with something else. It's not really useful, but... in the middle of a jungle, it was kind of fun."

Holding his left hand cupped, Hei held his right over it, spreading his fingers with a look of intense concentration.

Ichigo glanced at the girls, Huang, and cat. Mao was the only one who shrugged; evidently he'd never seen whatever this trick was-

In the space between Hei's hands, little blobs of water were floating.

Yuzu pressed up against Kirsi to get a closer look, delighted. So much of what her brother and his friends could do was just a blur, if she could see it at all. This? Water shifted and shimmered and glorped together into larger wobbly spheres, and it was magic.

"The hell?" Uncle Kuno muttered.

"Electromagnetic levitation." Mao's eyes were wide, ears pricked and curious. "I read some bits in your file that Syndicate researchers thought it might be possible, but there were no results." One ear flicked. "Then again, there wasn't anything about purifying water, either... oh. Oh, interesting. That was a very good hole card to keep, if you thought you were going to end up back in the labs. They always would drug the drinks."

Yuzu felt Kirsi shiver, and hugged her. "It must have been a really bad place. But you're not there, and you're not going back."

"No," Kirsi agreed; faint, but determined. Blinked, and focused on the water. "Pretty."

"It's tricky to pull off," Hei muttered-

-No, Li, they'd better call him Li in public, Ichigo said they were in trouble and Yuzu just knew from the tone Mao had said his real name to jab at Li. Because cats.

"I have to keep the charges balanced," Li went on, "fingers aren't perfect angles, and if there's any wind-"

A breeze curled past. Water splashed against his fingers, globes collapsing in a shimmer of static.

"That happens," Li finished. "But... it is kind of fun."

I wish I could do something like that, Yuzu thought wistfully.

But she wasn't going to say it. Supernatural powers could be neat, but they'd gotten her family in all kinds of trouble. Someone had to focus on making sure everybody got fed and slept. Especially her noble idiot big brother.

Kirsi tilted her head, as if listening to water drip from Li's hands. "If you can do that, I can look through it."

"Huh." Uncle Kuno's gray brows lifted. "Even for a minute, that could come in handy."

"So this Bai taught you how to do that?" Karin was studying the water, and Li. "Who was-" She saw Li's stricken look, and swallowed her words. "Never mind, forget I asked..."

"Bai was my sister." Li glanced away. "She was a Contractor."

Was. And that grim, sad look on Ichigo's face... "I'm sorry," Yuzu said softly. "You loved her a lot." Because that wasn't even a question. The way her big brother trusted Li, everything he'd said to make sure girls he barely knew would stay safe, the careful way he used his powers - he was so much like some of the best people she knew.

Scary. But safe.

Karin was frowning. Mao gave her a sidelong glance. "Something bothering you?"

"...You said Contractor powers were like Hollow powers." She looked up at Ichigo. "Urahara says Hollow abilities are unique. Like shinigami shikai. They come out of the soul the Hollow was." She looked Li dead in the eye. "So how did you and your sister have the same powers?"

Yuzu almost froze. Because Karin was probably right, she paid attention to things people taught her about ghosts, but if Li's sister was gone that had to hurt.

Yet Li just... nodded. Eyes sad, but respectful.

He's - glad she figured it out?

"We didn't have the same powers," Li said quietly. "While my sister was a Contractor, I was human. And then..." His gaze flicked to Ichigo. "Rukia asked. My sister - didn't."

In the corner of Yuzu's vision, a black tail lashed. "She may not have had time."

Everyone's eyes fixed on Mao. The cat glanced over them all, then gazed straight at Li. "You found a third option in Tokyo. At Heaven's Gate, Bai didn't."

Color drained from Li's face like water.

"What." Karin cast a fierce look at the cat, at Uncle Kuno; even at Ichigo, who was just as pale and trying not to look their way. "What option."

Uncle Kuno grimaced. "Five years back? Kill every Contractor an' Doll on the planet... or kill every human inside half of Brazil." He didn't soften his look at Karin, girl or not. "Bai took door number two."

"And at the time," Mao said, very carefully, "Li was Bai's bodyguard. And not a Contractor." Another lash of black. "We know she cared about you. We know she depended on you to protect her. We may never know for certain because all the other parties involved are dead, but if you want my guess... Li. I'd say Amber lied to Bai the same way she lied to you. Either Amber played down the consequences or - I don't know. But everything I do know about Bai says she was smart, tactically skilled, and creative. If she'd been told there were only two options she would have looked for a third. Just as you did."

"Everyone trusted Amber," Kirsi said quietly. "But she killed so many of us. All the Dolls she used to get into Hell's Gate, they died." Her head straightened. "But I went in with Li, and I didn't die. Why didn't she ask?"

"Amber didn't let people say no." Li's voice was almost too quiet to hear. "She'd ask, and lean in, and... and everyone wonders where I learned to manipulate people." He looked down, away from anyone's eyes. "You... really think Bai...?"

"You said there was a lot of light and pain." Mao's voice was blunt, even as violet eyes narrowed. "I think Bai killed you. By accident." A furred shrug. "And then she had to work fast, whatever she tried, because human bodies don't stay viable long and for damn sure not in that heat."

"She must have jammed you back into your body somehow." Ichigo looked up. "Rukia said she could do that, as long as there was some soul chain left. And I know you can transfer power between souls. Bai must have used hers to grab onto you and drag you back to life." He hesitated, and Yuzu didn't like the way he blinked at all. "But... it's really hard for a living human to get hold of enough spirit power to touch a soul..."

Yuzu clung closer to Kirsi, feeling her twitch. Because everyone here knew enough about spirits to do the math.

If Bai couldn't grab a chain as a live person... she had to do it as a ghost.

"We don't have enough information." Mao deliberately licked down some puffed fur. "So stop worrying. Whatever she did, it worked. You're alive. Focus on that."

"Hate to say it, but we do have to worry about it," Ichigo said reluctantly. "If your chain is broken and you're not a shinigami... I think you can't Hollow as long as you're inside a live body. But we'd better find out. Before we hit a Hollow that knocks your spirit out to munch on."

Yuzu gulped. Because that had been awful, hearing about Orihime's brother, and how close she and Tatsuki had come to dying. And if knocking spirits out of bodies was something Hollows could do-

Wait a minute. "If Hollows can knock spirits out, wouldn't they be able to put them back in?" Yuzu said hesitantly. "And if Contractors are like Arrancar, and Arrancar are really strong Hollows - maybe that's how Bai did it. Maybe you're just fine."

"Maybe." Ichigo ruffled her hair. Glanced at Li again. "But we'd better find out. I've got an idea, but I think we ought to ask Dr. Ishida first. He knows more about human souls; he could tell us if it's a good idea to poke your spirit enough to find out."

Li nodded, shoulders stiff; braced for all the bad stuff in the world.

"But not today," Ichigo went on; like he hadn't noticed, when Yuzu was sure everybody had seen it. "He's probably busy, what with O-Bon and the cops trying to handle people freaking out because dead relatives are still hanging around. Or aren't." He shrugged, with a wry grin that just warmed Yuzu to her toes. "Besides, it's not every day we can just flake out and not have some kind of ghost emergency blow up in our faces-"

Mao's ears pricked up, and the cat sighed. "Heads up. Don't twitch."

"Waaaaauuuuugh I don't wanna die!"

Faint. Almost more wind than words. But Yuzu heard it. Everyone heard it.

No. Not everyone, Yuzu realized, watching Huang watch everyone else deliberately not flinch. He can't hear anything.

Now she wanted to hug him. But the way he was watching people, set and ready to move - it was like Ichigo just waiting for a thug to make a bad decision. She wasn't going to get in his way.

"You just had to say it, Ichi-nii," Karin muttered through her fingers. "Oh, what did we ever do to deserve... Afro-san, why?"

Don't laugh, Hei told himself, keeping his face straight with the same act of will that had kept him walking on a bullet wound. Don't laugh, if he knows you see him there'll be all kinds of trouble... that hair is even more ridiculous than it felt like. I didn't think that was possible.

"Quit running!" The poof-haired shinigami grumbled, shaking his katana in his fist as he pelted their way after a panicked salaryman with a yard of broken chain clanking from his chest. "You want some monster to eat you? Suck it up and go on to Soul Society-"

In one smooth motion Hei bent, snagged the iced tea pitcher, and hoisted it up as if about to offer Yin another drink.

The wind as the spirits passed blew bento boxes over, and one sandaled foot planted a print right in the middle of the picnic cloth.

Yuzu started turning pink, but kept it all behind her teeth until the spirit pair had sprinted down the riverbank. "Ooo, that was so rude, if I could get Jinta to take a broom to him-!"

Huang snatched up the cloth, snapping out the dust while he watched everyone else for any more signs of danger. "Jinta?"

Hei blinked. Because that was an odd feeling of relief. Huang trusted them to handle what he couldn't see.

"He works at Urahara Shoten." Yuzu straightened up the boxes, sighing with dismay at the little bits of rice stuck in odd corners. "He always finds the candy I want at a discount. He's really red a lot, though. Maybe Mr. Urahara ought to put someone else on the register, if Jinta has trouble talking to people?"

Hei traded a look with Ichigo. Blushing at and bribing little sisters, was he?

Ichigo scowled back, nodding. Of course you know, this means war.

"Before the two of you get sidetracked plotting imminent social death by way of completely coincidental circumstances..." Mao stared after the poof-haired shinigami. "That's the second time we've encountered that idiot. Who is he, anyway?"

"The second-" Ichigo blinked, and choked, what face was visible behind his frustrated hand turning red with what Hei suspected was stifled laughter.

The twins had facepalmed as well. They weren't laughing. "That," Karin bit out, "is the absolute moron who got assigned here as Rukia's replacement."

Yuzu rubbed her fingers across her nose. "I'm sure he just needs more experience..." Her dubious look turned to wary curiosity. "Wait. You met him before? But how did-?"

"Oh man." Ichigo couldn't hold back the snickers anymore, arms curled around his gut to keep it from busting open laughing. "And back then you couldn't even see him, and you still-! Thought he'd slammed headfirst into the power lines, Kurumadani's got the situational awareness of a drunk pigeon...!"

Karin's jaw dropped. She traded a glance of slowly dawning glee with her sister, before turning fierce black eyes on Hei. "You?"

"Um." Hei shrugged sheepishly.

It wasn't a girlish giggle. Not quite. But Karin's bright eyes were a hug of sunlight.

Folding the picnic cloth, Huang eyed torn-up turf, face wrinkled in definite thought. "You saying these guys who're supposed to be protecting ghosts from Hollows. Who know this town is jammed to the gills with people with ghost-sight. Assigned a guy here whose MO makes a bull in a china shop look delicate an' demure?"

"Ran into him the night I got back from Soul Society the first time," Ichigo sighed. "Idiot didn't even know I'd be patrolling the town. Darn near knocked him off a roof the first time I had to raise my spirit pressure a little - gah. I don't know what his division was thinking, putting him on this patrol. Not that most shinigami think about mortals, besides people who aren't ghosts yet..."

Hei traded a glance with Huang, and then Mao. Silence was fine. Thoughtful silence meant plotting in progress.

Karin was smacking a fist into her palm, eyes narrowed as she muttered half-formed thoughts on how to get an idiot shinigami to pay attention. Hei had to admit, the one with the ghost talismans and monofilament wire sounded appropriately vicious.

Ichigo's grin was slow, evil, and possibly had more teeth than a human should. "You know... you can make water float."

"Yes," Hei said warily.

The teen spread his hands, as if presenting Kurumadani's head on a silver platter. "Ultimate bucket trap."

Hei gave him a look far too suspicious to be one of Li's. Because deliberately setting up a barracks-room prank on a Hollow-fighting spirit seemed like too much risk for too little gain. Even if they could get away with it.

"That'd teach him about running through the walls of a girl's bedroom," Karin grumbled. Blinked at them both, as if she'd just realized how closely they were listening. "Ah, not that that's happened, but the way he ignores everything when he's chasing another ghost - well."

Hei's eyes narrowed. Then again...

Somewhere in Tokyo, chasing down yet another unwary Syndicate lowlife, Kirihara Misaki had an awful feeling.

Girls love ice cream, Ichigo nodded to himself, as Karin and Yuzu debated the merits of green tea versus chocolate versus melon, and Huang negotiated with the bemused stand-owner to buy Yin a bowl with five different tiny sample scoops... and one little cup of part-melted vanilla for a certain snarky cat. Law of nature.

"I'm still not sure this is a good idea." Hei was using Li's casual slump, but Ichigo could read the terrain well enough to see how Hei could keep an eye on the most obvious approaches for someone bent on mayhem. And more than a few not-obvious, like rooftops reflected in the glass of a storefront.

Thank you, Sandal-Hat.

"For Yin, this is good," Hei went on. "She and the twins... if Yin can learn how to take care of herself as a person, she'd be able to walk away from the Syndicate and just vanish-"

Ichigo folded his arms, and leveled a scowl just a little short of swords come out next. "You mean you'd vanish. Don't do that. She'd never forgive you." Argh, no, that's the self-sacrificing look, I know that one from the damn shrimp shinigami and her brother. "And it wouldn't help. She's got a hole in her soul, remember? She needs people who care about her, so she's got something to lean on when the whole world goes crazy. She needs you. Like my sisters need me. Maybe one of these days I'll run out of luck. Maybe one day a Hollow or a crazy idiot will kill me off for real. That'd hurt them, but they know it can happen. If you just vanish on Yin... it'll tear her up inside."

Hei's gaze slid away from his. "I'm not the kind of big brother she needs."

"What, because you made mistakes?" Ichigo scowled harder. "You think I wouldn't have made the same ones?"

That earned him a startled look. Good.

"Because I would have," Ichigo forged on. "Most of 'em. Maybe all of them. Keeping your little sister safe isn't supposed to be like that." He huffed. "You do crazy things for the people you love, yeah. But I've been turning it over in my head and I can't think of anything you could have done different. She was your sister. Anything else you did would have left her with people who would have killed her. Or worse. And trust me, I'm a shinigami. There are lots of things worse than death."

Hei took a deep breath. "You don't know everything I've done."

"Don't know half the stuff Sandal-Hat did, either. Or Dr. Ishida. Or my own dad. Don't care," Ichigo said shortly. "You did horrible things. I got that. Important thing is, right now, you've stopped doing them."

Blue eyes gave him a sidelong glance. "Right now?"

Ahah, you have fallen into my trap. Heh. "Hey, who knows about tomorrow. Could be a zombie apocalypse." Ichigo hooked his thumbs in his jean pockets, and gave one ex-assassin a fighting grin. "Your power would kind of suck for that."

Give the guy credit for adapting to Karakura insanity; Hei looked like he was taking that seriously. "I could run the generators."

Huh. Not a bad comeback. "Yeah, but you don't want to touch zombies..."

Oh. Oh, Ichigo had an idea, and it was glorious.

Also explosive. But hey, if they were talking zombie apocalypse, big booms were a plus.

Not to mention, if it could work - hitting Hollows from a distance was definitely better.

"That water-drop trick," Ichigo said thoughtfully, hands sketching holding, aiming, target. "Think you could make like a railgun?"

Hei's eyes were very wide, as the girls caught up to them.

Ichigo mentally buffed his nails as they parted; the girls with him, Hei's team heading off to skulk their way through a few back alleys before they got to their own front door. Good deed for the day, check.

Because seriously. What sane guy who'd ever gotten beaten down by a Hollow didn't dream of More Dakka?

Eleventh Division, part of his brain pointed out.

I said sane guy.

The trip home was thankfully spirit-free, even if he did catch glimpses of a few canoodling ghostly couples as they walked. Ichigo made sure he caught the eyes of one of the idiot ghost guys, scowled, and pointed to his two sisters.

Evidently not a total idiot, that ghost stopped with the fondling and dragged his afterlife date somewhere else.

"Either they don't think people can see them and they do crazy stuff, or they figure out someone can and they won't stop bugging you," Karin grumped. "I don't know why people say don't speak ill of the dead. If they were jerks before, dying doesn't make them better."

"Eh, he's gone, relax," Ichigo said firmly. "So... want to tell me what you two were plotting with Kirsi, or are there things teenage brothers were not meant to know?"

"We traded numbers," Yuzu smiled at him. "She said she'd call after she had a few days to think about it."

"They're really skittish," Karin nodded. "We can wait, until they're sure they won't hurt us."

Damn, his sisters were good. "They've got reasons," Ichigo said soberly. "There are really bad people after them."

Which earned him twin looks of duh. "Someone tried to make Li choose between his family and blowing up Tokyo." Yuzu's eyes had a fierceness most people only saw once. Before their dad booted whoever the jerk was out, never to darken the clinic door again. "People who - who use people that way, like Aizen used Rukia and Soul Society and even those Arrancars... of course they're scared."

"And of course there's more idiots after them," Karin grumped. "Because nobody's sane enough to just leave some hair-trigger jumpy guys alone. I wonder if the Vizards even wanted to go back to Soul Society."

That stopped Ichigo cold on the sidewalk. "What?"

Karin started to speak, grimaced, and shrugged. "You know Sandal-Hat. I'm not sure if I overheard it, or if he wanted me to overhear it. But the last time he came back to the Shoten for supplies, he said something to Tessai about really wishing the Captain-General would let Hachigen out of the Divisions so he could have some help warding all that Szayel creep's experiments."

The Vizards' best kido expert and guy with wards and shields... wasn't being let out of Soul Society to clean up Aizen's mess. That sent a definite chill down Ichigo's spine. Because he might not know all the ins and outs of Soul Society but he knew enough to guess Aizen had left the place a mess. And given the short time he'd been in Rukongai showed the nobles and shinigami took care of themselves first, and everybody else after... and how Old Man Yama had written Orihime off as a traitor, or at least an acceptable loss, rather than risk more people to rescue her...

Kurumadani's not powerful enough to take care of all the Hollows that try to snack on Karakura. Not long-term. He's just been lucky. One of these days he won't be.

...And when he's not lucky...

Kurumadani's not powerful. He's an acceptable loss.

Oh hell. Ichigo still wanted to dump cold water on the guy when the Afro-topped idiot least expected it. But one way or another they had to get the guy some organized help.

I need to talk to the gang, Ichigo realized, matching his sisters' pace again. The clinic was only a block away, and he needed to think, before he met another flying Isshin attack. We need to really talk. Figure out what we can do, and how we can do it; not just have whoever's closest run off and smack down Hollows. There's got to be a better way than just throwing everybody at the monsters, because you never know how strong they are and there's no way to call in more help-

Ichigo stopped dead, and smacked himself in the forehead.

Comms. We need comms.

Comms, and plans, and a way to scout the damn Hollows before they committed to an attack.

We're friends who fight together. But if we're going to pick up Kurumadani's slack - if we're going to help him stay alive - we need to be a team.

...Oh, that was going to be so much fun, after the past few months.

Eh. Jumping ahead of myself anyway, Ichigo shrugged, approaching the gate. I can see Hollows, doesn't mean I can fight 'em yet. Not unless I have to. So... let's do what Rukia would have done, if she hadn't been stuck powerless and still in Karakura. Take it from the basics, and figure out how to always hit the Hollows from behind.

He stopped at the gate, Karin and Yuzu halting behind him. "Trouble?" Karin asked quietly.

"...No?" But he wasn't sure why. He didn't see anything. It was more like a breath of summer wind across his shoulders, fierce and protective as a dragon-

Tatsuki stepped out of the shadows behind the gate, looking hopeful. "Hey."

Ichigo gave her a nod, still a little breathless. Tatsuki. That was Tatsuki's spirit pressure. He'd missed that. She hadn't been there when he'd dropped the jibakurei bombshell on the others, busy with some martial arts stuff after school, and... he'd missed her then, and hadn't realized what he was missing until now. He'd seen and felt spirits as long as he could remember, having his powers burned out had been like walking around with cardboard cutouts instead of people-

Oh. Oh, man, no wonder I was such an idiot. "I'm sorry," Ichigo blurted out, before he could think twice.

"What for?" Tatsuki gave him a sharp look, fists on her hips. "Is it true? You can see ghosts again?"

What, nobody was going to believe that just maybe Urahara and his dad had been wrong? "Yeah, and-"

His oldest friend pounced, hugging hard and desperate. "Damn it, you idiot, we've been worried about you!"

The twins traded a look, then Karin grinned, Yuzu dropped him a wink...

And they headed inside, leaving him to the grappling arms of near-death. Ack.

"Your dad said not to talk about spirits, and whenever we did, you'd make it about something else, and you looked horrible but there've just been so many Hollows, and..." Tatsuki let go; and if one of her fists came up to scrub near her eyes, it was probably dust.

"Um. Yeah, well... Dr. Ishida came up with something. Going to take a while, but - it's working." Ichigo looked aside, shutting the gate behind them as he felt his ears turn red. "I... kind of didn't want to say anything until we were sure it worked? And then I was in the wrong place at the right time with a kid and a Hollow and - it came out okay. But I had a fight with my dad. And it took a while to cool down." Ichigo thought about how he felt, and winced. "...Cool down a little. I'm still mad at him. It... kind of bled over. Sorry."

"No wonder Orihime thought you were mad at her." Tatsuki tilted her head, squinting at him like an opponent on the training mats. "But you look better. And you sound a lot more like you." She breathed a sigh of relief. "It's okay. We know you; you always get grumpy when you can't do anything and..." She winced. "Damn it, we didn't know what to do. So we tried to follow your lead. You know, not talk about spirit stuff. Which kind of ended up not talking about anything..."

They were trying to-? Ichigo winced himself, the whole awkward mess of the past few months showing up in a different light. "I'm an idiot."

"Wow. News flash," Tatsuki deadpanned. Reached up with a closed fist, and bapped her knuckles against his forehead. "We know that. But you're our idiot. You need to talk to us when things get all screwy!"

And talk. And apologize. And maybe grovel a little. "Everything just hurt," Ichigo admitted. "I thought you guys didn't care. Because... I couldn't feel it."

"Couldn't feel it?" Tatsuki gave him a look that usually was the prelude to a justified beat-down. "We were there, we were trying. Maybe not the way you wanted, but we can't read your mind-"

"But I could read yours," Ichigo got out. "I grew up feeling spirits, Tatsuki. All the time. Live and dead. I grew up sure when people cared about me. And when they didn't. I could feel it." He swallowed hard. "And then I couldn't."

Tatsuki stared up at him, eyes slowly widening. Squared her shoulders, and let out a long low whistle.

Reached up, and hugged him again. "You goof."

"Missed you too," Ichigo muttered into her shoulder. Her spirit pressure was warm, and maybe a little raspy; like smooth scales. It felt awesome. "Thanks. For not giving up on me."

"Like I ever could." Tatsuki let go, looking him over again. "So what'd Uryuu's dad figure out, and how can we help?" She poked him with a finger. "Because I have to tell you, you're my friend and I'd walk through fire for you even if you never saw ghosts again, but I had no idea how messy hunting Hollows was going to get without you."

"It's kind of counterintuitive?" Ichigo scratched the nape of his neck, sheepish. "Turns out healing up a Vizard is different from healing a shinigami. A shinigami can get his zanpakutou put back together with just enough regular spirit energy. Like I did for my dad. But a Vizard's got a Hollow, too."

Tatsuki took a step back, obviously doing the math. "You need Hollow energy."

"Small doses," Ichigo agreed. "We're doing it carefully, but... Dad's really not thrilled about it."

"Yeaaaaah, I bet he's not." Tatsuki thought that over a moment, and nodded. "Okay. You are definitely not doing this alone anymore. How can I help?"

Ichigo hesitated. Because Hei's team and Ryuuken had managed not to kill each other, by dint of meeting in a hospital, but he could just picture Uryuu and Chad and Keigo, oh gods Keigo, poking and prying with words and spirit pressure at people who were still all skittish as Mao in a room full of rocking-chairs-

Wait. She didn't say "we". She said "I". And this is Tatsuki. Martial artist first, spirit-fighting just because she has to. And because we're her friends.

Tatsuki's careful. She knows when something's too big for her. And she knows you don't take martial arts against guns unless you've got no choice.

This could work.

"Let me make a phone call," Ichigo stated. "There's other people involved. I want them to meet you, but they're jumpy. Worse than the Vizards."

Tatsuki's eyebrows bounced up at that. "Yeah? Soul Society after them, too?"

"They're not that lucky," Ichigo deadpanned. "But if this works out - you might get a new sparring partner."

A/N: Something I'm not sure some fans have considered when it comes to figuring out Hei's family background: The odds are extremely high the Li family is not Han Chinese. 1) Blue eyes. 2) Two children.