"It's still madness," Erza insisted stubbornly.
Still a bit sore, Ichigo stood upright, and looked her in the eye."We're not backing down. We're getting her back, together, and that's that."
For a moment, two equally stubborn gazes clashed, the both of them frowning determinedly. Erza balled her fists, grit her teeth, and finally looked away. "You people..." she muttered, shaking her head.
At the same time, something stirred in her chest, a memory even older than her time in the afterlife. The memory of being surrounded by brave, optimistic people who would do anything for their extended family, no matter the odds. Across worlds, across so much time, it seemed she had found Fairy Tail again, albeit under a new name. Slowly, she smiled.
"Fine." She said. "But this happens on my terms. Except Yoruichi and I, you are all complete rookies- and yes that does include you, Ichigo- and you're going to do what I say, when I say it."
"What?" Ichigo said, apparently having expected further arguing. "I mean. Er, yes. That's great."
"As it happens, the minimum waiting period for an execution is a month," Urahara cut in, "and with your school semesters having just finished... well, you'll have three weeks of time. Three weeks to train, to prepare, to make yourself as ready as you can."
The group murmured their approvals, or nodded stoically in the case of Chad and Uryu, and Erza stood up.
"Together, then."
"Together." Ichigo said, and nodded with a smile.
"Rest, recover and prepare," Urahara said. "Tomorrow at dawn, in my basement, training begins."
It was with some trepidation that Ichigo made the climb the next day. More aware than ever of his human limitations, the long ladder down was infuriating. Just days ago, he could have made it down or up in one or two jumps. Now, he was holding on for dear life, because a fall would be fatal.
Once down, he assembled with the rest of the group.
Making his entrance was Urahara, coming out from behind a rock. The man, Ichigo noticed, loved his entrances.
"Well, well, well then!" He began, spinning his cane a few times with one hand, "where do we start?"
"Well, um," Ichigo said, awkwardly raising a hand, "how about... well, I don't have powers anymore. So there's that."
"Oh, fear not," Urahara said smoothly. "I have a method to restore- or rather, grant you- power. As a caveat, it is rather radical and carries with it significant risk."
"Well, let's have it," Ichigo said. He felt a bit nervous, but was too determined to flinch.
From out his coat, Urahara produced a sword- a zanpakutou, it looked like.
"Asauchi." Erza commented. "How...?"
"Like I said, I have my sources," Urahara said coolly, stepping closer to Ichigo.
"Asauchi?" Ichigo echoed.
"When first a prospective soul enters the shinigami academy, they are given a sword just like this, an Asauchi." Urahara explained. "A blank slate. A material from which a zanpakutou spirit develops, as the soul grows in power and skill. When happening naturally, it harmlessly creates a sentient weapon that resonates with its users."
"But this isn't harmless." Ichigo said apprehensively.
"This goes into your chest," Urahara said flatly. "A tool meant for a shinigami, it will trigger a reaction from your considerable spiritual energy. It's a shortcut. But as such, it comes with a risk."
"Such as?" Ichigo said, knowing he would not like the answer.
"Death." Urahara said simply. "Or rather, annihilation. If you just died, your soul would separate from your body, and eventually pass on to the soul society. Here, there is a slight risk your energy will overload, go critical, and burn out. All of your reiatsu would disperse in the process, leaving your body a lifeless husk, and everything you ever were would be lost."
He sounded almost cheery, which made it all the worse.
"How big of a risk?" Ichigo inquired.
"Oh, not very large," Urahara said dismissively. "It has of course never been tested on somebody as powerful as you, but on average... I'd say no more than thirty-seven percent."
Thirty-seven percent. Almost a four in ten chance of... complete oblivion. Right.
"Are you sure, Ichigo?" Erza said. "We can do it without you. There's no need for this."
"I'll do it." Ichigo said resolutely, knowing he was mostly being stubborn.
Ichigo swallowed, and extended a hand. Urahara handed the sword to him. It felt heavy in his hand. Hesitantly, he drew the blade out. It looked quite real, sharp and tangible, and he would never have guessed it was of spiritual making. Surging in hyper-speed, thought after thought ran through his mind. When he had first stabbed a sword into his chest and gained Rukia's powers. When he had saved his friends. When he had learned and trained. When he had come to enjoy the rush of a good fight, the sense of power. The thought of death, true death, overtaking him.
He had faced that same feeling of death just two nights ago, against Abarai Renji. He had not backed down then. Thinking of Rukia, he slowly angled the point of the blade upward, against his sternum.
"Now, one thing," Urahara said hastily, "once that enters you, you will feel something. Just what that something is, I have no clue, but I know for a fact that all previous test subjects were quite conscious." Ichigo pushed away the thought of people having tried this before, focusing entirely on the sword before him. "It's absolutely vital," Urahara continued, "that you learn the name of your blade before you wake up, or at the very least obtain the powers of a shinigami. This is well and beyond what a typical shinigami is expected to learn so quickly- but then again, you are hardly typical."
"And if I don't?" Ichigo said.
"Then you don't make it back."
Taking one last look at Erza, Ichigo swallowed, blinked, and firmly pushed the sword into his chest. It slid in like a knife through butter, and for a second Ichigo felt nothing. Then came oblivion, and Ichigo knew nothing else.
At some point, and it was impossible to tell time in whatever space this was, Ichigo became aware that he was floating, or perhaps falling, through... something.
Looking around, he saw nothing but whiteness. It was not like a cloud, where you could see swirls of white mist- pure whiteness, as far as he could see, and there he was floating or falling or lying; he couldn't tell which. He could move his arms and hands, he noticed, but it seemed to get him nowhere. It was all white, a single shade of the colour as far as the eye could see.
Then suddenly, it wasn't. The change was too quick to even register; Ichigo blinked more than a few times. It was like some hyper-rapid graphics rendering in a computer game, where terrain shifted into focus once you got closer- except this looked very, very real.
The new landscape was odd, but it was a relief to feel some sort of structure around him; a hardness under his feet and gravity to keep him in place. Confusedly, he stood up, and took in the view of this new world.
To the very horizon, odd, white structures stretched. They were full of neatly lined little crevices, and upon closer inspection there were large gaps in between them. They would have looked like streets, excepts streets were usually lined with asphalt or at least cobblestones. The surface beneath him was smooth, white and flat, excepting the small indentations here and there, depressing into the street- or ground, or whatever it was- just by a couple of inches. He looked to the edge, and there seemed to be an abyss extending down, further than his eyes could see.
It was absurdly bright. A blue sky extended as far as he could see, not a cloud in sight, and for all he could tell, this place- whatever it was- stretched to infinity, an unending mass of blue and white.
'You are going to see something', all right. Now there was an understatement...
He looked around with confusion, but never had the chance to marvel at its alien strangeness, or despair at its vastness, because his reveries were interrupted that very moment.
"ICHIGO."
The voice was deep, powerful, and rung across the entire world as if it were the only sound ever heard. For all Ichigo knew, it might well be the truth. Confusedly, he looked around, and a few moments later he saw him. A middle-aged man, not unlike his father, but with wild unkempt hair, a long black cloak covering his lean features, and an odd pair of orange-coloured glasses, much too large to fill any practical function.
He hovered in the air above him, and Ichigo blinked as he saw him descend.
"Without consideration or forethought, I am born," said the man, his voice ringing across the world, almost deafening. It occurred to Ichigo that his voice wasn't actually very loud- it just had a way of making itself very, very clearly heard.
"Awakened rudely, I stand before you. Who are you?"