The moment I woke up I was already anxious. There was no blessed grace period, where your brain hasn’t truly figured out what to think about for the day and is just booting up. This time, as soon as I woke up, the anxiety was present and sitting over my shoulder, watching me, licking its lips, and waiting for a moment to pounce.

I struggled up from the bed that I barely remember being placed into, rolling off the side and onto my feet. I walked out into the main living area, greeted with the smell of coffee and pancakes.

“Good morning.” Suzumi’s voice chimed. Though it wasn’t as cheerful as you would normally hear from her, nor as soft. It had a hard edge to it that was hard to identify.

“Morning.” I responded, hesitantly, as I felt around for the stool that I knew sat underneath the counter. Finding it and then sitting down, I took in the smells that bloomed from the kitchen in front of me.

“Is that maple syrup I smell?” I said, sniffing the air, anxiety still present, but allayed by the smell of homely food. A food that held a host of memories, all of them tied to a comfortable home and the love of a mother I wasn’t sure I deserved.

“Yup! It’s not the weekend or anything, I just felt like it was a good start to the day, especially after yesterday.” Her voice was smiling, but the emotions behind it were not. I just nodded, waiting quietly while Suzumi finished cooking the pancakes. The sounds and smells created a comfortable atmosphere that allowed me to confront the fact that I needed to go back to Urahara’s shop.

There was no avoiding it. I wasn’t under the illusion that it was possible for me to run away, not in the slightest. If I ran, Urahara would find me easily, and I wouldn’t be given a second chance.

The man was terrifying, and he had haunted my dreams the night before. A looming presence, a person that believed so strongly that you shouldn’t have the right to exist. It was terrifying. But Tessai was going to train me, whatever that meant. For now, it seemed like it was just becoming physically able, but how long would that last? When would it become something like what Urahara had done to me, or what Tessai had done to protect me?

It was all a massive unknown.

“Here you are!” Suzumi placed a plate on the table, sliding it across the linoleum surface. I smiled weakly at her and felt around for the knife and fork before digging in.

They were different than ones I had eaten back home. Lighter and airier, less density. I had always found pancakes to be too ‘cakey’ or ‘bready’ for my tastes, so this was a welcome change. Despite the headsman approaching, the marker for the rest of the day, I felt my mood begin to improve.

Maybe it was the moodiness from sleep slowly being washed from my brain, or maybe it was just the food, and sharing it with the woman who was now sitting next to me, the clinking of her cutlery reaching my ears.

“Thank you, Suzumi. For everything.” I didn’t receive a direct response, but there was a slight touch on my hand, a fleeting gesture of kindness. Maybe affection if I were a lucky man.

The world slowly narrowed as we ate pancakes together, the outside and future becoming less relevant as we simply ate and rubbed shoulders. An odd thing really, that something so simple was able to calm me so absolutely.

But, in the end, those moments passed. The tell-tale sign that my mind was starting to wander was the ribbons. Not just any ribbons either. I had seen them once, and now they appeared before me again, as if they were keeping watch on me. Their crimson red a foreboding warning.

“I think I need to get to… work.” I said. Suzumi stiffened.

“You don’t think you can just not go?” I shook my head. The silence dragged on afterwards, silent contemplation maybe, before she sighed heavily.

“Alright. I’m going to drive you.” Her voice was more authoritative than I had ever heard from her, but I wasn’t going to complain. I wasn’t all that sure I could handle getting there alone, emotionally or physically. It took only another thirty minutes to finish getting ready, a quick shower to wash before a day that was destined to be a long one, and quickly shaving off the beginnings of a stubble, more out of habit than anything.

The drive there was uncomfortably tense. Maybe it was just my anxiousness talking, but I could feel an aura radiating from Suzumi, and it begun to make me worried in the last ten minutes of the drive. I wanted to bring it up, but I couldn’t find the strength within me to question her on it.

Or maybe I didn’t truly want to stop her.

It was the moment that the car stopped that Suzumi got out of the car uncharacteristically fast. I knew what was happening and called after her, trying to get out of the car as quickly as I could without ending up with a face full of curb.

I rushed in after her, but it was already too late. I saw Urahara’s and Suzumi’s ribbons right next to each other when I hear the crack of a hand against a face. I was shocked still, standing at the door.

It was shock first, then fear.

She had just slapped Urahara. The fear turned into a determination that washed away all self-preservation. I stumbled forwards, using what little I remember of the layout of the shop, somehow managing to not knock into anything hard enough to send me bowling over. When I got close to Suzumi’s ribbon, I reached out my hand, miraculously managing to grab her hand, and I pulled her into me, twisting away from Urahara, shielding her with my own body, as little as I was sure it would do.

The blood was rushing through my ears as the footsteps behind me sounded out, walking closer step by step. The pressure started again, but lightly in comparison to yesterday, a hand on the shoulder versus a boulder weighing me down.

“You protect her from me?” The monotone voice asked. There was an underlying current of emotion that I wasn’t quite able to identify. I didn’t respond, the rush of adrenalin quickly subsiding and being consumed by the same fear as yesterday. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t even breathe, let alone talk.

I could tell that Suzumi felt it now, she was sweating, obviously far more effected than I was. She was struggling to breathe under that same pressure. Another rush of adrenalin hit me.

“Stop with the pressure,” I growled, anger leaking into my voice, “she can’t breathe!” I could hear Suzumi gasping for air, but the pressure wasn’t subsiding. Urahara still stood there, gazing down at us, the pressure increasing just a little.

“Make me.”

Make him? The anger that I felt grew like a bonfire. Make him? How dare he hold Suzumi hostage and demand that I stop him.

How dare he.

In my anger, I forget what it was that I did. It would only be hours later that I figured it out. Tessai would tell me that it was impossible, that stealing reiatsu–spiritual pressure–was something that wasn’t ever theorised properly yet.

And so when, in the height of my anger, I reached out and grabbed Urahara’s ribbon and ripped it from him, along with it came the idea of someone’s soul being sacred and untouchable. It all came crashing down, like a house of cards.

Urahara gasped, suddenly devoid of any spiritual pressure, and fell to his knees, his body unable to handle the sudden change. But I wasn’t done, my anger overflowing and bubbling over at the edges, destroying my ability to think.

I, with Urahara’s ribbon in my hand, yelled incoherently and made a bludgeoning motion with the ribbon. At first, it didn’t even seem like anything happened. But the next moment a burst of power rang out like a bomb, hitting Urahara full on, sending his body straight through the floor of the building, the wooden floor splintering into a million pieces and scattering around the room.

I felt the ribbon in my hands dissolve, leaking through my fingers like smoke, as if it were never there. Suddenly, I felt drained. More drained than I had after being made to run for hours with Tessai. My eyes began to close, unable to fight the sudden fatigue.

My eyes closed as I heard Suzumi’s scream, drifting off to a dreamless sleep.

“Kisuke, what exactly has gotten into you?” Tessai asked, looking over to the perfectly fine Urahara. Urahara grinned from underneath his green and white striped hat.

“It wasn’t a big deal, I don’t know what you are so worried about!” His tone jovial and dismissive as a whole. Tessai doesn’t get truly angry very often, and most times it is simply a stern sort of anger.

“What. Were. You. Doing.” This was not one of those times. Urahara peeked from beneath the brim of his hat and sighed heavily, letting go of the jovial façade.

“I was testing him.” Tessai’s face grew darker.

“That much was obvious. What were you testing, exactly?” Tessai’s voice barely constraining his anger for the sake of his scholarly curiosity.

“What his abilities are, of course. The kid is a wimp, I had to push him into a corner to get even a chance of seeing what he was capable of.” Tessai exploded from his sitting position, the table sitting between them being launched off to the side, and Tessai grabbing Urahara by the collar of his shihakushō.

“And you thought that the best way to do that was to threaten him with the life of his mortal companion?” Tessai boomed, incredulous. Urahara’s expression darkened, looking directly into Tessai’s eyes.

“Yes.” The two men looked at each-other, each possessing a burning conviction in their eyes. Tessai’s jaw clenched, the muscle rippling in restraint. He grunted, dropping Urahara to the floor. After which reset the table and sat cross legged with arms crossed across from Urahara, devoid of any of his normal respect. It took almost an hour before either of them spoke, the intensity of their stares almost visceral.

“He stole my reiryoku and used it against me.” This made Tessai’s eyes widen slightly.

“He repurposed, absorbed?” Urahara shook his head.

“Stole.” He said, his conviction iron.

“Your soul?”

“Undamaged. However, it’ll take time for my spiritual energy to recover properly. It’s not easy to collect this much energy in the Human World.”

“This is… worrying.” Tessai rumbled, but Urahara shook his head.

“There seems to be a limit. If he had truly hit me with my entire spiritual energy reserve… well, many would believe that there was a bomb dropped. It seems it took a certain amount of his own energy to do so, the rest dissipated. I was able to collect most of the energy before anything bad happened.” Urahara shrugged.

“The boy has yet to wake up. Were you not worried about killing him?” Tessai’s voice was hard, but Urahara just shrugged, nonchalant. Tessai stared at him, stony eyed until Urahara gave in.

“Fine! Yes, I knew the risk and did it anyway. I had an idea that he’d be able to interact with the spiritual ribbons, so I just let him. Yes, I know, it could have killed him to handle that. But it seems there is a natural protection against destroying his soul from handling spiritual energy far surpassing your own capability. I could have stopped him from doing it pretty easily, he’d only be able to pull that stunt with someone on his own level of power, maybe a bit above if they’re stupid.” Urahara huffed. Tessai rubbed the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses up.

“Kisuke. You’re going to help train this boy.” Tessai’s words travelled into Urahara’s ears and there was a moment of delay before they truly sunk in.

“What! No, I most definitely will not train him!” Tessai looked deep into Urahara’s eyes and saw the same petulant child with a genius’ mind, so he treated him as one.

“You will, and you will also apologise for how you have acted towards him. You have caused extreme harm to both Mister Carter and Miss Hamase. In fact, you will teach both of them.” Urahara’s mouth opened, gaping like a fish out of water.

“What? You can’t seriously expect me to train a human and whatever the kid is! I have machines to build, experiments to run! There are so many things I can do with th–”

“Kisuke Urahara,” Tessai’s voice rang out with an authority that few possess, even in Soul Society, “you will train the both of them, I will brook no argument from you.” There was another long moment of silence before petulant man sighed, taking off his hat and frustratedly scrubbing his hand through his wiry blonde hair.

“Fine, but just an hour each, a day.” Tessai nodded. This could be considered generous by Urahara. An hour of the man’s time was something that not many but Kurosaki and his group and Tessai would receive. Maybe Mayuri, if he was lucky.

“Acceptable.”

“Good, finally I can go make useful things.” Urahara immediately stood up and glided out of the room on his wooden sandals. Tessai just sighed.

“What do I do about you, Mister Carter?”