"Kanonji!" I chuckled as Kaoru raced forward the moment he saw I was awake, letting out a soft grunt as the boy hugged me tightly.
"Good to see you too, but still injured," I grunted out, smiling as he pulled back immediately with a look of panic. "You didn't hurt me, Kaoru. Most of the pain is gone anyways, but let's be careful just to be safe."
"Okay."
"Mr. Kanonji," Nakamura greeted as he walked into the room, but I smiled as I saw the shaking of his hands and the relieved look in his eyes.
"Nakamura, happy that you don't have to go job-hunting now?"
"Oh, you have no idea, sir," he replied with a relieved smile as he shook my hand. "I've almost started applying for that sushi restaurant you like to frequent."
"That...doesn't sound so bad. That would be free sushi for me."
"Let's not think about that, sir," he said with a nervous smile, making me chuckle as I leaned back into my chair.
My eyes then moved to Ikumi, following her hips as she walked over to the bags to see what was in them. She seemed to notice my gaze as she looked over her shoulder, giggling as I just gave a wink.
"What's going on?" Kaoru asked with a frown, looking between us. I just pointed at his mother, something that made Ikumi stare at me with a piercing glare.
'Sorry, I'll make it up later,' I apologized, giving a shrug as she sighed and pulled Kaoru out with her.
Yeah, better to let the mom take care of that.
"I can only assume that you and Ms. Ikumi have taken the next step in your relationship?" Nakamaru asked, most likely having seen the signs.
I just smiled and gave a shrug. "More like a couple of steps?"
"You've already slept with her?"
"Take a couple of steps back," I replied and he paused before nodding.
"I do not know."
"And you don't need to, bud," I said with a chuckle. "All you need to know is that we've moved from the talking phase to the physical phase."
"That is true. Well, congratulations on your new relationship."
"Thanks. I just hope Kaoru doesn't take it too rough," the moment I finished speaking, the doors opened once more and Kaoru stomped in.
Nakamaru immediately moved out of the way of the volatile eight year old stomping towards me with a frown.
"You going to mistreat my mommy?" he never calls her mommy in front of me so I knew that this was him actually seeing me as a guy that wants to go out with his mom and not as the idol Don Kanonji.
"Of course, not. I'd rather die."
"Are you going to make my mommy worry by fighting?"
"Nah, I've learned that these bones are way too old to be fighting alongside teenagers," I replied and he continued to stare at me before nodding.
"Fine, but I'm not gonna call you dad yet."
"Sure, Kaoru. I kind of figured that was going to be the case," I replied with a chuckle, ruffling his hair and pulling my hand when he swatted it away with a frown.
"I'll be watching you," he spoke with narrowed eyes and I just gave a nod. Then, he spun on his heel, Ikumi walking in as he marched towards her with steady steps.
"It's okay, mommy. I've told him the rules," he said and left the room. Ikumi looked more bewildered than anything as Nakamaru followed after the boy with a chuckle.
She then turned to me and gave a slow blink. "What just happened?"
"I just got chewed out and forced to make compromises by an eight year old. By the way, he inherited your mean glare."
"I do not have a mean glare," Even as she said that, I cackled at the piercing stare aimed at me. She seemed to notice as her eyes softened and she huffed, walking over to sit down on the bed at my right
I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her close to me, her eyes flicking to my left arm that still looked as if it was rotting away.
"When is he coming?"
"According to Urahara, he wants to first run a few tests and those are taking a while to set up so it might be a day or two or it might be at the end of the month."
"Lovely," she muttered, resting her head on my shoulder. "What exactly is wrong with it?"
"Uh, I'm not sure," I replied with a shrug. "This is a fragment of the Left Arm of the Soul King and I overused it during my fight so a lot of things could be happening."
"What is the Soul King and why he is so important?"
"He is the one that created the three realms of the Human World, Hueco Mundo and the Soul Society dimension, and is also a nigh-omnipotent being."
"...So he's god?"
"Technically, no, because he did not create the universe, but also yes considering that he's supposed to a hybrid of every race."
"You just said he created the three realms."
"Creating the universe and splitting said universe into three separate planes of reality are two very different things."
"You were the one who said 'created', though," she replied and I nodded with a sigh.
"I did, but it just sounds cooler to say 'created'."
"I don't know, Nonji. Hearing that someone split up reality to make three different ones sounds a lot stronger than hearing that someone created a universe."
"Creating means you made it from scratch, meaning you had to exert a lot of energy into creating everything down to the tiniest atom."
"Then, wouldn't it cost more energy to split up those atoms and then recreating three different realms?"
"..." I was silent as I slowly turned my head to her, amking her snort with a giggle.
"I refuse to continue this argument on the grounds that you are beginning to make too much sense."
"Ha! I just won our first argument," she replied with a smug smile and I rolled my eyes. "Still, your arm is turning into nightmare fuel."
"It is not," I replied before glancing at the cracked skin and the twitching eye...that now had pus dripping from the corners. "It's just going through a phrase."
"It's rotting, Nonji."
"When you put it like that, it sounds worse, Kumi."
"Kumi? Really?"
"Nonji isn't a better nickname."
"I'm not gonna call you Don."
"Why not?" I asked, smirking as she just gave me a look. "Fine, fine, but just saying. Kumi isn't that bad. Doesn't it mean 'long-lasting beauty'?"
"You calling me old?" she asked and I paused at that. "Thought so."
"Hey, you are a beauty and you will always be a beauty. It fits."
"Not as smooth as you think it is."
"It is considering you haven't smacked me."
"You're injured."
"Has that stopped you before?" I retorted and she stared at me, though I smiled softly as I saw her eyes flicking to my bandaged chest. "Hey, everything's okay now."
"I know. I'm just not used to trying to date a guy that occasionally fights gods."
"A 'retired' guy that used to fight gods. I've had enough of that life for now."
"For now?" she asked and I nodded. "...Fair, a threat's always going to show up."
"That or Ichigo's gonna ask me to protect the town or something."
"...Kaoru was right, you know?" she replied and I raised an eyebrow. "If you're gonna be a part of our lives, we don't want to watch you throw yourself recklessly at danger again."
"No need to worry, my dear. Don Kanonji has had enough of the fighting and injuries for now," I replied, leaning back against the headboard as Ikumi hummed.
My eyes then moved to my right hand as she held it in hers, her thumb rubbing the back of mine as she let out a soft sigh. I could hear Kaoru shouting excitedly with Yuzu, Nakamaru, Macy and Karin chiming in now and again.
'Yeah, let the kids handle the hard fighting. I'm done for now.'
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"Knock, knock."
"The act of knocking doesn't mean that you have to say it out loud, Mr. Kanonji."
"But that would be boring, Mr. Tessai," I replied with a smile, walking into Urahara's store.
The man in question sat with bandages around his arms and neck, my eyes focusing on the scar along his forehead. He noticed my stare and I raised an eyebrow as he shook his head.
"My injuries are nothing to be worried about. Everyone else suffered worse."
"Well, I hope Urahara didn't suffer too much."
"Not at all," Urahara's voice spoke and I turned only to pause at the jagged scar on his neck.
"Uh, what happened while I was out-cold?"
"Oh, nothing much. I only barely managed to escape Aizen cutting my head off. Tessai saved me, and Yoruichi and Isshin lost an arm and a leg trying to stall Aizen while I helped Ichigo train."
'What the fuck? It wasn't this bad in the canon. Was Aizen stronger because of me?' I thought, shaking my head as I followed Urahara to the living room.
"What of my guerrilla unit?"
"Oh, them? You'll be happy to hear that Ginjo and the Xcution have spoke with Ukitake, and have made up. As for the Visored, about two-thirds of them decided to rejoin the Gotei 13 due to a lack of captains and lieutenants while the other third decided to stay in the Human Realm."
"Who stayed?"
"Hiyori, Love and Hachi."
'So, the same as the canon? As expected,' I thought with a hum and a nod. "Got it. What about Macy? She didn't tell me exactly what happened."
"Yamamoto gave a formal apology on behalf of the Gotei 13 and have promised her to make sure that Central 46 does the same."
"...Yamamoto?" I asked, unable to hear my ears as Urahara nodded. "Yama? Old Man Yama? Ryujin Jakka Yama? Him?"
"The very same. In all honesty, it surprised us as well when he did it," he replied and I just shook my head as Tessai walked in with a pair of steaming tea cups.
"Thank you," i thanked him as he sat the cup down in front of me. "Okay, then what about my sceptre? I haven't been able to find it anywhere."
"Oh, Isshin brought it to me because I wanted to study it."
"And?" I asked, smirking as he placed his cup down and stared at me with a frown.
"What in the hell is that thing?"
"Nothing to worry about."
"No, no. I need to worry about it. I know it has the Reishukaku inside of it due to the barriers, but what allows it to absorb the ambient reishi in the atmosphere on its own?"
"That...I do not know. I just thought about that part being added and before I knew it, it was added."
"Bullshit, that's now how these things work."
"That's how it worked for me," I replied with a shrug, making him pause before shaking his head with a sigh.
"People use spiritual energy in different ways so I suppose that make sense."
"But?"
"I refuse to believe that. There is a logical reason for it," he grumbled, Tessai walking back in and handing the sceptre over to me.
However, my eyes widened as I took it, staring at the wisps of shadows inside of its point as well as the jagged cracks running along its length.
"Urahara, what the fuck did you do to my sceptre?!"
"That was not me. We found it like that," he replied and I narrowed my eyes at him before looking back at it. The energy inside of it was definitely from the Left Arm fragment I had, but it felt dormant.
Trying to activate it didn't work either as the energy paused for a moment before continuing its own sporadic movements all over again.
"Do you know why this is inside of it, then?" I asked and Urahara gave a hum as he scanned the sceptre.
"The working theory is that during your final attack, the last bit of the energy inside of the arm was by the sceptre through its siphoning effect."
"What's the Urahara theory?"
"You unconsciously made your own crude Hogyoku," he answered bluntly and I paused. "You sacrificed the fragment of the Left Arm inside of your body to mix with the pure and corrosive reishi from the Human World and Hueco Mundo respectively.
On top of that, you used a mixture of a Shinigami Kido spell and your own unique human energy to create that last explosion, which meant that some of the energy of the spell and your own was trapped in the sceptre."
"What was left was all of that energy circulating and trapped inside of the sceptre, resulting in a crude Hogyoku that can't be contained by the shell of the sceptre itself," I finished with a frown.
"That explains the cracks as while the shell is powerful, it is not powerful enough to keep all of that energy contained," Urahara explained with a sigh and I just stared at the sceptre.
"...What if we stabilize it?"
"A Hogyoku blur the boundary between desire and reality. This one...it just anchors itself to one and then the other."
"What if we anchor it to one and I act as the anchor for the other?"
"...Say what?" Urahara asked with a raised eyebrow and I shrugged.
"Like you said, no one other than me knows how this thing works and now that it has my energy, that means it's probably bonded closer to me than ever before," I explained with a smirk. "Therefore, I should just rebind it further."
"And what's going to be the binder?"
"The Reishukaku and my left arm," I replied, raising the decaying arm as Urahara narrowed his eyes.
"...That's a risky thing. Not to mention, it will most definitely have some backlash."
"That's to be expected, yeah," I said with a sigh.
"Doing this wrong would mean that the sceptre will overwrite you, you know? It might erase the boundary between where you end and where it begins."
"It won't," I replied with a calm smile.
"What makes you say that?"
"Because when I made the pact with Mimihagi, we made a deal and I'd like to think that a fragment of it has some honour," I replied, looking at the eye on the back.
Despite the exhaustion and veins around its pupils, I couldn't help my chuckle when the eye narrowed at me as if insulted.
Yeah, knew it was too prideful.
"If we're doing this, then you're gonna have to stay awake or else the arm might take over."
"I know," I replied with a shrug. "Besides, if it doesn't work out, there's always the option of chopping it off."
A flash of pain stabbed me in the arm and I looked down to see my fingers being pulled a fair bit into the opposite direction of how they should bend.
I just narrowed my eyes as I flexed my arm, the muscles shaking as I clenched my shaking hand into a fist. The shaking continued for a few more seconds before it stopped, my eyes moving back to Urahara as he looked between me and the arm.
"Come. Let's get everything set up."
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"Why does this feel like a satanic ritual?" I asked, seated in the middle of a pentagram drawn on the ground. At each of its points was some kind of sealing tag stabbed into the ground, Tessai sitting at the central point with his hands clapped in prayer.
"Well, it kind of is as we're binding foreign entities to your soul," Urahara replied, standing across from me with a smirk. I just stared at him as he chuckled, placing the sceptre in front of me before stepping out of the pentagram.
"Great. I'm guessing Tessai's gonna do most of the heavy lifting?"
"Indeed. I am," he replied and I looked to Urahara as he continued.
"Exactly. I on the other hand am going to be focused on the five seals that are going to bind the Hogyoku's energies to your Left Arm. That will allow it to use your arm as a physical shell."
"Of course," I muttered. "Well, if that happens, does that mean that my arm is gonna be like the Hogyoku that you and Aizen had?"
"No. Yours is most likely going to be dormant like both mine and Aizen's were before he fused them into one."
"Lovely. Well, as long as my arm doesn't look like it's falling off, I am more than okay with that," I replied and Urahara took a step back.
"Once we begin, there's no pausing it. Also, if the balance tips too far one way, Tessai's going to have to sever the connection."
"Let me guess, that means my arm and possibly more is going to get cut off?"
"Depending on how far the fusion progresses, yes," Tessai replied and I sighed before nodding.
"Well, it's a good thing I'm not that attached to it," I replied, smirking as the eye on the back of my hand twitched. "That was a joke."
Urahara snorted and snapped his fan open. "Reishi flow is stable and the tags are active. Tessai?"
"Whenever you are ready, Mr. Urahara," I took a deep breath and exhaled softly as Urahara raised his cane.
A moment later, he stabbed it down as both his and Tessai's spiritual energy surged. The tags screamed as they were activated and the sceptre jerked violently as the cracks on it widened.
Black-gold energy poured from the weapon, rising high up before I wheezed as it slammed into my left shoulder. My eyes widened as I curled in upon myself, struggling to stay seated while gripping my arm painfully.
My eyes met the one on the arm, which was fully open while gold and black energies danced in its iris.
"Tessai! Now!"
"Kekkai: Shugo Kosoku! (Barrier: Protection Palliative!)" There was no dignity behind the scream that tore free from my chest. My spiritual pressure cracked the ground below us, staring wide-eyed at the cracks as I felt the pain crawling up my shoulder.
''F-Fuck! It burns!'
"Are you going to make my mommy worry by fighting?"
"If you're gonna be a part of our lives, we don't want to watch you throw yourself recklessly at danger again."
"It's showtime, motherfucker! Don't forget what you promised!" I heard my subconscious shout back at me, the pain subsiding enough as I reached forward and gripped onto the sceptre.
"Tessai! He's grabbing it! Second Phase!"
"Right!" I heard Tessai shout over the chaos and watched as the shell of my sceptre shattered. The energy inside poured onto my arm and spread across my body, my breathing shaky as I slowly pulled the energy into my own body.
With every inhale and exhale, the pain faded away until it was just me in the centre of the pentagram. My sweat hissed as it dropped onto the ground, my eyes focused on my left arm.
"Well, I'd say that was a success, yes?" Urahara spoke up, all three of us staring at my flesh-and-blood arm.
It would have looked normal if not for the golden veins and the eye on the back of it, the iridescent iris staring back as it blinked.
"...Any issues?"
"Reishi flow in your body is consistent. Your spiritual pressure has not changed in its potency or quantity. The foreign energies have settled into a stable circulation with your arm as the anchor, and as of this moment, no erosion or signs of aggression similar to domination has been detected," Tessai explained and I turned to Urahara as he smirked.
"Well, then. It appears that this has been a riveting success."
A/N: And we end it off here~! A way of recovery for Kanonji has been taken, but now, it's a wait to see how this affects him over tiem.
Next chapter:Timeskip.
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