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Contrary to popular belief, Kisuke and regret are old friends.
His soul is a tattered and bloody thing, has been for centuries now, and it carries the marks of actions he’s taken that, with the gift of hindsight, he’d change if he could.
But he can’t.
So he chooses not to dwell, chooses to press ever forward instead.
And so it goes.
Kisuke moves down the hall, hands tucked into his sleeves and geta silent on the dark lacquered wood. With every third step that he takes, another set of ornate shōji doors slides open in front of him.
One after the other, each painted with scenes that, at any other moment in time, Kisuke would be delighted to have the time to sit and study.
Not now though.
No.
Right now Kisuke has far more important things to concern himself with than priceless art depicting the creation of the universe.
He has, after all, been summoned.
Finally.
It’s been six long months since the end of the war.
Unlike those of the Seireitei, those Shinigami who even now, even after everything, all seem content to cower and hide and wait, Kisuke’s normally far-stretching patience had worn thin weeks ago.
Which, given who and what he was waiting for, wasn’t really all that much of a surprise.
Kisuke steps through the last set of shōji doors, ignoring the way they slide closed behind him with barely a whisper of sound.
He takes a moment to stare up at the new set of colossal onyx doors that are sealed tightly in front of him.
He doesn’t bother to step forward, doesn’t bother to knock or call out or attempt to open them himself.
Even with his strength they’d be too heavy, he knows that already.
And even if he were to unleash Benihime in all her furious, possessive glory in an attempt to reach what waits for him on the other side, Kisuke knows he wouldn’t be able to even scratch them.
These doors, unlike the ones that once stood in their place, paper thin with restrained and fading power, open on the command of one person and one person alone.
And there is no one left in all the worlds who could or would dare to challenge Him.
No one Kisuke would not cut down himself for the insult of the thought alone.
Absently longing for the familiar cover of his hat, Kisuke lets his eyes drift across the story that’s been etched into the door’s surface.
The detail is exquisite.
It’s inevitable really, the way his attention is drawn to the part of the tale where his own face has been so carefully etched deep into the stone.
Kisuke only has a few seconds to examine the emotions the sight stirs in him before the doors begin to open and all other thoughts scatter from his mind.
The Throne Room is different than it once was.
Kisuke had assumed it would be but this …
There is no hiding the awe that fills him at the sight of what the once impressive but ultimately soulless room has become.
Gone are the pillars, gone is the bright stone.
In its place is a garden.
It stretches as far as Kisuke’s eyes can see, this lunar paradise, with more being unveiled to him as he moves slowly along the cobblestone path.
There are ponds ringed with mossy rocks, sweet grasses left to grow tall and sway in the light breeze, towering trees, fat shrubs, and areas of shining white sand.
Somewhere in the distance, Kisuke hears the splash of fat koi and the clicks and clacks of a sōzu.
There are even flowers of all shapes and colors that somehow glow and shine in the moonlight. Some of which, Kisuke knows, more than likely exists nowhere outside of this space.
Fireflies blink in and out of existence, pinpricks of floating, fae-like light.
And above it all, the crescent moon sits bright and watchful in a sky of eternal night.
But nothing takes his breath away quite like what he sees next.
Between one breath and the next, Kisuke steps off of the cobble path and into a courtyard without even realizing the transition.
The building looms out of nowhere but Kisuke recognizes it instantly.
It’s the Shōten, or to be more accurate, it’s the private garden Kisuke has kept shielded and hidden for his personal use for decades now.
It’s a place that Kisuke had shared only once with one other person on a stolen night that he will never allow to fade from his memory.
And yet here it is, Kisuke’s own private oasis recreated down to every detail, in the very heart of this place of such power.
“Urahara Kisuke,” a voice, so familiar and yet so changed, calls out then, each word underlined with a power that buzzes in Kisuke’s very bones. “At Last You Have Come.”
Kisuke’s attention snaps up and to the center.
There He is.
It’s instinct that drives Kisuke to his knees.
Some inborn knowledge that before this being there is nothing to do but kneel.
Reality twists around Kisuke before his knees make contact with the earth.
One second he’s on the edge of the courtyard and in the next Kisuke’s knees hit the thick grass directly in front of the engawa.
Kisuke doesn’t flinch.
Instead, he stays there on his knees, palms flat on the grass, head down, and eyes trained firmly on the ground.
And then the tips of two clawed fingers press themselves against the bottom of Kisuke’s chin for a split second before they disappear and Kisuke has no choice but to look up.
The very sight of Him threatens to leave Kisuke undone.
Long, silken sunset hair flows down to His waist, the strands dancing in an invisible breeze. His kimono is obviously made from the finest of silks but it is still ragged and tattered around the edges, gaping at His chest and flaring at His hips.
His skin is pale, the familiar black lines of His power standing out even more starkly than they once had, and His hands are now tipped with deadly black claws capped in gold.
On His head sits a boney crown, the pieces woven into and sticking up through His hair in jagged bits that glow golden at the edges.
There’s also a sash that floats above and around Him like the celestial maidens of old. A ribbon of watery blue silk in which Kisuke thinks he sees the swirling of the cosmos.
But it is, as always, His eyes that truly capture Kisuke’s attention.
The once warm brown is gone now, replaced instead by jet-black sclera and golden, lotus-shaped irises.
He is, Kisuke can’t help but think with no little awe, perfect.
The ideal expression of His complex heritage and endless potential.
Beautiful to behold in all of His terrifying glory.
The Reiō.
The Soul King Himself.
“All Hail,” Kisuke says softly, unable to look away. “Glory unto He Who Bends All Worlds To His Will.”
There’s a breathy laugh-like sound that rings out around Kisuke, as if the air itself has spoken.
“That,” the Soul King intones, something like amusement in His voice, “Is Not My Name.”
“I am not worthy to speak it,” Kisuke finds himself admitting.
“Kisuke,” He says softly, almost lovingly, “You Are Always Worthy.”
Kisuke sucks in a shuddering breath.
Then, at a whisper, like a secret, like a prayer.
“Ichigo.”
~~~
The lunar garden has shifted closer somehow to the border of the courtyard, the ponds with their fountains closer than they’d been before. There’s a riot of flowers creeping just along the edges, the scent of them filling the perpetual night of Ichigo’s Throne Room with their sweet scents.
Ichigo sits once more on His invisible throne while Kisuke is settled at His feet, chin resting on one of Ichigo’s muscled thighs.
“You are not sorry,” Ichigo states, voice lesser somehow than it was before, toned down so that it does not buzz so harshly against Kisuke’s bones.
The feel of His hand stroking through Kisuke’s hair, the teasing scratch of those claws, sends continuous shivers down his spine.
“No,” Kisuke admits easily, instantly.
There is, after all, no room for lies here between them.
Not anymore and never again.
No sense in them either when they both know the truth regardless.
Besides, Kisuke can’t help but think, Kurosaki Ichigo had made Himself at home beneath Kisuke’s skin years ago.
All of Kisuke’s normal defenses and centuries-old deflections stood no chance against Him even before He ascended.
A fact that Kisuke has long since learned to find a certain amount of satisfied glee in.
Especially since he’s more than made it clear to everyone else just where his loyalty rests these days.
And, if Kisuke has anything to say about it, where his loyalty shall rest forever.
“After so long in the dark you wanted a god you could love so badly,” Ichigo muses, tone almost absent as he tugs lightly at the loc of hair that always falls down between Kisuke’s eyes.
“If I wanted to fall in love with a god,” Kisuke grins back up at him, “then I would have become a priest.”
Ichigo doesn’t laugh as Kisuke had half intended.
Instead, He turns those eyes upon Kisuke once more.
The golden, lotus-shaped irises almost seem to dance as Kisuke stares at them.
“Is that,” Ichigo says as the air around them almost seems to quicken and the hand He has in Kisuke’s hair tightens just a bit, “not what you did?”
Kisuke bites back the urge to stiffen in confusion.
Reality twists again.
Kisuke is sprawled on his back on a luxuriously thick and ridiculously large futon.
Around him the walls echo those of his private rooms in the Shōten.
The same rooms where he’d spent a single night wrapped up in long muscled legs with his hands fisted in sunset-colored hair as he and Ichigo fucked and loved and gave to and took from each other in turns.
They’d both been desperate that night, frightened of what was to come but unable to say so, willing instead to let their bodies speak for them.
Kisuke had wanted to live there, just the two of them suspended in an infinite night.
Dawn had come all the same.
They had gone to war.
And then …
Well.
Ichigo settles above him in the next second, His hands pinning Kisuke down by the wrists as He kneels between Kisuke’s splayed legs.
Ichigo’s hair falls around them both like tendrils of sunset.
Kisuke wants to live and die in this moment too.
“Was that not what you became?” Ichigo leans down until their foreheads are practically touching.
So close that Kisuke can practically taste every word He says.
“Was it not My name on your lips, My strength you depended on?” Ichigo asks him, tongue snaking out to lap lightly at the swell of Kisuke’s bottom lip.
Kisuke shudders, hips flexing just a bit as heat rushes through his system.
“Was it not Me you called for when some new monster knocked at your door?” Ichigo’s hands are still wrapped around Kisuke’s wrists but for a split second he swears he feels claw-tipped fingers pressing against his throat. “Was it not Me unto whom you pinned your hopes and dreams? Your desires? Your … prayers? ”
And Kisuke …
Kisuke can’t deny Him.
Can’t deny the truth of what He is saying.
“When I was weakened,” Ichigo continues, “did you not keep My house, protect My flesh, craft with your own hands an idol to grant Me a return to power?”
Kisuke had.
Oh, but he absolutely had.
When Ichigo had been damaged so severely by the Mugetsu, Kisuke had been the one who had worked and begged and twisted reality itself to his own will in order to give back to Ichigo all that should have never been given away.
He’d spent sleepless nights outside of Ichigo’s window, one part guard and one part observer.
He’d even taken Karin in hand the moment he realized the stubborn girl would not relent.
Where others’ faith had wavered, where others had left Ichigo’s side and stayed gone, Kisuke had remained.
And all of it he’d done for Ichigo and Ichigo alone.
“What,” Ichigo’s mouth brushes softly against Kisuke’s own, sharp teeth flashing for just a moment as He nips lightly at his upper lip, “is that if not a priest before his God? ”
Kisuke chokes back a desperate moan.
Rallies himself as best he can.
“I don’t want to be your priest,” Kisuke presses the words out between them.
“Have I not been a kind God to you, Kisuke?” Ichigo asks, pulling back just a bit with something almost wounded in His tone. “Would you deny Me now?”
“No,” the word is practically torn from Kisuke in a breathless rush. “Never.”
The grin Ichigo gives him in return is all too sharp teeth and a knowing sort of smugness.
“Of course not,” Ichigo says, just a bit of that old cockiness shining through. “It was you who put Me on the Throne after all. ”
Kisuke freezes.
Because that …
That is the truth.
But it’s a truth he’s still not completely sure Ichigo has forgiven him for.
When Yhwach had finally been put down, when everyone had been ready to collapse in relief and grief alike, it had been Kisuke who had acted.
Kisuke who had picked Ichigo up off the battlefield and placed him, battered and bloody and unconscious, on the empty Throne before anyone or anything else could take His rightful place.
It had been Kisuke who had given the three worlds to the one man who would have never thought to take them for himself.
“I did,” Kisuke agrees roughly.
He doesn’t bother to apologize.
As Ichigo had said before, Kisuke isn’t actually sorry.
“My first and greatest priest,” Ichigo teases again. “Cherished and beloved.”
A pause.
“And yet the title displeases you,” Ichigo’s physical hands finally leave Kisuke’s wrists for what little difference it actually makes. Ichigo does not, after all, have to touch Kisuke to keep him still.
This time Ichigo shifts until He’s straddling Kisuke’s waist, kimono gaping and sliding teasingly back to bare his thighs.
“Perhaps,” there’s something sly in Ichigo’s voice then, “you want to be more than a priest.”
Ichigo brings His hands up then and with a few quick tugs has His kimono open and pooling around His elbows.
Kisuke’s heart pounds thick and heavy in his chest, his mouth feels dry, and his cock throbs against his thigh.
The sense memory of that night they’d spent together is suddenly strong enough to drive him mad.
“Is this what you want instead?” Ichigo trails His clawed hands down the front of His own body, fingertips slipping across His nipples and down across His stomach. “Do you wish to be My Godwife? Will you call yourself Kushinadahime and Me Susanoo because I saved you from the monsters? Is that why you have come? To offer yourself?”
It is.
They both know it is.
“Please,” the word slides from Kisuke’s mouth with ease.
All honest desperation and pleading.
Reality twists.
Ichigo is sprawled out on the futon instead this time, body bare to the moonlight that shines down through the window except for the blue glow of the silk sash that stays twined around His upper arms and floats above His still-crowned head.
His legs are spread in invitation though and there is a mountain of silk pillows keeping Him propped upright.
Kisuke finds himself kneeling there between His splayed thighs, his own clothes gone.
“Geta-bōshi,” Ichigo looks up at him through his lashes, mouth tilted upwards just a bit at the corner as He beckons him with one gold-tipped claw. “Come.”
Kisuke shudders at the murmur of that familiar nickname and all that it implies.
At the order and the way he is so desperate to obey.
And then he leans forward and sets his mouth to the task of proving his devotion.
His love.
~~~
Contrary to popular belief, Kisuke and regret are old friends.
His soul is a tattered and bloody thing, has been for centuries now, and it carries the marks of actions he’s taken that, with the gift of hindsight, he’d change if he could.
But this?
This will never be something he regrets.
Kisuke has wanted this since the very moment he had gone down into full dogeza at Kurosaki Ichigo’s feet and been given nothing but understanding and acceptance in turn.
This is all that he’s been working for and toward since the day he realized just where his own loyalties now lay.
Aizen was not, after all, the only one who knew how to plan.
All Hail Kurosaki Ichigo.
Conquering God King Of The Three Worlds.
Soul King Of All Existence.
Game.
Set.
Match.
Victory to Kisuke.