To Undo it All

Chapter-1 - Jikan Ken

"Ichigo-san. I did it." It took a moment for the words to settle into my head, before my eyes widened and I turned to Kisuke with all the hope I had. He flinched when I met his gaze, and I could only assume it was from how much desperation he saw in my eyes. "I-I haven't tested it yet. I've made countless calculations and ran just as many simulations, but I can't guarantee that it'll work." I smiled sadly.

"Kisuke, it's you. Of course it'll work." His face twisted into a grimace, probably still thought he didn't deserve my faith in him. He slowly turned back towards the direction he came from.

"Come on, It's in my lab." I nodded and hopped up to my feet, sparing one last glance at the river I had been spending most of my time watching. It was one of the few places left I could relax in. With the help of…a lot of people, I managed to finally get over the death of my mother. I always felt my mothers' presence near the spot where she died, so I took to spending a lot of time there after the Blood War. Wasn't really much else I could do outside of Hollow patrols, and those feel uncomfortably refreshing. Too different to feel like the war, but too similar to not bring up memories. Zangetsu did their best to hold them back, but sometimes there were too many coming in too fast. I shook myself out of my thoughts and turned to Kisuke, who was watching with a somber look on his face.

"Ichigo-san…I'm-"

"Stop. I've told you over and over again; it's not your fault, you don't need to apologize."

"I can't help but feel like it is, like I need to."

"It's not your fault, its mine. I didn't get strong enough fast enough." Kisuke turned away before I could see what his face shifted to.

"I didn't prepare you well enough, didn't tell you about everything when you needed it."

"You know I've never needed to know everything. The only thing I've ever needed to know was what I was protecting my friends and family from." Still facing away from me, Kisuke's head lifted from staring at the ground.

"That didn't end up being enough, though, did it? I didn't tell you enough, and you ended up not being strong enough because of it." I immediately grabbed his shoulder and turned him around. He avoided my gaze.

"Why do you want me to hate you?"

"Why don't you? Because of my paranoia, I never gave you enough information and the proper training to reach your full potential. You only got as strong as you did because of the Zero Squad. Yoruichi taught you Bankai, the Visored taught you how to use your Hollow mask, Hachi and Tessai taught you Kido, Kyoraku taught you how to use your swords. I didn't even teach you Shikai and my training was more you avoiding death than anything else." My eyes hardened.

"Kisuke." He didn't move his head, but his eyes moved to stare back at me. "You did more than any of them. It was thanks to you I stopped being afraid, that I got my powers back both times. You helped me out without question every time I asked, and sometimes even when I didn't." His throat bobbed as his gulp was audible. "You were the only one to not treat me like I was fragile after the Final Getsuga Tenshou. Even when you forgot who I was, you helped me out as much as you could. When everything said what I was about to do was either stupid or would make things worse, you still showed me how to do it. Don't blame yourself for this because you aren't why it ended up like this. Especially when you were so desperate to fix it that you made something that can." He finally turned his head to look at me fully, and he was silent for a moment.

"I will never understand why you don't hate me, but I'm grateful that you don't." I smiled softly.

"Good. Now let's go and fix all of this." He nodded and began shunpo-ing towards his lab, me right behind him. We landed at the front doors of his shop, and we passed the shop area quickly. It was as uncomfortably quiet as it's been since the war ended, and neither of us could bear it. We entered his lab, at the back of the building. It was always cluttered from the countless projects he was always working on, but it was never messy until he was the only one living there. I followed him along a path that had obviously been made out of necessity towards a glowing red and yellow marble. As I stared at it, knowing from experience to not touch it until he said to, Kisuke began to explain.

"I haven't, uh, given it a name yet, probably won't, but it's supposed to work similar to the Hogyoku. It breaks barriers, but while the Hogyoku breaks the barriers between Shinigami and Hollow, this breaks the barriers between Time and Space. It can't go to the future, or at least the way I made it means it can't, but it can take you to any point in history that you can recall. Focus on when and where you want to go, and you should be sent as close to there as possible with how much Reiryoku you have. I-I don't know much beyond that, whether it'll work or not, what happens to it after its used, what happens to you after its used, or even how much Reiryoku you need for certain amounts of time displaced. I'm-"

"That's fine. I already know it works, and wherever we end up, however we end up, we'll go from there."

"…A-about that. I'm not going with you." My head turned so sharply to look at him I was surprised it didn't make a noise in protest.

"What?!"

"I-I'd be useless there. There's already a Kisuke however far you go, I lost my purpose, and I'm not even sure if I have enough Reiryoku for how far we'll need to go to successfully make a difference. I'm not even sure if I made it so multiple people can use it."

"I can't fix this all on my own! I can beat anything in a fight, but even I know that most of fixing this is gonna be full of planning and stuff! Most of the stuff the Quincies had that kicked our asses you stopped! I don't know how you stopped them from stealing our bankais or how you stopped them from using shadows like portals!"

"If I solved it, so can the Kisuke of whenever you go to." Kisuke reached out and rested a hand on my shoulder. "Ichigo-san, I'm not Urahara anymore. I'm Kisuke, and I don't have anything I aspire to do anymore. My aspirations and inventiveness died in the war. I may have made that marble, but that was in desperation. I don't think I could go back to being 'Getaboushi' if I wanted to. Please, go without me." Tears dragged down his cheeks, along the stitches that never seemed to heal. I stared at him and he stared right back, for who knows how long. Eventually, my shoulders slouched and a sad smile fell upon his face. I looked down at the marble, still glowing brightly.

"How do I use it?"

"Hold it in your hand and focus on a memory. It should try to pull on your Reiryoku, let it. After that, I don't know much. You should be sent to when and where you want to go, but I don't know if there will be two if you, if you'll have to re-unlock your powers, or what." I cautiously grabbed the marble and held it tight in my palm.

"Jikan-Ken." I decided. Kisuke chuckled lightly.

"'Time Sphere'. Your simplicity with naming things never ceases to amuse me." I smiled softly before pulling him into a hug. He hugged me back after a moment.

"See ya, Frankenstein." I mumbled into his shoulder.

"Aizen is the one that put you together." He was barely louder than a whisper.

"But you're the one that got me working." I focused on a memory, and poured my reiatsu into the Jikan-Ken.