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Karakura’s Deity
Ichigo is fifteen when he becomes a shinigami and fights a war. He loses his powers defeating Aizen and, with something vaguely akin to regret, returns to life as a normal teenager. Well, as normal as Ichigo has ever managed, anyway. He still gets in too many fights, is called a delinquent, is told to stop bleaching his hair.
The foxes are kind of new, though.
He notices the first one not a week after the last ghost has faded, lurking on the edge of the grounds as he’s exiting the school--alone, because everyone else took off halfway through their last class to handle a Hollow, presumably. It’s just standing there, half hidden by bushes, the red of its fur stark against the green. It looks directly at him, and they stare at each other for a few minutes. Then it barks, once, sharp and loud, and whisks away into the underbrush.
Ichigo watches it go, gives a mental shrug, and dismisses the entire incident.
At least, until the next fox is sitting on his lawn when he’s unable to sleep in the early hours of the morning. He rubs his eyes, squints blearily at it, and chalks it up as one of those interesting coincidences that seem to happen relatively frequently in his life.
The foxes don’t stop , though. He starts seeing them everywhere--on the way to and from school, at home, by the riverbank. Especially by the riverbank. It’s like they sense that he’s trying to mope, and are determined to side-track him. It works surprisingly well, honestly.
But aside from being stalked by foxes, Ichigo doesn’t notice anything different, not really, until he’s getting in one of his scraps with the local yakuza. They seem more cautious than usual, almost like they’re trying to feel him out again. Ichigo puts the entire group down in under five minutes, punches the last one in the face with an annoyed,
“And don’t be a dick! ”
And wanders off. He deliberately ignores the fox on the side of the road, yipping in what looks like laughter.
Mizuiro, quiet, reserved Mizuiro, howls with laughter the next time he sees Ichigo. He always knows things he probably shouldn’t, so Ichigo doesn’t question how he knows, but he makes sure to stomp on the slender boy’s foot as he strides by.
The next day he finds a small offering on his desk, along with a request for good fortune. Mizuiro snickers, but it’s Keigo who looks weirdly hopeful, so Ichigo rolls his eyes and doesn’t crush the teen’s spirit.
He’s not sure what to do with the offering, so he leaves it for the foxes at the edge of the school grounds. They, at least, have no problem with eating food meant for gods.
Keigo grins irrepressibly at him for days , and the offerings continue. The foxes certainly don’t mind, and apparently Keigo is getting something from leaving them on his desk, so Ichigo tries to put the whole thing out of his mind.
Except then he starts hearing the whispers. They’re easily ignored, quiet breaths on the wind, but, well, one of them gets insistent . It rises to a low shriek, and finally Ichigo spins to hiss at it.
“What do you want ?”
It tears off down the street, screaming the whole way, and Ichigo follows, hoping that this isn’t another Shinigami thing. No one else seems to be hearing it, though, so he just grits his teeth and moves a little faster.
It turns out to be a good thing, because he’s led to a sinkhole at the edge of an abandoned construction site. There’s a little girl in it, holding her ankle and trying bravely not to cry. He gets her out easily enough--just jumps in and then climbs out with her on his back--but it makes him wonder. If this whisper was important, how about the others?
It doesn’t help that there are at least two foxes lurking on the edge of the construction site. They’re not doing anything, just watching, and he’s unsettled again for the first time since it started.
Ichigo starts listening.
Some of the whispers are frivolous, little requests for good luck or health or money. He takes to flicking his fingers at them, an instinctive gesture to acknowledge and dismiss. Others require a more...personal touch.
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Mizuiro fucked up. He knows it. He had pushed a little too far, trying to feel out the boundaries of his latest human interest, and they had snapped on him. The problem is, this one has buddies, and none of them are particularly happy with him. Furthermore, it’s not like any of Mizuiro’s “connections” would help here, because they wouldn’t bother to respect anyone who would get caught by this in the first place.
In short, he’s screwed.
He mutters a quick prayer under his breath--to “Ichigo-sama,” because Keigo has been obnoxious and watching Ichigo react has been utterly hilarious , and now it’s just habit--and braces himself.
Only, the expected blow doesn’t land. Because Ichigo himself is standing between him and his assailants, one fist buried deep in the first’s gut. The look on his face is a little more...involved than usual--Ichigo in a fight usually looks bored, but here his teeth are bared and he’s practically snarling . Mizuiro stares as Ichigo takes out the group in roughly ten seconds flat. The teen turns to Mizuiro with an expectant glare, looking him over--checking for injuries, no doubt.
It’s not until Ichigo is long gone that Mizuiro puts the pieces together, and then he has to sit there for a while just to come to terms with the idea that his best friend is actually possibly a god. Or becoming a god. He knows that more and more people have been putting their faith in Ichigo lately but this is quite frankly ridiculous.
Oh well. He has an offering to make, he supposes.
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Ichigo can feel some of the people who send him the whispers--prayers, he supposes. It’s a little like reiatsu sensing, except it’s nothing like reiatsu sensing. Keigo is a bright little light in the back of his mind, Mizuiro dimmer but growing. The little girl he saved--Aiko--is there, her child’s faith burning brilliantly. Her classmates are there as well, delighted to have their very own god watching over them. Aiko’s father--a man Ichigo would swear he’s crossed paths with on the darker sides of town--adds an offering to the tiny shrine she’d set up, too. There are others, too; there are a worrying number of yakuza members, for some reason. The young yakuza thug Ichigo gave a “don’t be a dick” speech to months ago has started…evangelizing. If that’s what you can call hitting people in the face and telling them to get their shit together in Ichigo’s name.
Ichigo won’t lie, he kind of likes the idea.
Seriously, though, half of Karakura is praying to him by now, who even started this .
He blames Mizuiro and Keigo. It’s always a good idea to blame Mizuiro and Keigo. Somehow, this is their doing.
He’s getting more powers than just awareness of his...followers, too, powers that aren’t human or shinigami or hollow. All of Karakura is his territory, his hunting grounds, and each step he takes fuels a golden-protective barrier around the edge of it. Luck suddenly becomes tangible, malleable. Offerings show up from various shrines around the city, popping to wherever his location is. Ichigo can move from shrine to shrine with something like actual teleportation, no high-speed movement about it. He walks unseen if he so desires. The foxes continue to stalk him--he swears they get more amused every day.
Of his actual companions in Karakura, the first to take notice of Ichigo’s unspoken new status is Chad. This does not actually surprise Ichigo--Chad has always been more observant than he lets on, massive and quiet and astonishingly good at fading into the background. Even in Ichigo’s mind, the steady flame of his presence shows up without ever letting on that it had been elsewhere.
Orihime is next, and Ichigo doesn’t bother to be surprised--this sort of thing is right up her alley. Even if their reality hadn’t been so weird, Ichigo thinks, Orihime would still believe this without a doubt. It really hits him, though, when she sets up his shrine next to her brother’s. He hasn’t talked to any of them in ages , and yet--
She talks to him, every night, before bed, and leaves him weird little offerings that taste better than he expected.
Ichigo drops a little extra luck on the both of them and continues his solitary patrols.
Ishida comes almost immediately after. This one is actually a surprise, because Ishida is flatly no-nonsense and clearly despises most higher powers. And yet, here he is, faith a tentative presence in Ichigo’s mind. It’s heartwarming, really, to know that even without constant contact, their bonds have not been broken.
Karin and Yuzu come home one day, laughing about the latest rumor, and one thing leads to another, and there’s a little shrine in their own house now, and even Isshin laughs and drops an apple on it every once in a while. All three of them burn bright and safe in the back of Ichigo’s head.
He doesn’t hear from any of the Shinigami. It’s a little disappointing, but he knows the Visored have returned to Soul Society, and Kisuke is probably off doing whatever a mad scientist does when he’s not trying to save the world.
At least, that’s what he thinks until the day Kisuke stabs him with a fucking sword out of nowhere.
After the whole thing is explained, the attempt to get his powers back and Kisuke’s tireless work--the exiled man looks too thin, almost worn out, and Ichigo wonders just how much work has been put into this--Ichigo laughs a little and drops out of his body.
And falls over, off-balance, because there are at least five tails waving behind him.
Kisuke raises an eyebrow in his best attempt at “I was definitely not shocked by this” face, and starts muttering about unintended side effects.
Which is about when the gang shows up, breathless and laughing, and tackle Ichigo, sending all of them tumbling in a happy pile across the roof of the building.
Explanations can wait for later, Ichigo decides. For now, everything is just… good, in a way it hasn’t been in a long time.
Yeah, he’s happy.