Chapter Text
"Hmmm..."
A few adjustments to his instruments, some small tweaks to his stasis kido, all the while purposely ignoring the young adult impatiently grumbling over his shoulder.
"This... might be a problem."
"Ya think?!"
Ichigo snapped, throwing both his arms towards the swirling purple vortex in front of them, currently contained in a see-through kido box.
"There's a giant fucking hole in the sky!"
"Maa, Kurasaki kun, don't exaggerate, that's a medium sized hole at best."
Instead of bothering with a reply, Ichigo simply scowled while grabbing Zangetsu's handle at his back. Urahara, ignoring the (most likely) empty threat, just hid his smile behind his open fan.
"You must admit, Kurasaki kun, it does bring a much needed splash of color to the area."
A splash of color was an understatement, the glowing, shifting purple vortex might as well be a miniature oddly colored sun, contrasting against the white and black visage of Hueco Mundo.
Urahara's smile came down along his fan, his tone dropping its playful edge.
"Now then, do we know how many hollows made it through?"
Ichigo crossed his arm, scowl still in place, he looks to the side, where in the distance, he can make a green haired woman chasing around his friends (some more willing than others) in a, all things considered, pretty normal if impromptu game of tag.
"Nelliel and her fracciones managed to cut down their numbers before they got too far from Las Noches, but she told me at least a dozen made it through. Mostly adjuchas, but there were a few arrancar in the mix as well."
Urahara hummed, never a good sign.
"Do we have any idea where this thing leads? It doesn't look like a garganta."
"Ah, that, at least, I can tell you. This is definitely not a garganta, unfortunately, even though I can't tell you where it goes, I can tell you where it does not lead. Look here for a second."
Kneeling down, Urahara used his finger to draw in the sand, he could probably have used his cane, but Benihime would have NOT been happy about being used as a drawing stick.
His draw was simple, a square, split in the middle by a horizontal line.
"Imagine, if you will, a three floor building. This, is Hueco Mundo, this the Living world, and this is Soul Society." He pointed to the bottom line of the square, the middle line, and then the top line, in that order.
"Now, this is a Senkaimon." He drew a vertical line, going all the way from the top line to the bottom one. "In this scenario, the Senkaimon is an elevator. Its the fastest way to get to each floor, now this here, is a Garganta." A second vertical line, next to the previous one.
"A Garganta is like the building's stairs, a bit more crude, and requires more individual effort, but it basically serves the same function as an elevator. That thing, on the other hand..." He points at the vortex, and draws another vertical line, this time slightly outside the square.
"That thing, is the fire escape ladder. It can let you leave the building all together."
Ichigo, crouched next to Urahara, had no trouble following the metaphor along, and he did not liked where it was going.
"If I'm correct, and for better or worse, I'm usually am, that portal isn't a mean to travel between parallel dimensions, such as the Living world or Soul Society, but to travel between realities."
"Between realities? You mean like those, uh, what does Orihime calls them, AUs? Universes with small differences to the original?"
"No, no, those are more akin to different timelines, you are talking about such scenarios as, lets say, one of your friends ends up as a shinigami substitute instead of you, or even less different, a timeline where, for example, you became a substitute at fourteen instead of seventeen."
Ichigo shudders at the thought, the winter war still fresh in his mind, he can only imagine how much worse off he would be if he had to deal with all of that at fourteen.
"By different realities, I'm talking about almost completely different worlds, the continents might be shaped different, humans might not even be the dominant species on the planet, the sky might even be a different color! Or..."
And something changed in Urahara's voice, tone growing somber, and cold.
"And, I suspect this to be their objective, a world with no such thing as shinigamis."
A shiver goes down Ichigos's spine. That sounded bad.
"So what, they are trying to run away from shinigamis all together?"
"That would be a part of it, yes, but only temporally. If they manage to land in such a world, it could be catastrophic.
Even a single hollow, loose in a highly populated world with no shinigamis in sight, could, eventually after a few centuries, devour every single human soul. All of them, and even if these souls were to be completely devoid of reiatsu, sheer numbers alone would boost a hollows strenght to devastating levels."
"... shit."
"Shit indeed, even if we were to allow this portal here to collapse and let those hollows to be the other realities problem, it means nothing if one of the missing hollows was the one to open the portal in the first place, they could, and most likely would, return to this reality and attempt to wipe it out, since shinigamis would be their biggest threat."
Ichigo glared at the portal, hand unconsciously reaching for Zangetsu, the feeling of the cloth strap bringing a sense of comfort.
They both stand straight, a moment of contemplative silence pass between them.
"So basically, you are saying we gotta go after them and wipe them out before that happens."
"Ideally, yes. Now then, what do we know about the enemy?"
"According to Nelliel, they call themselves Las Sobras, she found them in some sort of stasis in one of Aizen's many, MANY secret labs. Apparently they were backups so to speak, hollows with interesting or unique enough abilities, but not powerful enough to earn a rank among the other Arrancar."
"Of course, in a world with little to no other arrancar, no other competitors, they should have no problem growing in power in no time."
"Right. Unfortunately Nelliel couldn't really get a look at the abilities of any of the ones that made it through, but she assumes the ones she killed were mostly cannon fodder."
"So we are dealing with a relatively small group, but with unknown skills and abilities. How should we proceed?"
Urahara's tone made Ichigo sure that he had already came up with the most efficient course of action, and was mostly just encouraging Ichigo to practice his 'planning ahead instead of jumping head first' skills.
Not that Ichigo can complain, with his track record.
"A single powerhouse not's going to cut it. A small team, diverse fighting styles." A small pause. "Right?"
Urahara smiled, satisfaction and a small amount of pride for his pupil in his tone. "Exactly right. Who did you had in mind?"
Before he could reply, a short but quite loud triumphant shout stole their attention.
Not too far from them, Nelliel, in her adult form, was happily swinging around an equally amused Orihime, while Chad looked quite calm for someone who had just been tackled hard enough to be half buried in sand. Next to him, Toushirou was trying (and failing) to brush the sand off his captain haori while glaring daggers at the arrancar.
Ichigo was starting to understand why Uryuu offered to watch the fort back in Karakura as soon as Nelliel showed up in the Living world telling them they had a situation.
But, as nice as it would have been to have the full gang together for yet another multi-dimensional-invasion, Uryuu had a point.
Though not as bad without Aizen influence, Karakura was still a hot spot for hollows, needing much more protection than your regular town, and with Rukia stuck on Soul Society with her "totally not a secret bankai training what are you a cop" it wouldn't have been the same anyway.
"Chad and I are strong enough for pretty much any close range confrontation, it would be nice to have a healer nearby but I'd rather Orihime stay here helping Uryuu, Toshiro could actually be a pretty good solution for long ranged attacks, and I'm pretty sure he's good enough at kido. Think the Soutaichou would lend me a captain?"
"I'm sure it can be arranged, but worry not, I'm confident in my ability to keep this portal open, specially once Tessai gets here with the materials I requested. Sending more reinforcements if needed should not be much of a problem."
Ichigo snorts. "That's a first."
"Indeed. Now, I need a few hours to make sure the conditions behind the portal and it's passageway to be safe, wouldn't want to dump you and your companions in a reality without oxygen or something equally deadly."
"Few hours, uh? Should be enough time to get ready. And to let Yuzu and Karin know im going away for a few days. Speaking of, how long do you think this mission will take?"
"With you involved, Kurasaki kun, I wouldn't be surprised if you can resolve this whole mess in just a couple of days."
"Good, don't want to leave the twins alone with goat face for too long, pretty sure Karin would kill him out of annoyance in like two weeks."
Four months later, Karin is more than ready to kill Ichigo for daring to leave her to deal with their father's shenanigans on her own for so long.