"This feels rather nostalgic, doesn't it?" I asked with a smile as I caught up to the rest of the group, running for their lives from Kototsu.
"How the fuck are you doing that?!" Ichigo yelled as he pointed at my hovering form.
I had decided to manipulate gravity so that I could just fly standing up, something I had to train a lot before being able to do it without ending up looking like a tube man balloon.
Not that I was going to tell him that. "The awesomeness is a pathway to many abilities, some consider to be... unnatural." I wasn't sure he got the reference but before he could make some sort of comeback, we finally reached the light at the end of the tunnel.
"Not again!" And exited up in the air, about a hundred feet above the ground level.
The five seconds after our exit was quite amusing, mostly due to Ichigo's and Tatsuki's screams, the horrified look on Ishida's face, Chad and Aura's unbothered expressions and Orihime eating a huge loaf of bread with an expression of pure joy; an aura of sunshine and flowers and everything.
Unfortunately the moment of amusement was cut short as we landed on a fucking magic carpet.
"How much time do you waste making these things?" I asked looking up at the moon, already knowing the owner of the carpet; who made himself known as he snapped open a fan and started to laugh.
"Definitely more than I should." Urahara Kisuke, it felt like it's been years since I last saw the weirdo ex-captain.
Urahara kept smiling behind his fan, eyes half-lidded in that infuriatingly amused way only he could pull off.
"My, my… Walter-san, you look surprisingly intact," he said. "Not a single new hole in you! I was expecting at least three."
"Tragic, I know," I said dryly. "I tried my best to get impaled, but the captains were uncharacteristically incompetent about stabbing me."
Ichigo groaned. "Please don't phrase it like that."
Urahara hummed. "And you all landed beautifully! Well, except Kurosaki-san. That was more of a flail than a landing, really."
"I WAS FALLING FROM THE SKY!" Ichigo yelled.
"Oh? That sounds like a skill issue?" Kisuke asked, head tilted innocently.
Tatsuki pointed accusingly. "Why do you have a magic carpet?!"
Kisuke blinked once. "Why wouldn't I have a magic carpet?"
"That is not an answer," Tatsuki hissed.
"Oh, but it is," Urahara replied, fanning himself. "It's simply not the one you wanted."
Aura nodded approvingly. "A logical explanation."
Ishida looked deeply offended on multiple levels.
I floated down beside them with a sigh. "Please don't encourage him. His ego grows stronger the more inexplicable objects he creates."
"Oh, I don't know about that," Urahara said. "My ego reached its maximum stable output years ago. The rest is just overflow."
"That explains many things about you." I said.
Then, just as Ichigo opened his mouth, probably to yell something or try to use his delinquent aura to goad the shopkeeper into a fight, Urahara's posture shifted. He lowered his fan and his smile didn't... disappear but it softened into something that wasn't teasing anymore.
"Welcome back," he said quietly. "All of you."
Orihime stopped mid-bite. Chad and Aura glanced over. Ishida straightened. Ichigo and Tatsuki frowned in a way it was like they were unused to not glaring.
"I owe you all an apology." He said as he took off his hat. "Especially to you two, Kurosaki-san, Walter-san."
I raised an eyebrow "For the carpet?" And then dodged a punch from Ichigo.
"For this whole debacle with Hōgyoku." He said with a sigh. "For hiding it in Kuchiki-san and getting you all into this mess with Aizen when he exploited my plans for his own. It was all because of my decisions."
"I don't care about that." Ichigo said as he looked at Urahara. "It's not like you were trying to do something bad. And regardless of that, you did help me get stronger and gave us a way to Soul Society so that we could save Rukia. I am grateful for your help. So... don't apologize." He said with no hesitation.
Heh... shonen protagonist charisma was strong in this guy. Looking at him speaking with such grace would make one forget that he was basically a moron who thought he could bum-rush a captain before even learning what a shikai was.
"But there is something I want to ask." He then looked at Urahara, who was putting his hat back on. "The reason you didn't tell us the truth, was it because you thought we would run away after hearing it?"
"..." Urahara simply looked at the orange haired Shinigami before flapping his fan open and smiling like a goon. "You're correct!" And got elbowed in the face.
"That pisses me off!"
------------------
After that, Urahara left the rest of the gang at their respective houses. Leaving Tatsuki last before me, to whom I told we would be meeting later on. Meaning that the only occupants of the carpet were now me, Aura, Yoruichi and Urahara.
"So... you killed Tokinada Tsunayashiro?"
"Hypothetically."
"And this somehow made you gain the loyalty of his... woman-servant?" He asked with a frown as he tilted his head and looked at Aura, who simply shrugged at his unasked questions; making him ignore this facet of our gains from Soul Society.
"It's a shame you didn't manage to hypothetically kill Aizen too."
"As much as I love to hear people glazing me, I'm afraid that guy is currently beyond me." I said with a grimace, physically pained at accepting any form of inferiority towards anyone.
"I'm surprised to hear you say that, especially after tanking a fucking Kurohitsugi from him like it was nothing." Yoruichi said with a snort and I had no idea how she made such a sound as a cat. "Don't think I ever saw anyone survive a direct hit from a Hado above eighties and you had no scratch from number ninety."
"Yeah, no. That was me cheating." I admitted as I scratched the back of my head. "That spell was basically a spatial field where a hyper focused gravitational force is applied to everything in it. My powers let me ignore that force. Any other spell of similar power would have been bad news."
"Even so, you have denied him the Hōgyoku. And that is a great win for us." Urahara said before chuckling. "Still can not believe that you ate the damn thing. If I knew that was possible, I would have eaten the stupid marble years ago myself."
"Yeah, about that." I clapped my hands together with a smile. "There are a few things I need to ask you about it." And then revealed the glowing orb of evolution in my right hand.
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