Prompt: As always, Erich/Kisuke(/Alexis?) 32, 25
hamelin-born
(32: Flirting under fire, 25: Time travel Erich/Kisuke(/Alexis?))
“This is not quite what I had in mind when you said ‘let’s go back in time and fix things!’” Erich shouted as he swept his arm out, emerald reiatsu trailing from his fingertips and lingering as brilliant streaks that suddenly flared bright-bright-brighter—
Shinigami and Quincy froze as the ward settled around them, locking them in stasis until they either gathered the strength to break free or he released them.
It wasn’t the best solution, but it would have to do until they could finally sort out how the hell to stop, well… whatever people wanted to call this goddamn mess.
(Would he even be born after all this meddling?)
(Whose bright idea was it to stop the Quincy purge?)
Erich grimaced and flicked his fingers, trying to shake the growing numbness in his hand at the blatant overuse of power he’d been indulging in. He was stronger than most combatants on the field, but there were so many combatants that his chosen method of crowd control was tiring.
“Aw, but it’s turned out so well!” Kisuke shouted back as he smoothly ducked away from Kyoraku’s blade and traded places with Alexis. He cast a glance at Erich, lips quirked into a tiny, pleased smile, and said, “I always enjoy the sight of you showing your strength. It’s… inspiring.”
“You seriously think this has ‘turned out well’?” Erich snapped, trying to ignore the shivery curl of pride-pleasure-want that Kisuke’s words caused; now was not the time for such things, and he wished Kisuke would just… not.
(But oh, it felt so good to be seen, to be appreciated…!)
(No, he needed to keep his mind on the battle at hand!)
He absently sent another stasis ward at the handful of Quincy and Shinigami that had decided to try to gang up on him; points for (temporarily) getting along in the face of a common enemy, but it had been a long time since run-of-the-mill foot soldiers could get the jump on him.
(Even if he was being distracted.)
“Maa, I think we’re getting there,” Kisuke said with a touch of laughter, even as he flicked his hand to send a silent kido at Ukitake. Whatever it was, it made the Captain hiss and withdraw, shaking his off hand as he gave Kisuke a narrow-eyed look.
Ukitake pursed his lips, then let his blade dip just slightly out of form as he said, “I’m not certain what you believe you’re doing—”
“Correcting a grave mistake,” Kisuke interrupted airily.
“Correcting genocide,” Alexis bit out as she slid inside Kyoraku’s guard, grabbed his shoulders, and yanked him down as she drove her knee into his stomach. Judging by the way Kyoraku gasped and hunched over, she’d also coated her knee with reiatsu.
(Poor bastard, that was never an enjoyable experience.)
(Alexis was damn good at fighting dirty.)
Ukitake blitzed past Kisuke, blade up and eyes hard—
Erich locked blades with the infuriated Captain, muscles straining against the raw power that Ukitake could bring to bear, and said, “We aren’t here to kill you.”
“No?” Ukitake asked sharply, gaze darting over Erich’s shoulder before refocusing on him. “I’m not quite sure I believe that.”
Erich shrugged. “Believe what you will. I’ve killed no one so far and your partner will be fine.” He eyed Ukitake’s stance thoughtfully, then twisted his body around and in, free hand reaching for Ukitake’s wrist—
His Ukitake would never have fallen for something so obvious, but this one… this one didn’t have the same sort of experience. This one hadn’t spent over a year sparring with him almost once a week. This one didn’t know his tells, or his habits, or anything about him, and…
He felt no shame in capitalizing on his own familiarity with the man.
His hand closed over Ukitake’s wrist. Squeezed just so—
Ukitake inhaled sharply as he flinched, hand spasming and zanpakutou dropping—
Erich caught it by the tsuba before it could fall too far, then disappeared in a burst of hirenkyaku and landed at Kisuke’s side. “Willing to listen to us now?” he asked idly as he carefully ran blut vein down his arm and took a firmer hold on the blade itself, unwilling to offend Ukitake by even the pretense of turning the man’s zanpakutou on him.
Kisuke leaned in, warm breath ghosting over Erich’s ear, and whispered, “Showing off for me, Erich? I certainly appreciate it.”
Erich swallowed and turned his head a bit to glare at Kisuke, feeling his cheeks heat as he did. “Will you not?” he hissed in exasperation.
“But you look so good like that,” Kisuke murmured, then laughed and ducked away when Erich tried to elbow him in the chest. “Maa, Erich-san needs to learn to take a compliment!”
Erich sighed, unable to resist casting a long-suffering look at Ukitake as he did; the man smirked at him in response, an edge of familiar playfulness about him that dissipated a moment later when Alexis appeared at Erich’s side with Kyoraku in her grip, constructed ropes tying his arms behind his back.
“Look, I’d rather not keep fighting you,” Alexis declared, expression stern as she stared at Ukitake. “You’re outmatched, and with us here this effort to exterminate the Quincy is doomed to failure.” She nodded towards where Kurosaki was in the midst of combat with the Soutaicho and added, “Besides, once Kurosaki-kun finishes his fight, I have no doubt your leader will call it all off anyway.”
“You truly think the Quincy will accept that?” Ukitake asked, curious-skeptical-considering as he examined the three of them and then the masses of frozen fighters all around them. “They seem no more pleased to see you than we do.”
Erich cast a thoughtful look at the combatants that he’d frozen and flexed the fingers of his free hand; even with Tessai going around and adding a seal atop his ward, thereby taking some of the burden from him, he couldn’t continue to use his powers so flagrantly. He had enough strength left to hold his own against Ukitake or Kyoraku, but not both, and he had yet to sense the Quincy Clan Head on the field.
(Whether that meant the Clan Head wasn’t present or had already been killed, he didn’t know.)
(He didn’t even know who was supposed to be the Clan Head in this time!)
(No one who survived had ever spoken of it to him, or written it down anywhere he could find…)
(Damn the Shinigami for the destruction they had wrought!)
“I suppose they don’t,” Erich finally said, then shook his head and straightened his spine, chin tipping up as he fixed Ukitake with a steady look. “But it doesn’t matter. I was a Clan Head at one point and I will make them listen if I must.”
(Hopefully the Clan Head wasn’t dead.)
(Hopefully they listened to him instead of fighting him.)
(Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully…)
Erich bit back his worries and flexed his free hand again, trying to chase away the lingering numbness of overusing his power. He couldn’t afford to drop his guard around Ukitake, even with Kyoraku captured and the man’s blade in his hand; Ukitake was a cunning opponent who would do nearly anything for those he cared about, and right now Erich was not one of the people he cared about.
Ukitake stared back at Erich, wary-thoughtful-wondering as his gaze traveled from Erich’s face to the careful way Erich was holding his zanpakutou, then over to Alexis and Kyoraku. “You know us,” he said slowly, thoughtfully, as his aggressive stance began to fade. “You know us and how we fight. You’re Quincy and you’re working with a Shinigami.”
“Ex-Shinigami, thank you,” Kisuke interrupted with a sniff. “I prefer the Living World these days.”
Ukitake hummed and swayed back a bit, arms crossing over his chest as he fixed all three of them with his best Stern Captain look. “Ex-Shinigami, then,” he said agreeably, even as his gaze never wavered. “You are aware, however, that there are… problems with how Quincy—”
Alexis cut him off with a rude noise, then bared her teeth when he gave her an unimpressed look. “Then work with us to fix it,” she snapped. “We unmake Hollows because they unmake us! But because we barely register to you, it’s us who are in the wrong instead of them!”
“That’s not—”
“What you meant?” Erich cut in ruthlessly. “I don’t care what you meant. I don’t care what rationale you’re using to justify destroying an entire people, but I refuse to let it stand. We’re neither perfect nor innocent of bad deeds, but we still deserve a chance to live.”
Ukitake pursed his lips and looked away, body rigid in the way that Erich knew meant guilt was eating at his friend’s conscious.
(War was one thing, they all understood war, but this…?)
(This wasn’t war.)
“You’ll need to convince the Soutaicho of this,” Ukitake finally said, slanting a sidelong look at Erich as he did. “I am not averse to stopping these fights, but neither Kyoraku-san nor I am in control of this.”
“Kurosaki-kun will sort it out,” Kisuke said with a light grin. “He’s persuasive like that.”
Erich adjusted his grip on Ukitake’s zanpakutou, trying to ignore the growing buzz of displeasure against his senses, and asked, “Do you surrender?”
Kyoraku started and stared up at him with wide eyes, then quickly looked back to Ukitake. “Jyuu—”
“I do, so long as you swear not to hurt us,” Ukitake spoke over Kyoraku.
“We won’t,” Erich agreed easily. “Though I hope you understand that I’m not returning your zanpakutou until all the fighting is done.”
Ukitake grimaced but nodded. “I figured as much.”
Erich carefully constructed a temporary sheath around Ukitake’s zanpakutou and hung it from his belt. “Thank you,” he said as he rubbed at his tingling hand. “And your friend?”
Kyoraku heaved a sigh and sent Erich an exasperated look as he said, “Do I really have any options, here?”
“Agree to surrender and I’ll let you up,” Alexis told him.
“You’d just… let me go?” Kyoraku asked her, clearly befuddled by the suggestion. “But—”
“I captured you once, I can do it again,” Alexis answered with a shrug. “So, yes or no?”
“Anything to get out of these ropes,” Kyoraku joked, flashing a grin up at her as he said, “I normally don’t let anyone tie me up until the third date, but I’ll make an exception for a beautiful lady like yourself.”
Alexis scoffed and rolled her eyes as the ropes binding Kyoraku’s limbs dissolved back into reishi. “Trust me,” she drawled, “if I wanted to play like that, you’d know.”
Erich snorted in amusement at Kyoraku’s flummoxed look. “She doesn’t fluster easily,” he told the man dryly, then shook his head and turned to scan the sky; he needed to find the person leading the Quincy side so he could… speak with them about the battle. There were a few options if he was going by power levels, but based on his experiences…
(There.)
(That one.)
He pulled strength into himself, replenishing his power, and then darted forward, arrowing towards the Quincy he’d singled out.
(He needed to stop this battle, stop this war, and then… and then…)
(It was time and past for the Quincy hidden in Seireitei’s shadow to fall.)
(He refused to allow his people to die, even if he had to slay the progenitor of those very people.)
(He swore it.)