Kisuke sighed and propped his chin on a hand, glowering down at the bottle that still wouldn’t open no matter what he’d tried. “You really are stubborn, aren’t you?” he murmured as he reached out and poked it, then frowned when the bottle responded with exhaustion-resignation-acceptance. “Or… maybe not you, precisely,” he amended as he ran a thumb over the smooth, unmarred curve of the glass. “Whatever’s bound you in there is stubborn.”

He turned the idea over in his mind as he gently rocked the bottle back and forth, letting the thought percolate through his mind. Nothing was permanent, nothing was sealed forever, no matter what boasts people made or efforts they went through.

Anything sealed could be unsealed. Anything bound could be unbound.

It was just a matter of finding how.

A little spark of hope-anticipation-longing buzzed against Kisuke’s senses, making him freeze in place and narrow his eyes at the bottle. “Now why are you suddenly reacting like that…?” he mused as he made to scoop the bottle up, only to fumble and drop it as frustration-annoyance-fury lanced through him. “Alright, alright, no picking you up anymore, I get it.”

Kisuke warily settled his fingers atop the bottle again, only relaxing when nothing but a low-level hum of anticipation met his senses.

(Something he’d been doing had gotten the bottle-entity’s hopes up.)

(So… what had he been doing?)

Carefully, deliberately, Kisuke pressed his index finger against the glass, feeling the way it started to slide away from him, and then flicked—

The bottle rolled across the table.

Nothing changed.

“Not that, then,” Kisuke said as he caught it before it could fall. “But… something similar, maybe?” When the low-level hum of anticipation only grew, he knew he was on to something. “Motion-based, then,” he murmured as he set it back down in front of him and eyed it thoughtfully. “So if rolling doesn’t work, then let’s see… next most common motion would be…”

Decisively, he gripped the bottle and gave a short, sharp twist of his wrist, sending it spinning—

The metal stopper flung free with a low pop, and then deep, midnight blue smoke billowed out of the bottle, swirling through the air and then over, down, settling across the empty seat opposite Kisuke and then—

A figure coalesced from the smoke: pale skin stark against dark clothing, cold-sharp-expectant amber eyes set in an unsmiling face, long, midnight blue hair the same color as the smoke and still somehow moving despite there being no breeze at all in Kisuke’s lab.

Kisuke swallowed and dropped his gaze, uncomfortable with the look the other was giving him; it felt… it felt almost like the way high ranking members of the Twelfth had looked at him when he’d just become Captain. Like they were waiting for his orders, waiting to judge him for those orders, waiting to quietly sneer at him behind his back, unimpressed with his efforts and equally unwilling to help him—

“No immediate wish?” the other asked, voice just as cold and sharp as their gaze. “After all that effort to get my bottle open, I’d expected you to have something to demand of me right away.”

Kisuke frowned at that and glanced back up at the other. “Wish?” he asked cautiously, watching the way a tiny, confused frown tugged at the corners of the stranger’s mouth. “Apologies, but I… really, I was just curious.” And, in the end, the other’s resignation to being trapped had been an uncomfortable reminder, an echo of his own feelings after— after everything.

(Thrown out of the position he’d grown comfortable in without even a warning, thrust headfirst into the public eye, put in command of people who despised his very existence—)

(He might not have been trapped in a tiny bottle, but he’d certainly been trapped.)

The other’s frown deepened, confusion softening the coldness in their gaze, before they visibly steeled themself and their face smoothed back out into a mask of indifference. “And now that your curiosity is assuaged, what will you do?”

“Well, certainly not wish for anything,” Kisuke muttered immediately, thinking of the hougyoku tucked away under layers of kido and seals. He’d once thought— but no, it didn’t matter what he’d thought, the reality of it was that nothing good had come from the thing. He’d managed to stabilize Shinji and the others using it, but… what else had it done except cause problems?

Wishing for things always came with a price. A price that he was no longer willing to blindly accept.

His words clearly took the other aback, the being’s mask of indifference shattering into confusion-uncertainty-disbelief as they stared at Kisuke. “Then…” the being trailed off into silence, mouth pinched and gaze flicking between Kisuke and the bottle still on the table between them.

Kisuke scowled and leaned back, crossing his arms over his chest and tucking his hands away before he could accidentally do something like force the being back into its prison. “If I don’t wish for anything, will you be forced to return? Is there a time limit?” Kisuke asked, trying to aim for ‘nonchalant’ and fearing that he’d ended far, far away from it.

(He couldn’t help it.)

(He shouldn’t care, couldn’t afford to care, and yet…)

(The other… reminded him too much of himself…)

“No…” the being slowly said, their confusion-uncertainty-disbelief only growing as they eyed Kisuke warily. “Unless you order me back, I… will remain free until such time as you’ve made three wishes that I’ve fulfilled.”

Kisuke hummed thoughtfully and narrowed his eyes. “Three wishes is a very specific amount, stranger-san.”

The being scoffed and looked away, chin tipping up even as their body tensed as if in preparation for a blow. “A spell stolen from another land, modified to trap me and enforce my aid,” they said, words sharp but tone carefully neutral. “Each person who releases me gets to make three wishes, which I must complete, before I am drawn back into… there… until the next person releases me.”

“‘Until the next person’… so you can only be released once by each person?” Kisuke couldn’t help but prod, wondering at the limitations of whatever stolen spell he was dealing with. He’d never heard of such a thing before, but that didn’t mean terribly much; for all the things he knew or could figure out, he was learning that there was so, so much more out there that he didn’t know.

The other hesitated, lips pursed and gaze focused anywhere but Kisuke, before murmuring, “Yes. Once I’ve been ordered back, or finished the third wish, that’s it. No one can get more than three wishes from me, and it will be… quite a while before the spell recharges enough that I can be released again.”

Kisuke clenched his jaw, fingers tangling in the fabric of his sleeves, and took a moment to just breathe through his reaction to the other’s words. It was foolish of him to have any sort of sympathy to an unknown, especially one trapped and forced to work for others without any say in it, but… he couldn’t help the vicious little spark that burrowed into his chest and coiled tight-tight-tight around his heart and lungs.

(He could use this being, probably.)

(Could force the other into fixing everything, into killing Aizen and saving the corrupted Captains and unmaking the hougyoku, but…)

(…)

He sighed and let his head tip back, staring blankly at the ceiling as he said, “You certainly seem like quite a prize. Why did I find that bottle in a pile of junk, then?”

“I… don’t know,” the being answered slowly. “It has been a very long time since I was last released.”

“Right, I see…” Kisuke tore his gaze from the ceiling and focused on the other again, taking in their tension and the way they still wouldn’t quite meet his gaze. “Well. I’m not planning on wishing for anything, but I’m not going to force you back into that prison.” At the other’s sharp, startled look, Kisuke just shrugged and said, “Wishing never seems to end well for me, so I refuse to do it these days.”

The being blinked at him, opened their mouth slightly, then closed it again with a small shake of their head and narrowed, considering eyes. An uncomfortable silence stretched between them for a breath, another, another, until the being finally said, “I don’t understand you.”

“You and me both,” Kisuke couldn’t help but mutter, as he dragged a hand over his face and scowled at the table between them; the rational part of him was screaming about how bad this decision was, but… was it really? He knew nothing about this being, good or bad, and the other hadn’t been hostile to him during their conversation. Resigned, certainly, and a touch scared, and belligerent in the way of those with no choices left, but not hostile. “Do you have a name I can call you by?”

Another hesitation, and Kisuke would have to be blind to miss the spike of wariness in the being’s eyes before they blandly asked, “No desire to give me a name yourself?”

Kisuke clenched his jaw and dug his fingers into the fabric of his sleeves and forced himself to breathe through the jolt of hatred that speared through him at the words. “I will if you insist, stranger-san,” he answered as calmly as he could manage, “but I would prefer to call you what you want to be called.”

The look he received made him want to go hunting for whoever had trapped this being and every person thereafter who had used him.

(Fuck, was he already considering this being one of his?)

(That wasn’t like him!)

“I suppose… I suppose you may call me ‘Erich’, then,” the being — Erich — finally answered, still wary but obviously willing to give Kisuke at least something to work with.

(Well, he’d take it.)

“Well met, Erich-san,” Kisuke said with a small nod. “I’m Urahara Kisuke, and we’re currently in Karakura.”

Erich stilled, tension building in their limbs as they stared at Kisuke, something almost like hunger in their amber gaze, like they could devour Kisuke with just a look. It was an uncomfortable sensation, but Kisuke refused to look away; whatever he’d said to provoke this reaction, he wasn’t going to back down and show his throat. He knew better than that.

It was Erich who looked away first, discomfort flickering across their expression before it smoothed out again. “So what will you have me do, if you have no desire to be granted a wish?” they asked, attempting to portray nonchalance and instead falling straight into unease.

Kisuke shrugged and rose to his feet, plucking the bottle up from the table and walking over to the shelves that lined one of the lab’s walls; he hadn’t yet managed to gather many books, so there was plenty of space available for him to tuck the bottle away where no one would see it unless they were snooping. “What do you want to do?” he asked as he carefully rearranged the books on the shelf to better hide it.

“I…” Erich trailed off and fell into silence, and when Kisuke cast a look over his shoulder, the other’s expression was so lost that Kisuke couldn’t help but feel for them.

(He knew how that felt, knew how quickly things became overwhelming when the expected options were no longer available, knew how paralyzing it was to suddenly have the normal script ripped away and torn to shreds.)

(…he still wasn’t going to wish for anything, but he certainly understood what Erich was feeling.)

“Well, you don’t have to decide right away,” Kisuke said with as much cheer as he could muster, focusing back on the shelf in front of him. “I mean, I barely know what I’m going to do day to day anymore!”

“That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement,” Erich murmured, voice becoming louder as they drifted closer to peer over Kisuke’s shoulder. “What… are you doing, anyway?” they asked as they leaned in, their body significantly cooler than Kisuke expected it to be. It almost felt like he had a mass of fog at his back, despite the soft flutter of warm breath across his shoulder as Erich leaned even closer.

“Tucking your bottle away so it’s less obvious,” Kisuke answered as he set the last book back down and gave the shelf a considering look; he’d done his best to make the disarray look natural, but there was still something too… pointed about it. Maybe it was his own knowledge that he was hiding something on the shelf, but… hmm… maybe if he moved a couple more books…

Behind him, Erich made a confused noise and said, “Why?”

“So no one steals it if they get this far into the shoten?” Kisuke said, casting a glance over his shoulder and—

Completely freezing in place.

(He knew Erich was close, but…!)

Erich blinked at him, their face bare inches from Kisuke’s own. Up close, their amber eyes were almost mesmerizing, odd ripples and striations in the color making it look like actual amber, and their midnight blue hair looked like it had stars scattered across it, faint pinpricks of light that glittered and moved with the unfelt wind moving their hair. The whole effect was otherworldly, and beautiful, and yet… sad, somehow.

“It can’t be stolen, now that you’ve opened it,” Erich finally said, a furrow forming on their forehead as Kisuke remained silent. “That’s part of the spell. You could hurl it into the deepest pit you find, and a single thought will still return it to your hand.”

“W—well, be that as it may,” Kisuke forced out, yanking his attention away from Erich and back onto the bookshelf in front of him at last. “I’d uh… I’d prefer it if no one even tried.” He spent a few moments aimlessly rearranging the shelf, trying to collect his scattered thoughts, before adding, “Besides, are you telling me there’s no way for anyone other than me to force you back inside that thing?”

A noncommittal hum was his answer, followed by Erich finally drawing away from his back and drifting over to one of the other shelves. “That I know of? No. Is it possible? Perhaps,” they eventually said, while running one slender finger over the books in front of them. “It was never a worry for any other wielder of mine. They were all… proud to show my bottle off.”

Kisuke hummed thoughtfully at that piece of information, even as he took a step back from the bookshelf and gave it a once over; his second attempt was better, but he probably needed to figure out a better place to hide the bottle if he was going to keep Erich around long-term. Though not somewhere too difficult to get at, because he wanted to look at it more closely now that Erich was out of it, to see if he could untangle whatever was done to trap the being.

That no one in the past had been worried about someone else co-opting Erich’s power for themselves, or about Erich being forced back into the bottle prematurely by outside influence, could be an indication that there truly wasn’t a way for anyone other that Kisuke to do so. Or it could be an indication that the people in the past knew how to guard against such a thing and Erich was unaware of their preparations.

Either way, he’d take it at face value for the moment and assume that Erich was safe from outside influence so long as Kisuke didn’t fuck it up.

(He just needed to make sure no one had an opportunity to prove him wrong.)

(Well, it wasn’t like anyone besides Yoruichi and Tessai were welcome in his lab anyway.)

(He’d just… add to the ward structure and find a better hiding spot later.)

(Now, if only it was that easy to figure out what to do about Erich himself…)

(…well… they’d just have to play it by ear.)

(Humans did it every day, after all.)

(How hard could it be…?)