Title: Cousins

Genre: Family, Angst

Characters: The Kurosaki, Ishida families, Toshiro

Summary: Ichigo's memories from around the time his Mother died and before are somewhat vague. Even when another funeral crops up he can't remember those memories well.

Rating: K+

Date Posted: 07/28/12

Cousins

Ichigo lay on his bed with his eyes covered by his arm. He was dressed in one of his father's nice suits so that he could go to the other substitute's funeral later on. Chances are he would be the only person who would be going to this funeral as the man hurt many people without looking back. A knock came at the door and he removed his arm. "Come in."

Karin crept into the room and Ichigo saw that she was dressed in an actual dress. "Ichi-nii?"

The substitute shinigami sat up before letting out a deep sigh. "You don't need to go to the funeral Karin. You didn't know the guy."

"But you did." The small female glanced to the side, one hand reaching up to pull on the strap of her black dress.

"Is that why you are here?" Ichigo smiled at her. "You still dont..."

The girl shook her head. "Ichi-nii, do you remember Grandpa Rin?"

The boy suddenly blinked a couple of times. "I've... heard the name before. But I honestly don't remember who he is."

"He was the father of uncle's wife." Karin held her hands behind her back. "You really don't remember going to his funeral?"

"Here we are with Tsukishima's ability again. I thought they would have forgotten about him. If Yuzu and Karin think he's our cousin still..."

"I don't know who that person is. I've seen our cousin around, but I don't think he remembers us from the funeral. Not that it really matters." The girl continued to look at her brother.

"I didn't say anything..." Ichigo shook his head. "This is like the parakeet? Wouldn't you and Yuzu have been real little?"

"It's strange really, a couple of days ago Yuzu and I only remembered a few flashes of Grandpa Rin and that cousin of ours. But I'm seeing it clear as day now." Karin sat down on her brother's bed next to him.

"I honestly don't remember having any family outside mom, dad and you guys." Ichigo felt his younger sister suddenly lightly touch his hand and he found himself relaxing for a bit.

M

A lot of people stood around in black clothing. A woman with light hair held onto the hand of a small boy with orange hair. She hummed a calming tune as a girl with brown hair held onto the woman's black dress front. Next to the woman stood a man with a beard who was holding another little girl with black hair.

The girl that was held in the female's arms suddenly glanced up. "Mama... where is Grandpa Rin. Daddy said we were going to his funeral. That means we're visiting him, right?"

"While it is true that we're visiting him, we're not going to be able to see him. He's... gone on to a better place." The woman let out a soft chuckle. "Everything will be all right you know."

"There have been a lot of funerals of late." The man standing next to the woman spoke up."

"Now papa, you don't need to be so pessimistic. What happened to your usual optimistic spirit."

"I'm going to speak with your brother and see if something is going on." Isshin sighed.

The woman shook her head. "You shouldn't worry about things when you don't have your powers. My father and brother can very well take care of things."

"I'm supposed to be the one protecting the family." The man shook his head.

"But it's supposed to be my job!" The boy with the orange hair suddenly piped up. "That's why you called me Ichigo."

"It's Uryu-nii!" Karin suddenly piped up. Her hand reached out towards a short figure with glasses in excitement. Isshin suddenly put the girl down and she hurried over to the older boy. "Is Uryu-nii going to come over and play with Ichi-nii again?"

"Not today. Ichigo and I'm going over to Grandpa Soken's to practice some stuff."

"I want to go too!" The girl piped up.

"You can't! You're a girl!" Ichigo piped up.

Karin began to stomp her feet on the ground.

M

Ichigo let his hand wrap gently around Karin's hand as she wasn't wanting to leave. With his free arm he covered his eyes again. "So, Karin... is something bothering you?"

"Are you sure you don't remember Grandpa Rin or the funeral?" Karin glanced at her brother.

"I don't exactly like remembering stuff from before mom died. It's painful." The boy sat up suddenly and let go of her hand as he did. Glancing at the clock he let out a deep sigh. "I really need to get going. You don't have to come to this you know."

"I do though." Karin got up and hurried after her brother. It seemed as if Ichigo was trying to make his steps longer in order to avoid taking her along with him. This became foiled when his father stepped in front of them in his own suit.

"You guys aren't going." The orange haired teen let out a deep sigh of frustration.

"Why not? Somebody needs to make food for all of your friends Ichi-nii." Yuzu piped up. "Urahara-san said I could help with the cooking. Do you know how many people are going to show up?"

"I guess us and Urahara as we're borrowing his place for the service." Ichigo shook his head. They continued along their way until they got to the place and the boy was in a bad mood. Karin decided to go on ahead, only to bump into a rather tall figure and cause him to go crashing to the ground.

M

Soken sat on the roof of the place he lived and watched the two boy's chatting with each other. Uryu suddenly began to protest something. "What do you mean by friends that only you can see? And these monsters too. Don't you..."

"Uryu..." Soken motioned for the boy to head over to him and the boy got close enough to whisper into his ear. "I've told you before that Ichigo doesn't know much about these matters. He isn't able to come and see me as much as you get to."

"But his parents both can see ghosts and they don't pretend as if the gift to see Hollows exist like father."

"Your cousin's parents situation is complicated. Neither one of them are wanting to draw attention of the Soul Reapers. And no, your cousin can't see Hollows like you can yet."

"Just like father? Is that why Uncle Isshin doesn't use Quincy powers?"

"No, for different reasons actually."

M

Karin let out a deep breath before the person she crashed into sat up and pushed her off of him. The male pushed his glasses up. "Ahh... Karin-chan."

"Uryu-nii?" The girl blinked a couple of times. The boy simply looked out of her out of surprise.

"I wouldn't say I'm that close to your brother." Uryu helped her up.

"If Karin wants to call you that I don't really care." Ichigo began to pick at the inside of his ear. "I don't understand why you're here. You want nothing to do with..." The orange haired teen paused as Isshin pushed Yuzu in through another door. "You don't want anything to do with soul reapers and he was a substitute for them."

"I'm here because a few things still bother me, though I doubt this will answer my questions. Actually, I don't know if you'll be able to answer my questions either because they likely haven't told you much."

Karin's brother let out a deep sigh and simply followed after his father and the light haired twin. The dark haired girl suddenly grabbed Uryu's wrist. "You don't remember Grandpa Rin's funeral either?"

M

A drizzle fell down on the graveyard. Uryu glanced over at his cousins who were with their father. The two girls were sobbing their heads off while Ichigo simply stood there with his eyes glazed over. When he had spoken with his cousin the boy had acted like he hadn't known who he was. However, that was understandable as they boy had lost someone he cared about. He remember how it felt to lose his own mother.

He glanced up at his father and grandfather. "So Aunt Masaki isn't going to be coming back? She's really dead?"

"Yes. She isn't coming back." Soken had a sad look in his eyes.

"Was she also killed by a Hollow?" Uryu spoke up before frowning.

"I thought I told you to stop with that talk about Hollows." His father spoke up.

Soken let out a deep sigh. "He might as well know the truth. Ichigo doesn't realize what happened, but his mother was indeed killed by a Hollow. The Hollow was after Ichigo."

Uryu turned towards his father. "That's why we need to fight with the Shinigami!"

"Enough." Ryuken glared at his father. "You promised me."

"I know. Your promise is that he doesn't have to forget everything." Soken sighed.

"What are you talking about?" Uryu blinked a couple of times.

"This was actually Isshin's idea mind you. I don't like tampering with memories. That said, I can't blame him for wanting the boy's to forget what they can. Children shouldn't know this kind of pain.

M

Uryu blinked a couple of times. "Grandpa Rin... he was..." The boy glanced down at Karin. After a few seconds of frowning at her he spoke up again. "He was my mother's father. How do you know that name?"

"We were allowed to call him Grandpa too before he died. Uncle Ryuken and Grandpa Soken and mom said it was all right to do so as dad's parents weren't alive." Karin spoke up.

Again Uryu blinked a couple of times again. "I feel like I'm missing something."

"My mother's name is... was Masaki. You were at her funeral along with your father and Grandpa Soken." The girl looked the older teen straight in the eyes.

"You actually remember that far back? You couldn't have been very old when your mother passed away." The young male spoke up, shaking his head at Karin.

"But you don't deny the fact that my mother was your aunt?" The child looked up at him with a pleading look.

"I don't deny it. I noticed that your brother had Quincy traits to his reiatsu before he became a substitute soul reaper. I thought for some time I was mistaken, but over the last year I remembered a few things I had forgotten." Uryu shook his head. "I'll repeat though, if I had trouble remembering how do you remember."

"I don't remember a person who tampered with mine and Yuzu's memories. One of the memories he messed with was the one with Grandpa Rin's funeral. The others were when Toshiro played soccer with us. He was such a jerk to make me forget about my best friend too."

"None of the other people remember him tampering with their memories." Uryu shook his head at Karin.

The girl's head tilted to the side. "I kind of have a similar ability and I can't control it. I should admit to you here that I saw a couple of your memories. Normally I can block it off but I've been frazzled ever since my own memories were messed with. I'm saying this because I really do need to apologize to you, particularly since you're family."

"That's..."

"So Kurosaki and Kurosaki are related to the Quincy?" The voice of the youngest taicho caused Uryu to turn his head to look at the unexpected intruder.

"Hitsugaya..." Uryu frowned at the small shinigami that was standing in front of him in regular clothing. "What are you doing here?"

Toshiro frowned at the physically older teen. After a pause, he finally spoke up. "I'm here for the funeral. If taicho knew Kurosaki's mother before he left Soul Society that would explain why he talked to me about the Quincy like he did. It's not in the books at the academy."

"Are you telling me that the Kurosaki family are hybrids?" The young man shook his head. "No... that actually explains a lot. It also explains why Kurosaki decided to distance himself from his father like he did over the last year... wait... you said he was your former taicho? Is this really something you should be talking about in front of Karin-chan?"

"Kurosaki told you about her ability, right? I found out taicho was alive and had some... things to deal with. I didn't know about her ability before that. I'm lucky she didn't go off on me for not telling her the truth about her dad and instead was worried about how I was doing finding out someone I thought was dead was actually alive."

"I would think that you of all people wouldn't be comfortable with sharing your personal issues with people." Uryu shook his head.

"I wasn't happy about it at first." The corner of Toshiro's mouth twisted up.

"Correction. You completely freaked out. You didn't freak out like a normal person would by telling my off and telling me I was wrong either. You kept acting like you were the guilty party. It was very weird you know, particularly since you were dealing with being angry at my dad, the fact you don't like not telling me things and the fact you felt that dad should be the one to tell me the truth not you. And you ended up being the one to tell me the truth."

The small shinigami's mouth opened and closed. "She got all of that without me telling her. I also found out it was easier to talk about stuff with her when she'd seen one of my memories."

"It took you awhile to realize that though."

"And so you're on good terms with your father?" Uryu shook his head.

"Dad doesn't know that I know yet. There is a reason Toshiro's hiding his reiatsu right now."

"I'm also the one who asked her to come despite the fact she didn't know the other substitute shinigami. I wasn't a captain at the time, but I did get caught up in the mess."

"So it is something you have to do?" Uryu let out a deep sigh. "Never mind... you two are both stubborn."

The funeral would be interesting. While not all of his questions would be answered, some already were. On top of this a few more questions came up.