BLEACH: The Dusk In Red

"If you think a talking cat is odd, then you really know nothing about this world."

Mikoto still confused, reached over and grabbed it quickly, which the cat objected to. He began to pet it ferociously making it feel very uncomfortable.

"Hey! Let go!"

Kai feeling jealous beckoned Kisuke,

"Hey Urahara? Put my soul back in my body quickly, I want to pet it too."

"Despite me wishing to right now, even I can no longer return your Konpaku back its rightful body."

A shocked face spread on everyone in the room apart from the still anxiety filled cat.

Urahara dug his fingers into the bandage which wrapped around Kai's neck and pulled them off in one sweep. His injury from the prior night was then revealed to be a very mild cut. The issue laid with his skin as the area surrounding it had turned into a shade of purple and blue. The corruption climbed from the base of the wound to below parts of his chest and even in the current moment, spread to his face.

"What the hell is this?", Kai demanded.

"This is, Akuma no doku. It's a special type of poison which became forbidden to possess and use following the creation of the Gotei 13. When it's used on a human, or infact any lifeform with a physical body composed of Kishi, the effects are 0. However once the bodies Konpaku is forced out, that's when the poison activates. It makes it so that it becomes impossible for the Konpaku to return to its body, even if the chain of fate remained intact." 

Mikoto and Yukiko after hearing that turned to Kai.

"Didn't you say that came from an accident with stairs?? Why did you lie? If you told us sooner then maybe we could have done something about it--"

Urahara quickly cut off Mikoto from speaking.

"Even if he did tell you two. Once the poison has remained in the body for longer than an hour, there is nothing that even I can do to fix it. He is no more than plus soul now."

Kai felt a wave of despair upon hearing those words. He gripped his face before he began to shout in agony. His life was over.. just like that. There was no saving him now.

Yukiko attempted to grab a hold of him and calm him down, but he pushed her away.

"KEEP AWAY FROM ME. THIS IS YOUR FAULT. IF ONLY A STUPID STAND IN LIKE YOU WASN'T AROUND THEN MABYE I WOULDN'T HAVE DIED."

Yukiko was unable to utter a word, and instead Mikoto took her place.

"You can't say stuff like that to her. If she didn't come when she did, then the both of us would've been eaten by that hollow!"

He dropped the cat which he carried and ran over to Kai. He attempted to grab him by the collar, but with his current physical body he instantly phased through him. Kai who was still in a deep haze, escaped the store.

Mikoto slid open the doors to try chase after him, however he had long since disappeared.

"Ms Yukiko. I can't relate much to what you're going through right now, however I don't need to remind you of your duties of a soul reaper do I?"

She nodded while wiping some tears from her face and quickly chased after him.

Kisuke then looked back at Mikoto, and pulled out a blue tube with a red button from his Haori.

"Look over here a second. The treatment isn't finished yet."

Mikoto stared deeply into the tube, at the same time Urahara pressed the red button which was located beneath it. As a result, a plastic birds head popped up from the device and blew a puff of smoke into Mikoto's face. When he breathed it in, he chocked a little before passing out.

"Ms. Yoruichi, do you mind helping me out this one time?"

The black cat pouted, as it left the room. Kisuke sighed in exhaustion.

1 hour later

Heavy rain began to fall on top of the Karakura town. Thanks to his non-physical body, he remained unable to feel the cold which drove him into a pit of madness. As he ran he began to take note of the other spirits around him. They may have been small in number but now he understood that they have always been there. This fact only pushed him further down his depression as he saw that he was like the others around him.

Dead.

He stopped in front of a small yet humble home. His house where he and his mother had been living in for the last 8 years,

following the absence of his own father. The lights were off which was atypical for this time of day. Kai approached the door and tried to swing it open, however his arm phased through it. Taking advantage of his new power Kai walked through the door and broke into his own home.

The hallway was dark and empty, yet there was a single sound that plagued the building. Coughing followed along with tears from hours of crying.

Kai quickly entered his living room, and found his mother crouching on it, in a fetal position surrounded by blankets. Next to her were a numerous amount of empty wine bottles as well as tissues. The Tv played the following:

"Today we bring you news from events in Karakura town. At around 12:13 today, an explosion which had unknown causes, led to the deaths of several students in Karakura high school. Despite many of their remains being kept intact, they had still died due to unknown factors. Some of the students who did survive by some miracle are un able to recollect anything that did occur during the incident, however after some investigating, the police have been able to confirm the disappearances and possibly the deaths of some students. The names follow

Yukiko Himeno, Mikoto Amani and finally, Kai Kureno."

As his mother heard the name of his son once more, she grabbed the nearby wine bottle and threw it in front of her, unknowingly aiming it at her dead son who stood before her. The bottle easily passed through Kai and smashed against the wall behind him.

"Hey mom... I'm right here."

Kai shakily extended both his arms in an attempt to comfort his mother, yet she shouted,

"WHY?? WHY HAVE BOTH OF THEM BEEN TAKEN FROM ME??"

 Tears began to fall from Kai's eyes as he grabbed a hold of his mother, yet he didn't even feel the slightest bit of heat. It wasn't that she was cold... but it was because he existed in a form that could no longer interact with the living.

"I'm right here mom."

It useless, she still couldn't hear his words.

8 years ago, in the earthquake caused by the death of the soul king the 3 realms began to collapse into one. As a call before the storm, the world of the living and especially Karakura town which contained the greatest number of spiritual beings on earth was affected the greatest. Roughly an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.8 hit Karakura town and even damaged some nearby cities.

Despite the powerful earthquake, many of the citizens managed to escape unharmed.... except for one family. On that day, Kai Kureno(9) and his mother Airi Kureno lost a father and loving husband Kimura Kureno. Their old home was destroyed leaving the two in a horrible state. 8 years later they had barley managed to return to some kind of normalcy, but now that peace had been broken with another death.

Kai quickly ran up to his bedroom, and locked himself away leaving his mother behind to weep on her own. At the same time, a little bit of Kai's chain of fate rusted and then faded away. His encroachment had begun.

A couple minutes later Yukiko would arrive to find the grieving Kureno on her couch.

Sensing Kai's spiritual pressure she would rush upstairs and stand in front of his bedroom door all with a grim expression on her face. She placed her knuckle on the door and softly asked,

"Are you okay?"

Yet there was no response.

"If you stay in the human world for too long, then your chain of fate will fully erode at which point you would become a hollow. If I perform a Konso on you now then you would be able to pass on to the after life peacefully."

"And what kind of a place is that?"

"Its a place called Soul Society. Once you enter there, you would no longer have to worry about starving ever again. You'll be able to live for hundreds of years in bliss and eventually you will even be reunited with your mother once she passes away too."

"..."

A small tear began to form under her eye. 

"Please don't make this any harder for me than it has to be."

"A place where dead souls rest huh... would my father be there too?"

"Yes I suppose."

Kai paused for a long moment. He thought long and hard about what he wanted to do and replied,

"Then I don't want to go."

This statement shocked Yukiko who asked,

"Why wouldn't you want to leave?? If you die again here, then you'll lose your chance to reunite your family forever??"

"I'm not interested in seeing my old man who croaked out early. Ever since he died, the only one who I could remember looking after me was my mother. We had other family members but they all blamed her for my fathers death so we eventually lost contact. I managed to find you and Mikoto to help me through it, however my mother has still been alone ever since. I'm the only one whose stuck by her since that time, and now look... I've gone and died too. Even if I turn into a hollow, I refuse to abandon her in death. I don't want her to be alone again."

Yukiko continued to plead with him to let her perform the ritual, but eventually he stopped responding entirely.

"I'm not even supposed to be here right now either... The only reason I was able to become a Soul Reaper was because the person I'm covering for went on break. Apparently he had a kid so they needed someone from the world of the living to take his place."

"You think I care about you're excuses? Just go home, you're wasting your time here."

Eventually her pleads for him to come out came to a halt. Everyday since then Yukiko would return back, asking him to leave his room and to allow her to perform the Konso, and yet he would refuse every time.

In the first day of his shut in his life was bleak, and the first week the light from his eyes disappeared, and then in the first month a sense of hunger would start to emerge from his stomach. He hadn't been paying that much attention, however the length of his soul chain had been reduced to just half of its original size from when it was cut off.

Urahara shop

Kisuke Urahara would get up as he would always do, and get his sweet store ready for today's sales. Unusually he would find something waiting for him on his counter.

It was the substitute soul reaper badge along with a letter containing an apology.

"So she was unable to do it after all."

Yoruichi would climb onto the counter while still in her cat form.

"Soul Reapers are gods of death who escort dead souls to soul society. In the one month she was a soul reaper she had managed to overcome obstacles that would take 5 years of training at Shinigami academy. It was because of that talent, that she was initially chosen as Ichigo's temporary replacement, yet she can't even help the soul of her dead friend pass on."

Kisuke pondered on that thought.

"Soul Reapers cannot be allowed to fear their own world. However I think this another obstacle that she will... that she must overcome. Do you want to make a bet on how long that will take?"