Chapter Text
Edward Elric had paid his dues.
Whether he liked it or not, balance comes before anything.
He paid for his sins and hubris. He paid with his blood, sweat, tears, limbs, soul and gate. He kept playing the game until he couldn't. He lived to see it through to his brother finally getting his body back, to see his brother get married, have children and live a normalish life after the clusterfuck that was their life. While Edward got to just... be for the rest of it.
And that was enough for Ed. It should be enough.
Suddenly waking up as an infant was not something Ed had in his bingo card but considering his life, he probably should've.
From the back of his mind, he swears he could hear Truth fucking cackling.
Urgh, here we go again...
…
Being a big brother wasn't new to Ed-Ichigo, despite what the useless old man 2.0 might think. He was glad even that he could have something familiar in this strange world without alchemy. He lived the last years of his life without one but that doesn't mean it isn't jarring to see a complete absence of something so fundamental to his old life.
Heck, the seeing dead people thing isn't even the weirdest thing that could happen to his life.
His mom is alive and sweet and loving that is a balm to his cold hard heart that is still grieving for his loved ones that he had left behind in his death.
So he guesses that it served him right when he settled too much and things inevitably turn to shit. So now he's left with another dead mother, another useless father and two younger siblings who only has him to be the depandable figure in the house, again.
His The old man is useless.
So, at the third week that he still hasn't left the damned clinic once after the funeral and the pantry is getting sparse, Ichigo decided to once again take things unto his own hands. That meant getting money. He doesn't really care if it's legal or not, he's gonna feed his sisters even if he has to trade another arm and leg to do so. He has traded them for his sibling before without a second thought, he's not afraid to do it again.
He shouldn't be suprised that he has taken to fighting thugs, stealing their wallets, and working errands for scraps of money. The grandmas knew Ichigo by name and didn't like him at first. A punk in the making, they said. Like yeah, he is a punk but that doesn't mean that they had to be so fucking rude about it. Heck, sure they can be rude to him. They're definitely welcome to be rude to the old goat face. But Ichigo draws the line at putting their nasty little gossips claws on his little sisters. He doesn't know how, or when but in time, the grandmas warmed up to him. Said he grew on them, like a fucking fungus, sure, but still.
From time to time, Ichigo gets enough pity points to get him some packed homecooked food to share. Then all he has left to to think about is the rising price of rice in the market.
For years, they did this routine and dance of Ichigo earning to get money for food and school stuff, then walking the twins to and from school, Ichigo gets into scuffles with random thugs (which he wins by the way), then he deals with his useless alcoholic dad he sometimes honestly forgets exists.
Then Isshin started going out of that damned clinic.
Then... fucking Isshin started kicking him in the face.
Then Ichigo started geniunely plotting patricide.
...
Ichigo still goes to school.
Despite what the rumors and his reputation, he stays at school. Well, he has fully leaned into the punk image they essentially pushed onto him and stopped attending barely above the bare minumum of not getting kicked out and started churning out exams and assignments with near perfect scores at the same time. He has way too much things to do than stay at school traditionally to learn things in a torturously slow pace.
In other news, the twins are a delight to tutor. Tiny little genuises they are, though with a lack of ambition that usually brings Elrics into facing the wrath of god for their hubris.
He thinks he's fine with that.
He has already enrolled to many different interesting online classes that he can afford. His curious scientist mind soaks in all the new information that he can find. Turning things over, inside out, side ways, and under until he understands. He tries his best to study everything he can about the differences between the two worlds. He wrote essays and thesises in his little spare time to try to make sense on the weird non-alchemy world he now lives in. He posted some under a pen name 'Edward Elric' not paying any mind to the waves he makes in the academic world, too busy arguing with scholars online and calling it an academic debate.
There was an oppurtunity that showed in the form of publishing his texts. Dealing with that clusterfuck was enough to drive Ichigo to want a strong drink and all the alcohol was thrown out of the house along with the useless goat face.
The rewards of getting that book money provided Karin a new soccer ball and shoes, Yuzu a brand new pan set, a new bookshelf for his ever growing collection of books and a steady-ish food money.
All is good in the Kurosaki family.
That is, until the weird monster thing crashed into the city and a ghost girl with a fucking sword entered his already weird life.
...
What the fuck.
What the fuck even is his life?
Sure. Ok. Alright. Death gods exists, then. And this ⁵'s a tiny little pipsqueak who thinks too highly of herself, sure.
"Sorry. I'm an atheist." He comments lightly at the shouting samurai ghost.
Is that what he looked like back then?!? He's thankful and all for the tall genes for once getting to him but what?! Is that really what he looked like from this height?? No wonder everyone thought he was a kid! He can't believe he just said that.
Thanks, Truth. Really nice detail there. Fuck you.
Ichigo hadn't completely forgiven the girl for putting the twins in danger with her non existent observant skills. Nor has he fully forgiven her for stabbing him (despite his willingness to fight agaisnt the ugly shmuck). He most definitely does not appreciate her meddling with his sisters' memories either. The mind is a VERY delicate machinery! You don't just fucking mess around with it!
Despite his reservations on dragging the girls along the obviously dangerous situation, he pushed Rukia to return their memories. He has been in that position once and he knows damned well he wouldn't take secrets like that between family graciously. And suprise suprise, neither does the twins.
Looking at the girls gives him the strangest deja vu where Karin reminds him of himself and Yuzu of Alphonse. He couldn't bare with himself if something happened to them but he couldn't keep this from them either. Not when it involves their lives on the line.
They ended up having a serious talk after getting their memories back. Karin screamed and shouted with anger while Yuzu cold and scary as they talked about Ichigo's 'responsibilities' as a temporary shinigami to help out Rukia. Its dangerous. They didn't like it when he comes home all beat up and bloodied the first time and they certainly still won't like it now.
To his suprise, (or maybe, not that much of a suprise) the twins demanded to be trained to defend themselves. So that they won't be vulnerable next time a monster comes in their house. Rukia was apprehensive. Having Ichigo know shit about shinigami was already toeing the line, apparently. But boo hoo, she has already played with people's lives so she shouldn't be suprised that they won't just take that laying down.
With that, they made a new routine. This time including Rukia and shinigami business on the mix. These shinigami sound too fucking familiar to the military structure of Amestris that Ichigo hesitates to even think of anything good coming out of this game of theirs. He doubts this Seireitei place is good like Amestris either. Ichigo fights these hollows not for Rukia but for the twins. He doesn't give a rats ass about Rukia's military position but he does care about her well being with how his weird body apparently sucked up most of her powers. Ichigo helps Rukia because she helped him. It's simply equivalent exchange.
So when her dick of a brother snatched her up for family bonding of government mandated death sentence, you'd have to forgive Ichigo's reaction of wanting to punt that asshole's face into the fucking moon.
He's a disgrace to all older brothers in the world and Ichigo is going to beat that message deep into the asshole's skull.
...
The first time Ichigo met Urahara Kisuke, he thought, 'That's a Roy Mustang variant if he ever sees one.'
Well, if Roy was blonde, leaned more into his Xingese heritage, walked around in a samue with a horrendous bucket hat and a pair of loudass geta.
It's so uncanny, Ichigo had to mentally slap his face to snap out of it. The mask is so perfect that if Ed didn't literally married the asshole, he wouldn't have spotted it. He would've gotten stringed along by the nose like a fucking amateur.
Oh, look at that guy plotting... how cute...
(Wait. Does Ed Ichigo have a thing for older shady plotting genius losers with a penchant for treason?)
Learning sword fighting with his big fuck off sword was cool. Learning about the bleached motherfucker living inside of him like a fucking cancer cell? Not so cool.
But.
Well, he dealt with meeting a fucking god and getting his limbs ripped off of him. He dealt with military at the ripe old age of 12. He dealt with war. He dealt with whatever the fuck was going on with his fuck ass father and those fuck ass humonculous. He dealt with all the other shit After.
He can deal with this asshole.
That asshole being essentially him is irrelevant.
Yeah, this is not gonna be fun that's for sure.
...
"Hold on, hold on, pump the fucking breaks. You! Hats n' Clogs!" Ichigo points at Urahara, who looked at the offending finger with a raised eyebrow.
"Explain. What the fuck is the stone you stuck into Rukia's gigai. One. more. fucking. time." He grits out.
Because that can't be, right? Life doesn't hate him THAT much, right? Truth wouldn't just drop his ass in another philosopher stone drama, right?
RIGHT?!
"I'm going to fucking kill someone."