Meanwhile

- Meanwhile back on Earth -

Masaki was nervous and a little scare as she was walking up to her family home that she hadn't seen in years.

'Would they be able to forgive me?' she wondered.

She sighed and finally rang the doorbell. Yuzu opens the door and doesn't react right away. Her and Karin were only 5 when they lost their mom so she is quite confused feeling she is familiar. She can't quite place her right away though.

Masaki falls to her knees and breaks into sobs as she hugs her daughter who becomes completely stunned.

"Yuzu.." she manages to get out between sobs. Seeing her had made all her emotions hit at once.

Yuzu broke out of her stupor and hesitantly questioned "M-m… mom?"

"Y-yes. I'm back." She answers and Yuzu starts hugging her back tightly and sobbing too.

"Yuzu? What's taking so long?" They hear as Karin comes to look for Yuzu who went to answer the door. It didn't take her long to realize what was going on though and to run up and join then in their emotional hug though.

Just like Karin not much later Isshin also showed up to see what was going on, but he just fell to his knees sobbing unable to believe what his eyes were seeing as he watched his daughters and the wife he believed to be deceased.

"I-I-impossible…" he stammered. He was confused, because everything indicated she had died including the fact that his powers had slowly returned over the 4 years following the events that Masaki and Ichigo went through. The only slight discrepancy was the lack of a body, but with the heavy storms making the river go wildly out of it's bounds this wasn't that surprising even if she hadn't been consumed by a hollow.

They had searched for a long time, but once it became notice le his powers were returning Kisuke had told him this was likely the result of her passing on releasing the seal on his powers and then returning to him.

After a little while of them hugging and Isshin just been complete stunned and in tears Masaki noticed him getting up hand in hand with her girls and going up to Isshin the three of them hugging him too.

"Hi.. honey." she says shyly.

He is still kind of stunned and touches her cheeks as if to make sure she is really there before he hugs her back tightly afraid to let go again.

"Uhm… where is Ichigo?" she manages to ask eventually. Isshin looks at their two daughters a little unsure what to say.

"Uhm… he is on a trip with some friends. We should talk about it later." he eventually decided to say avoiding the topic in front of the two young and innocent girls.

The family spent their time catching up though Masaki concealed most information regarding what happened and where she had been from her daughters since she didn't want to reveal anything supernatural to them yet. Eventually it was time for the girls to go to bed and Isshin had called Uruhara Kisuke to come talk. He showed up not too much later though.

"Oh hey. Welcome back. Where have you been?" Kisuke asked in a frivolous tone when he first saw Masaki.

Isshin shook his head, but was also interested in a more in depth explenation now that their daughters were in bed.

"So how are you alive?" Kisuke asks her.

"It's a long story." She said with a sigh. Isshin put his hand on her back running it gently while nodding encouragingly at her.

"So that night Ichigo and me were attacked. I tried to protect him, but that lead to me being attacked instead. However after he ran it turned out he didn't kill me and instead spit me out." She said. Kisuke's eyebrow raised in curiosity though he still managed to maintain his frivolous demeanor. Isshin still seemed concerned.

"Remember that boy that died 20 years ago when we fought that Hollow?" she asked.

Isshin nods. Kisuke just stared at them curiously. He wasn't there after all only having heard about the events afterwards and dealing with Masaki's problems due to it.

"The Hollow that took me was sentient unlike the others and told me he was that boy. He had turned into a Hollow, but was captured by captain Sōsuke Aizen for experiments." she said.

Now she really had Kisuke's full attention since he was very interested in what Aizen had been up to during his exile. Isshin looked a little sad thinking about that night. Too much had gone wrong.

"So what happened?" Kisuke asked unable to conceal his excitement.

"Well. He managed to escape due to an illusion skill he has that they weren't aware of. Though that took 10 years. He had overheard some of their plans including the attack on me and interfered. He couldn't risk them knowing the attack failed though which is why I couldn't come back until now," she said.

"Now? Why now?" Kisuke asked curiously.

"Well Aizen's plans are starting now. He should have faked his death already and be getting ready to betray Soul Society for good any moment now once he gets his hands on the Hōgyoku." she said.

"Wait how do you know about the Hōgyoku?" Kisuke asked in surprise.

"He overheard it during the experiments. Apparently Aizen is working with a few others in Soul Society. Ichimaru Gin and Kaname Tōsen. He is already effectively the king of Hueco Mundo and is planning to use the Hōgyoku to complete his experiments on merging Shinigami power into Hollow to form hybrids and build an army." she explains the plans.

Kisuke slaps his fist on his palm while saying "That explains a lot with the strange things happening lately."

"Strange things?" Masaki asks.

"Yeah, like Ichigo becoming a substitute Shinigami, his friends getting powers and his little friend that had my Hōgyoku being taken to Souls Society." he says calmly.

"What?! Shinigami? Where is he now?" she asks adamantly.

Isshin was sweating heavily.

---

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