Bleach Fan Fiction ❯ Awe and Lightning ❯ One-Shot

Awe and Lightning

by debbiechan

Disclaimer: I don’t own Bleach and no profit is intended from my obsession with it.

Description: PG for mild violence. Ryuuken is "training" his son. Other than his missing powers, what one thing does the son lack to be a true Quincy?

Warnings: Spoilers for Arrancar arc.

"So you’re saying you can’t rely on me?"--Ryuuken, chapter 214:03

Ishida felt his palms spread and his lungs fill. He lunged in the direction of the curtainless window, saw his fingers grasping a crescent moon there. He had been dodging arrows for hours.

Hours.

Besides sweat and tiredness, though, he was getting nothing out of this training.

Maybe a deeper loathing for Ryuuken.

"You’re getting slower," Ryuuken said in his calm voice. "Slower and even more pathetic."

What other choice did Ishida have but to keep running and jumping in this endless, pointless routine? To quit now would be to resign to powerlessness.

Even when he had been certain that his Quincy powers were gone forever, powerlessness had not been an option. There had always been his sharp intuition, his ability to sense reiatsu, his slowed but still better than average reflexes.

Nothing had worked against the Menos Grande that had attacked him; nothing would work now against whatever force was sweeping through Karakura and crashing against Shinigami blades.

I will not be helpless.

Ishida ducked his head out of the path of his father’s next arrow, ran forwards and then backwards in an attempt to confuse Ryuuken’s aim and was forced to leap out of the way of yet another blast.

Ishida was sure his feet were bleeding. The wetness in his socks was not sweat.

"That was foolish," Ryuuken said. "You don’t have the strength to dance away from an arrow. Stand there and dodge it at the last possible moment."

Ishida stood, chest heaving, contempt growing.

"Watch my eyes," said Ryuuken and leveled the bow at Ishida’s head. "See if you can detect my intent before I shoot."

Ishida couldn’t, of course. He leapt away, and Ryuuken had not shot. Or even moved.

"Watch my eyes," said Ryuuken in his cold voice. He turned to aim at his son once more, and father and son stared at one another in a moment outside ordinary time.

Something’s changed.

Ryuuken always said his concern was with saving the living.

He doesn’t want me to leave here and help the Shinigami, but what about--?

Ishida was struggling with the idea that Ryuuken seemed to sincerely want his son to regain Quincy powers and learn to fight. Did the foreign reiatsu flaring outside mean that the world was coming to an end?

Or is this another elaborate way to humiliate me and prove to me that I will never be a Quincy. But he’s a Quincy. Look at him. He’s stronger than Grandfather ever was. How can that be--why--?

"Do not assume," Ryuuken began, and Ishida saw the constriction of muscle in his arm--no clue in the eyes--before Ryuuken released the arrow.

Ishida barely ducked in time. Falling to his knees, he planted both palms on the floor.

"Do not assume," Ryuuken continued, "that an enemy who wants to kill you will make a long-winded speech first. Shinigami are inclined to announce name, rank, and whatever nonsense before taking on an opponent. Monsters strike. If I were a Menos, you would be dead by now. You dodged the arrow, but you’re on the floor."

Ryuuken walked the long, measured steps it took to reach his son and stand over him. "Uryuu? Do you want to die?"

"Of course not."

"You behave like someone who wants to die. Marching into Soul Society with no control whatsoever of your abilities, losing your powers, and then believing that you could fight that Menos earlier. You tossed the merest reiatsu at it like a tennis ball. Do you feel that power against the Shinigami now?"

Ishida was surprised that his father was mentioning the battle. He hadn’t said anything about the horrible reiatsu before.

"I can tell you now that you are going to die." Ryuuken dropped his bow to his side and gave his son a searing look. "Not as an old man in your bed after having lived a purposeful life but in the most pathetic of ways--felled by an enemy, a victim of your own incompetence."

Whatever was fighting Kurosaki and the other Shinigami was immense--Ishida felt zanpakutou flailing against the power in vain. There was a weakening of will in the skies. There was a smell of death in the air.

Everyone is going to die?

Ishida would not believe that. If only he could have his powers restored right away. What could Ryuuken want in exchange for the secret? Was there any way to bargain his way out of this one--? Ishida was already on his knees, and the situation was dire.

Everyone. Going to die.

"Do you want to die in the mouth of a Hollow?" Ryuuken’s usually dispassionate face was crumpling with something like emotion. "Because I won’t have it that way."

Ishida let out a coughing sound. "What?"

"You hate me, don’t you, Uryuu?" Ryuuken’s face seemed angry, even though Ishida did not think of his father as one who expressed anger overtly. Ryuuken was usually cold, aloof, dismissive. This time the syllables were snapping in his mouth. Ryuuken was angry. "All that energy you have spent these years hating me, hating Shinigami, hating how miserably unfair the world is--all that energy would have better been spent on hating yourself, Uryuu."

Ishida’s elbows shook involuntarily. He willed himself to return his father’s look with one that he knew mirrored it perfectly--the set jaw, so much superiority and insult in slanted blue eyes.

Ryuuken looked away and scoffed, "It’s all an act, Uryuu. You can’t fool me. Do you think I couldn’t sense you moping in your room after your return from Soul Society? Defenseless. Waiting to be picked off the vine and eaten like a grub. All the while believing that you could not rely on me."

Ishida hoped but could not believe that Ryuuken was about to reveal how to recover lost Quincy powers. The feeling held him by the throat like a steel clamp. His feet smarted. They were bleeding from having run around dodging arrows for so long. So long. Ishida was exhausted. He wasn’t sure he could leap, intuit, or even think anymore.

"Before I let you die in the mouth of a Hollow like the miserable son you are, you can rely on one thing," Ryuuken said. "… I will not hesitate to kill you."

Had Ishida ever been truly afraid? Had he ever tried to do anything except think himself out of a situation? What was this raw horror overtaking his limbs?

Ryuuken was not bluffing.

My father wants to kill me.

He wants to kill me right here in this room with the curtainless windows so I won’t shame myself or him … or … or … the Quincy?

The grief of that realization tore through Ishida’s body like an arrow, and in the next moment that arrow had set ablaze his whole soul with rage.

I want to kill him too.

That desire itself was born into Ishida’s world with awe and lightning. Ishida knew that-- whether or not he survived the next moments--he could never go back. There would never be any compassion again. Not for anyone. Not for any soul. Before he had fought to protect the innocent, to advance his own ego, to flaunt his talents. Now he knew. He was like his father. He was a Quincy.

He was a destroyer.

END

A/N: When I started this ficlet, I was exhaustedly moving into a new house and preparing for Passover, all the while missing the sweet entertainment of internet access. The frustration over not being able to get my Bleach fix reminded me of Ishida’s predicament in chapter 214 when he couldn’t help his friends fighting the Arrancar. Transitions are so hard, especially for teenage anti-heroes and frazzled fanfic writers. Is it letting go or buckling down that makes for getting through? It’s a shounen cliché to rely on only oneself in the worst of times, but what happens if you need to rely on others?

Even if you have to rely on a bastard and the fucked-up way fate is.