A/N: My love for IchiIshi fics and Ryuuken's character is extreme but no matter how hard I have tried so far I haven't been able to write one happy ending for them. Ah well, we'll go for some depressing angst instead shall we?
Pairings: Kurosaki Ichigo/Ishida Uryuu. Mentions of Past Kurosaki Isshin/ Ishida Ryuuken and Kurosaki Isshin/Kurosaki Masaki.
Warnings: Mentions of yaoi, suicide, character death and angst.
Disclaimer: If I owned Bleach IchiIshi would be cannon.
"This is our fault."
Isshin's words keep ringing in Ryuuken's ears continuously, cutting through his every thought like the sharpest of knives and he knows he will never escape the truth in them. Those four words damn him and Kurosaki both in their honesty and hearing them said over the joint grave of their sons makes them that much more tragic. Only he has to accept it all; the excruciating pain, the guilt and the grief. It is wholly deserved. It is his new cross to bear both metaphorically and literally. In his foolishness he stripped his son of his life and the title Uryuu had worked so hard for. Ishida Ryuuken is now the last Quincy. Yet what is it to have such a title he didn't want at the cost of his son's life? He had never even told Uryuu he had loved him once and now he never could.
He had once told Isshin he was a better father than him. Only now could he see how wrong he had been. Isshin was an idiot when it came to parenthood that much was true. He acted too immature and was irresponsible in many ways but he had always shown his daughters and Ichigo he loved them. Ryuuken could tell that Isshin had never even had to verbally express it to them. Despite his foolish behaviour they had just known. Where Isshin was smothering Ryuuken had always been distant. He doubted Uryuu had ever known his father loved him and that cut deeper than any wound.
"This is our fault."
Again and again like the constant ticking of the clock and the beating of his stony heart. They were screamed in his mind in so many ways; an accusation, a statement and a weary admission. They were to blame. They may not have wield the zanpakutō but it was they who had killed them. They had wanted to stop the past from repeating but they had been blinded by the pain their own love had caused. Both he and Isshin had seen it as inevitable; had seen the parts they had once played so clearly in their sons and their friends and wanted to spare them because that's what parents do – they protect their children.
Ichigo had been so much like Isshin; loud mouthed and oblivious to the love so many girls had of him. While Uryuu had been the ice prince Ryuuken had brought him up to be, hiding his emotions behind scathing remarks and the glint of his glasses. And then there was the girl. Inoue Orihime was the Masaki to Ichigo's Isshin and Uryuu's Ryuuken. She was the girl so in love with Ichigo despite his ignorance.
Ryuuken had been broken when Masaki had wormed her way into his place in Isshin's heart and Isshin had been so guilty that it had taken them years to even acknowledge each other again. Hence when Isshin had sheepishly come to him with the news of Ichigo and Uryuu's growing relationship he had been the one to suggest they pull them apart. He had been destroyed by a Kurosaki once and he had been adamant his son would not go through the same pain.
"This is our fault."
They had been wrong. So terribly wrong. They hadn't known the lengths their sons would go to. Neither of them had taken into account how their sons had differed from them; the softness in Uryuu's heart and the passion of Ichigo's love. Ryuuken and Isshin had sealed their fates by forbidding their love and Uryuu and Ichigo had paid the price.
It had been Ryuuken who had found them, surrounded in the trashed rooms and crumbling plaster that had once been Uryuu's apartment. He had gone round to explain in a moment of weakness. Instead of his son's anger he had found the shock of his and Ichigo's dead bodies. Their blood had pooled like a single halo around them both like in a horror film and a note was clutched tightly in the orange haired boy's fist.
After he had gained the courage he had checked them both for signs of life first but they were both cold in death and he had thought his grief could not be greater than that moment. Until he read the note, and for the first time in years he had fallen into hysterics, unable to keep his emotions at bay as he had called Isshin. Too far gone to even tell the man what he had found; just where he was. Isshin had come immediately and the heartbreak on his face had sent Ryuuken deeper into his breakdown.
The note in Ichigo's hand had perhaps been the most painful thing that Ryuuken had ever read. It was what had condemned them most in his eyes. Their son's had taken turns with the pen as they had wrote and it was agonisingly clear they had planned their final requests and the last words they would leave for their families knowing what they were about to do.
'From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,
Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
From forth the fatal loins of these two foes
A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;
Whole misadventured piteous overthrows
Do with their death bury their parents' strife.'
We are not Kurosaki Isshin and Ishida Ryuuken.
We are Ichigo and Uryuu.
We are not Romeo and Juliet.
But both of us will die to be with the one we love."
"This is our fault."
No, Isshin, the fault is mine for never having the strength to forgive.