A Whiter Shade of Pale
Summary: Let me be a boy who has never looked upon darkness, who has never watched the world through the stories from another person's mouth. Let me be a boy who never had to rely on the grudge of anger and revenge to hide the guilt of weakness, who never had to bear a hole in my soul before I was even given the chance of being whole. Let me be a boy who never had to plead for warmth behind eyes that were masked by ice and steel, a boy who never had to look at a smile and know that it was forever branded by tears…
Disclaimer: I love Ishida, but I was not bound to him by marriage or by copyright, so…me no own.
Chapter 1: The Rain Shadow
In the faint light on the moon Ishida Uryuu looked from the underground training facility of his father, moonbeams breaking against soul-synthesized glass and throwing strange patterns on walls and platforms made of soul-tempered silver. He sat with his back against the wall, long legs splayed out with and without grace in front of him, blue eyes losing their intensity for a moment, lost in far-away thought. He felt tired, very tired, a weariness that was not in the limbs but in the soul. Outside a light draft of snow fell; the shadow of flakes falling amplified against the glass and dancing a downward descent on the floor, and he was reminded of dust that was caught in a ray of light. How long ago had he thought that that floating dirt had been the stuff of fairytales, had tried to catch them in his hands before they disappeared, believing that he could weave magic out of thin air? He tried it now, with the snow-shadows, reached out and opened his hands and tried to retain what he could catch in his palms.
Instead of the innocence of fairy-dust his hands learned to wield power from stark nothingness. That moment in his past, under the rays of the sun, with his hands held out to catch dust, seemed as far away as another lifetime.
He was tired, so very tired. But the Winter War is near. Inoue is safe, she was protected by people more powerful than he, secure in the love and companionship and the devotion of those closest to her heart. Aizen would have to walk over dead bodies if the traitor had sent out to retrieve her again himself. Ishida could forget about her.
He, in fact, was supposed to forget about all of them.
He should. Because the Winter War is near, and he was so very tired.
In his heart of hearts Ishida Uryuu wonders if there is a place for him anywhere, be it in the Living World, Seireitei, or even in Hueco Mundo. It felt the same no matter what universe or
dimension or godforsaken place he went- there was no connection at all. He spent his life in a daze, going through life with the monotony of a wheel turning, ministrations similar day after day after day. He thought he had found acceptance in Kurosaki's little group, but despite what comfort he could derive from their companionship it made him feel like he was a simple onlooker in their world. He thought they could be the anchor that could keep him held down to reality, but even as he walked with them, talked, ate with them, he couldn't shake off the feeling of detachment. The feeling that he was just an body floating on through his days, that he was as intangible as air and that even if he was existing in the forefront at the same time he was slowly fading into the background. He envies Kurosaki his exuberance, Inoue her vibrance, even Keigo and Mizuiro for their ability to be palpable in this world that had never needed, or even noticed, his existence.
He was an invisible entity.
That fact was made more concrete by his father's indifference. He only existed when Ryuuken was shooting arrows at him, snapping out criticisms, or otherwise tearing down his already frayed self-confidence. You have no talent. You are foolish; you'd die within minutes into battle because you are weak. The words he always heard though they weren't spoken, words pushing him down, pulling him back, holding in what he could accomplish, simply because they had been repeated so often he started to believe them himself.His father once indirectly called him a coward. But it was not a cowardice that stemmed from fear or timidity, it was something that had been conditioned into him by cold words and even colder looks, until he had no choice but to surrender what self-regard he had left. That inability to believe in himself was what others perceived as cowardice. His father didn't realize that what he is, who he is, what he could think, what he could feel- what he could do- was molded by those words. Ryuuken had forced him into a state suspended between protector and protected, person saving and person being saved. It was Ryuuken who made him, Ryuuken who molded him; Ryuuken who brought him into existence and took his ability to exist the day Uryuu walked out of their house and didn't walk back.
Because he was told he would die, because he was told he was foolish, because he was told he had no talent. He was a coward because he knew that the musical whistle resounding as he released his spirit arrows were just faint undertones to the cold voice telling him he is weak.
Natsuhiboshi, Suboshi, Hokiboshi. Orihime, the wishing star. When he was too worn-out from training Ishida Uryuu will look up at the moon, and sort out each star, naming them in turns. It was his sickly mother who turned his face to the heavens and taught him each name. When he is tired and couldn't manage anything but lean against a cool high wall and look out the transparent glass to the skies, he will recite their names, one by one. The window is wide and big, and sometimes, when he feels that familiar emptiness in the pit of his stomach and feels a coldness like an icy hand gripping his chest, when he surrenders himself to the unfamiliar but welcome, repulsive longing, want, and yearning that takes hold of his mind and does not let go, he will trace the constellation of stars his mother had made for him. It spanned the entire sky sometimes, the winding expansive pattern his mother had called Rain Dragon. Because the constellation is large, and hard to pinpoint, by the time he is finished despair will have crept up to him, slowly, that he is caught unawares, with his eyes of clear blue raised up to the stars.
He wonders what role he has in this life. For surely everybody has his own function in his own existence. What is he in their unnatural little group? Ichigo is the infallible strength, Chad the unshakeable pillar, Inoue claims the place of the heart. Rukia is guidance and Renji is companionship.
But what is he?
Luna. Moon. He is the other side of that celestial orb, the dark night that blankets the midnight sky. He is that small place in everybody's needs, the dark corner in everyone's mind, that little room behind closed doors where failed dreams and hopes seek refuge, where sorrow claims and despair consumes; that place beyond the sun where guilt resides and marks like a brand.
I am the place where rain falls. He is the place where one walks through mud and stumbles and falls face-first, and realizing that there is no longer any strength to stand up alone, one looks up but meets empty skies and misses the feel of hands held out to help. The place where strength fails and pillars crumble, where hearts break like glass, guidance leads astray, and companionship finally deserts. That dark empty spot, unresolved, unrecognized, forsaken.
With little effort he recognizes that he is the one who was supposed to accept all the pain, the lost hopes and the sorrows, the one expected to carry the burden over his heart, like a pendant on a chain. I am the rain dragon. I carry the tears of the sky.
He is that memory that everyone else has forgotten, the sorrow that everyone else denies.
He is the pain beneath the smile, the pleas for affection from behind closed eyes.
The insanity that no one sees.
He is that secret, secret place, that resolution that is the haven of tears.