Authors note: I've been wanting to write another Bleach story for a while now and made a few attempts, but nothing ever quite took off. Then a new idea came to me and I toyed around with it, and it turned into this story. I'm excited because this will be my first story that isn't a oneshot. I fully intend for this to have a second chapter.
I don't own Bleach.
The moment Uryuu's heart stopped, so did Ryuuken's. He was sitting at home at his desk and working on some documents. He had sensed when Uryuu's spiritual pressure flared up not very long ago. Feeling no need to concern himself with his son's battle this night any more than the previous nights just like it, he ignored the situation. Immersing himself into his paperwork, Ryuuken paid no heed to the fighting that was happening outside, and he busied himself with writing. It was as if nothing was happening at all. That is, until something did happen. The second his son died, he felt it. He felt the moment when Uryuu's reiatsu disappeared like a candle flame blown out. His heart seemed to stop along with Uryuu's. He froze up in panic and immediately became aware that it was very difficult to breathe. The reiatsu of the hollow disappeared quickly afterwards. His feet wanted nothing more than to run, but the rest of him was stuck. Stuck in a chair with an unmoving pen stuck in his hand and a single word stuck in his mind that was repeating in an endless loop. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No. No.
Suddenly, Ryuuken wasn't sure how, but he was rushing out the door and to the spot that had once been filled with powerful reiatsu but was now vacant of any trace of spirit energy. Running with the aid of hirenkyaku, he reached his destination all too soon and once there was greeted with the smell of blood. Blood from his son's body, which was lying in a crooked position on the ground. Ryuuken knelt down, feeling detached and numb as he looked at Uryuu. A deep wound was on his unmoving chest and a significant wound was on his left leg. Uryuu's homemade Quincy uniform was tattered and not much of the fabric was still white. His glasses were speckled with droplets of blood but had somehow managed to stay in place, covering two still open eyes. Ryuuken gently removed Uryuu's glasses and closed his son's eyes. This was it. Uryuu was dead. His son was dead.
All at once, an uncontrollable and intense surge of emotions flooded him and he made no attempt to hold it back. Tears began to stream down his face and he pulled Uryuu into his arms and held him protectively, even though there was nothing to protect anymore. Uryuu's body wasn't even that cold. His skin wasn't at all warm to be sure, but it was if Uryuu had been caught out in outside without a jacket; the kind of cold that could be fixed with a warm drink and a blanket. Ryuuken clutched Uryuu tightly to him as memories he didn't want washed over him. Memories of all the things he said to Uryuu that he wished he hadn't. Memories of all the things Uryuu had said to him that he should have reacted differently to. Painful memories of the bitter, unhappy times they had spent with each other.
Distracted by the past, he didn't notice as several people gathered around. People who had also felt the life of Uryuu Ishida fade away but had arrived far too late to do anything. Who knows how long they had been standing there watching. He only noticed them when he heard the loud cries of a girl sobbing. He looked up to see an orange haired girl making a sound that could best be described as a wail. A very tall Hispanic looking male was standing there also, not making a sound as he cried. Standing there as well was Ichigo Kurosaki, tear stricken and looking as if he was in shock, and his father Isshin.
The sight of them together, father and son, made him feel sick. He ignored the urge to look away and instead looked Isshin directly in the eyes.
"This is what happens Isshin." His voiced was shaky and raw "This is what happens. We want to believe in them. We know we really can't do anything to stop them, so we want to believe. But...but they..." his voice trailed off and he could no longer say anything as a fresh wave of tears started up.
Isshin felt his heart break for Ryuuken. He hardly recognized the man in front of him. A part of him was genuinely terrified by the sight of Ryuuken crying, and the sight of him clutching Uryuu's body made him want to grab a hold of Ichigo and hide him away. Far away from hollows, soul reapers, and everything else. Right then, he would have done anything in the world for the guarantee that the sight before him would not later on be replaced with him and his own son.
"Ryuuken..." Isshin tried to think of something to say, anything to say, but the words would not come. Nothing he could say would be of any comfort to the man right now.
No one could do anything but stand and watch as a father sat holding his son. Ryuuken touched Uryuu's cheek, stroked his hair, and murmured words he should've said sooner but never said. When at last the frigid chill of death finally set in, Ryuuken pressed his lips against Uryuu's cold forehead and felt something inside him shatter.
Ryuuken wasn't sure how he managed to get through the week. The funeral was small and sorrowful. The orange haired girl was still sobbing and wailing, but he didn't shed a tear. He had cried out all his tears. He was sure he would never cry again in his life. First he lost his mother, then his wife, then his father, and now his only child. Ryuuken Ishida was completely alone now. The hospital had generously insisted he take the next few weeks off, although Ryuuken wanted nothing more than throw himself back into work and let it distract him.
He really didn't know what to do with himself. He wasn't the sort of person who could just do nothing all day, yet somehow that's what he ended up doing. Isshin would knock on the door and try to plead with Ryuuken. Ryuuken never answered and found himself doing little else than sitting on the couch and smoking heavily. He now had the keys to Uryuu's small apartment, but still could not find the will to go there. That would be too much too soon. The very fact that he knew he would have to eventually was a source of distress. He felt as if a giant weight was dragging him down. He felt grief as he never had. Not even when his wife died did he feel such despair. When she died he still had a purpose; he had to take care of Uryuu. Now with no one but himself, he felt himself shut down. He couldn't sleep. Anytime he closed his eyes, he could see Uryuu laying on the ground mangled and bloody and looking far too young. Sometimes at night, when everything seemed entirely too quiet, he thought he heard voices but of course no one was there. Perhaps it was a ghost; the house seemed full of them. Echoing voices from people once loved, people once alive, now all gone. Ryuuken shut his eyes. He wanted nothing more to do with the dead. Nothing at all.
Yet no matter how much he tried to distance himself from the world of the dead, it was still there. It was a tormenting presence that he could ignore, could evade, but could still feel. Lying awake at night, he could feel when Isshin's son fought against hollows and every time he felt Ichigo's overpowering reiatsu, he couldn't help but wonder what went wrong. What was it that allowed Isshin's son to be able to go home safe while his son had died in the middle of the night? Ryuuken spent many hours wondering if there was any way for him to simply get rid of his spiritual awareness. Any technique at all that would render him blissfully ignorant of the whispering in the house that persisted no matter how much he pretended not to hear it. He had always managed to at least tune it out to the point where exact words were inaudible. It usually only registered as dim, incoherent nonsense. But today he was too tired to tune it out, too tired to fight it, too tired to do anything but sit on the couch and smoke cigarette after cigarette.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
The words were faint but clear enough to hear.
"Please. I'm sorry. Just please look at me. Please. Look at me. Look at me. I'm sorry father. Please just look at me. I need you to know. I need you to know. Father please."
Ryuuken felt his blood go cold. That voice. His heart pounded in his chest as that voice jarred something within him and his eyes, hesitantly and against his will, saw what was there. What had always been there, but had he refused to look at. A chain. A chain that wrapped around him and weighed him down. A chain born from a soul that couldn't move on, too attached to the world of the living, and full of regrets.
Uryuu.
"I'm sorry father. I'm sorry. Please. I need to know. Please look at me. Please father. Just look at me."
Uryuu's small voice didn't cease talking. With a shudder Ryuuken realized that Uryuu had been saying these same lines over and over for days and days without stopping. Once again, he felt stuck. He couldn't seem to move his head. He couldn't quite convince himself to turn and look at Uryuu. He was afraid of what he would see.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Not long ago at all, if he had heard Uryuu say those words in that voice, he would have berated him for sounding so pitiful and weak. He would have snapped at him and said something cruel that would have made Uryuu flinch. Now he could only whisper back in a hoarse voice. "I can hear you Uryuu. I can hear you." His body moved slowly, like something rusted, but he managed to turn and face his son who had been sitting there next to him all this time. "I'm sorry too."