Chapter 3: Perceptions

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(Thanks first to Kubo Tite for a wonderful flashback in this week's chapter that guided my writing today. Warning of slight spoilers if you don't keep up to date on the manga, but a real treat if you do! I think this will hit in the right places. I love when Kubo gives us such meaty things to work with! (My gratitude to PrivateCaller (Update granted!), Luna Liuvia (You've got it!), Aizenfan6969 (There's a lot of that going around. I am driven t write this now.), Periwinkle (Here's one and another will be along very soon!), Yaoi Ruler (I love when I find a story that keeps me up all night reading. That's a huge compliment, thanks!), Beaker, Picklez80 and Willow (Yes, you shall have more!), Winterheart2000 (You aren't the only one thinking that way. Everyone's plotting!), BaerbelHaddrell (You must be on top of the world today! I will bring more of this, as well as Diablo's Bride soon!), Adaie Delacroix (I am all better finally after flu, then bronchitis. What is it with me and respiratory things? You would think breathing would be easy to do...apparently, not always. But yes, I am 100% now!), ReelJustine (I was terrible to let that hang so long. I was just needing a little inspiration that Kubo provided. I'm good now and ready to punch out several new chapters this week!), Hisuiryuu (Oh my, Ryuuken. He's not having a very good time.), Akira Nishikawa (Thanks so much for the New Year's wishes. And yes, I agree that the two sides need to negotiate. But there will be a lot of tension as they work towards agreement.), Lotus Swarm (You know, since I started the first of these two stories, my appreciation for Uryu has increased immeasurably and I feel like writing more of him. Expect him to be active in my writing!), Avella Aria (Uryu is somewhat protected now by being heir to the quincy throne and by Byakuya, so his struggles will be more internal as he fights to restore his lost powers.), Anarane-sensei (Ah yes, the relationships really make the story!) and Kenni-bun bun (Me too! I am really enjoying this!) Love you all, Spunky)

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Isshin knelt at Ryuuken's bedside, holding the quincy's disturbingly cold hand in his and watching closely as Kisuke examined Ryuuken's bared, round abdomen, nodding in affirmation.

"We're almost there," he assured them.

He glanced over his shoulder to where Uryuu stood near the door, his blue eyes fixed on his father and his face gone deathly pale.

"Uryuu," Kisuke said, jolting him out of his reverie, "I need your help."

Uryuu's eyes closed for a moment and a look of pure torment crossed his face. Ryuuken studied him through hard, narrowed eyes as beads of sweat ran down his blanched face.

"It's all right s-son," he assured Uryuu, "We are in Soul Society. Because we are here, there is no need for a more barbaric approach."

Uryuu's jaw stiffened and his eyes dampened.

"Things here have to be cut sometimes too," he answered cryptically, "but it's fine. I'm fine."

He forced his legs into motion, crossing the room and sitting down at his father's side. Ryuuken's free hand slipped into his. Uryuu flinched and the discomfited look on his face intensified as it struck him that his father's hand was ice cold, sweating and clenching tightly.

"I know this is hard for you," Ryuuken said in an maddeningly calm voice, "Just focus your mind on something else, anything else...j-just for a little while."

"You can keep your eyes closed or whatever you need to do," Kisuke said, an edge of worry in his voice, "Just do what I tell you. Listen carefully. Ryuuken is a quincy and the device Ywach placed inside him to make him able to carry a child is a quincy device. I've been able to study the one in him and the one in you and make some conclusions about them, but I didn't have one I could manipulate up close."

"Because there wasn't a dead quincy to cut one out of," Uryuu answered in a whisper, his widened eyes meeting Ryuuken's again.

The elder quincy tried to speak, but gasp and shuddered, more sweat leaking down his face.

"Dad..." Uryuu managed.

Ryuuken closed his eyes tightly.

"You should go," he panted, "We need to f-find another way."

Kisuke shook his head firmly.

"I need him to set up a circulation of reiatsu between you."

"It will put too much stress on his body!" Ryuuken objected, "Uryuu is carrying a child too."

"I know that, but our options here are a little limited, if you know what I mean. I've messaged Officer Bazz-B, but other than Uryuu and him, we're a little damned short on quincies around here. Uryuu is fine. His damaged spirit centers can't circulate the reiatsu, but if you connect with him, I can use the centers in your body to essentially push the reiatsu through him to balance it, and back into you to keep things stable for the delivery. That's all I need."

"The t-truth is that you don't know what you need," Ryuuken said, his voice more resigned than stern, "None of us do. Not even me...and I've known for many years that this device was present in my body. I will manage until Bazz-B arrives."

"It's fine, Dad," Uryuu said stiffly, "I can do it. I'm not going to sit here and let you suffer just because it scares me. I'm not a coward."

Ryuuken winced as he drew a stinging breath.

"I didn't say that because I thought you were being a coward, son," the elder quincy assured him, "I said it because we've drawn different lines for ourselves. I wasn't attacking your choices. I was respecting them."

Isshin frowned and shook his head, glancing at Kisuke.

"Am I the only one here who's a little lost on what these two are saying?" he asked.

Ryuuken gave him an unusually warm look and squeezed his hand.

"You and I are doctors," he said, pausing to take several more, shorter, panting breaths, "We see people in distress and we engage their bodies every day, trying to heal them."

He turned his focus onto Uryuu, looking into his son's distressed eyes as he continued.

"Sometimes, we must cut the body...either to reach a place inside it to help, or if they've died, then we reach for that place to understand."

Isshin's eyes reflected a hint of comprehension and he nodded.

"Every doctor in training, every scientist who studies people's bodies makes a choice on how to deal with it," Isshin added, "It's like a doorway you have to go through and everyone reacts differently."

"You mean, you have to make yourself cold enough to do it," Uryuu concluded.

"That's one way," Isshin acknowledged, "I'm sure you've met a few of those guys, you know, the ones where you walk into the office and take off your clothes, and you feel like they never really look at you at all."

Uryuu's eyes blinked slowly as he turned the words over in his head. Kisuke took advantage of his distraction to quietly begin the reiatsu exchange between father and son.

"You feel like they just see you as a body," Ryuuken said, his voice shaking slightly, "They think that because they've dissected many bodies, they know better than you what you need to keep functioning. When you try to talk to them, they brush off your words as being an emotional reaction."

"Those aren't the kind of doctors and scientists you want working on the people you love," Isshin acknowledged, giving Uryuu a sympathetic look as the younger quincy appeared to suffer a sudden memory and shivered visibly.

Kisuke's hands touched several places on Ryuuken's bared chest and abdomen as he examined the connection he'd made, then refocused on the area over the spirit chamber.

"Son," Ryuuken went on, "the doctors you want to help the people you love are the ones who understand that all parts of a person are important. When you touch a person's body, you must always do so with complete respect. Whether the soul is still inside the body or it has moved on, the body that serves that soul always carries traces of that person in its fibers. The very traces are sentient...to the point that healers who are deeply perceptive can sense the traces, even sometimes encounter visions from that person's life when they lay hands on the body."

"Doctors who respect that connection don't ever say to themselves that it's just a body," Isshin explained, "Whether the person is alive or dead, they speak to the person as they work, explaining what they're doing and why."

Uryuu's breath caught for a moment as he thought back.

When I saw him dissecting Mom's body, his lips were moving. For a second, I remember thinking that it looked like he was praying. His eyes didn't look cold.

"Do you understand now, Uryuu?" Ryuuken asked, "I wasn't being cold to her. I wanted to understand what happened to her exactly. I wanted to know why she died...and you lived. Knowing that couldn't bring Katagiri back, but it could have changed the course of other lives, even yours and mine. That, I think, is something that she would have offered herself to do. She was that kind of person."

Uryuu breathed slowly through the strange ringing that had started in his ears, continuing to gaze into Ryuuken's pained eyes and feeling his father's rapid heartbeat in the hand he held. He kept his silence for a moment, reaching out with his free hand and picking up a damp washcloth that he used to wipe away the sweat and cool his father's face.

"I understand," he said finally, "Now, stop trying to talk to me and take care of my little brother or sister."

Ryuuken managed a shaky half-smile. He loosed a relieved sounding sigh and closed his eyes.

"How're they doing?" Isshin asked, "Is it just me, or does the stabilized flow seem weaker than it should be?"

"You're right," Kisuke agreed, "his reiatsu is being stabilized, but some is being lost in the transfer."

"You want me to give him an infusion?" Issin asked, slipping his hand out of Ryuuken's and extending them.

Kisuke's hand touched his to hold them back.

"Don't," he warned Isshin, "With the circulation set up as it is, we would need a balancing flow into Uryuu, and that means we need Byakuya."

"Would it help for me to disconnect from him?" Uryuu asked.

"No, we need the stability," Kisuke said, furrowing his brow, "We have to continue until Byakuya gets here."

"But you said he's losing reiatsu," Uryuu objected, "Are you sure he can..."

"I'm not that sure of anything right now," Kisuke said honestly, "We're in uncharted territory."

He stiffened as a pained look overtook Ryuuken's face and several monitors began to complain loudly.

"What is that? What's happening?" Uryuu cried, "Dad!"

"He's transitioning," Kisuke explained as he hurriedly checked the monitors, then leaned over Ryuuken, focusing on the area above the spirit chamber and touching experimentally with gentle fingertips, "The chamber has been slowly destabilizing the spirit particles over it, causing them to lose cohesion."

"But if a soul's cells lose cohesion, won't the soul fade?" Uryuu asked worriedly.

"If this included all of the cells, yes," Kisuke confirmed, "but the chamber specifically targets just the ones over it, opening the way for the baby's reiatsu to pass through. I don't know for sure yet, but I think after the baby's born, the chamber will close and it will make the body compensate somehow, either through rearranging the remaining cells or causing new ones to form over the chamber."

Several more monitors started to howl and Ryuuken made a low sound of distress. He tightened his hand on Uryuu's again and struggled to keep his eyes open as Uryuu stared down at him.

"Uryuu," he whispered.

"I'm here," his son assured him.

"I know. There's something I need to say to you."

Uryuu shook his head firmly.

"Whatever it is, it can wait," he insisted, "I'm not going anywhere."

"But I might be," Ryuuken protested softly, gripping Uryuu's hand so tightly it hurt.

"Stop it. You're going to be fine," Uryuu chided him, his heart pounding at the urgency he saw in Kisuke's movements out of the corner of his eye and the truth reflected on Isshin's face and his father's.

"Th-there is a clarity of thinking that...happens when a soul is close to dying."

"I said stop it!" Uryuu snapped, "I don't want to hear this!"

"But you need to."

"No, I don't. Just shut up, okay. You're making this worse on your body!"

"You can finally forgive yourself for your shortcomings, but you also know where you've done something unforgivable. And you know that, as long as there is breath in your body, you have a chance to make things right."

"Dad!" Uryuu pleaded, tears leaking onto his face, "Please stop!"

An agonized sound escaped him as his father's voice sounded again.

"I'm sorry, Uryuu," Ryuuken managed weakly, "I never should have let that distance open up between us. It was a horrible mistake I made, trying to do the right thing, trying to protect you. But it was wrong, and it made a bad situation much worse. I won't ask your forgiveness, I just needed to tell you."

"Dad..." Uryuu whispered brokenly.

"Enough talking now, folks," Kisuke said suddenly, "It's time.

"Hanging in there?" Isshin asked, forcing a smile as he gently washed Ryuuken's face again, "Don't pass out now, okay? The baby's coming."

Ryuuken swallowed hard and managed a shaky nod.

All eyes watched as Ryuuken's rounded belly glowed brightly from within, and a ball of iridescent reiatsu began to very slowly emerge. Kisuke smiled and nodded for Isshin to assist, and the two captured the reiatsu in their hands. A small echoing squawk sounded from within the cluster, and very gradually, it began to resolve into a little human body with large brown eyes and surprisingly thick, dark hair.

"Congratulations, you have a daughter," Kisuke announced, letting the baby's little body settle in Isshin's arms.

He held the baby close to Ryuuken's face and his, smiling helplessly.

"She looks more like me, poor thing," Isshin joked.

Ryuuken tried to answer, but his body quivered and he started to pant uncomfortably again.

"What is it?" Isshin asked worriedly, holding the baby girl against his shoulder, "Kisuke, what's happening?"

"What's happening is that we're not done," Kisuke said, glaring in surprise as the glow returned to the area around Ryuuken's belly, "There was a second reiatsu that's emerging now."

"Did you hear that?" Isshin said breathlessly, "Twins...like with Karin and Yuzu!"

"No wonder he had an early delivery," Kisuke commented, "And that also explains the added stress on his body."

He bent over Ryuuken and captured the second reiatsu as it emerged, then turned and set it gently in Uryuu's arms.

"Why are you giving it to me?" Uryuu asked, frowning and starting to hand the baby to his father.

Uryuu made a sound of dismay as Ryuuken loosed and shuddering breath and his eyes slid closed.

"Damn it!" Kisuke swore, laying his hands on the quincy and taking a swift assessment.

"What's happening?" Uryuu whispered, barely noticing as the reiatsu he was holding resolved into the shape of a very small, pale boy with blue eyes and pure white hair.

A moment later, he realized that the baby in his arms hadn't made a sound.

"Kisuke!" he exclaimed.

The shopkeeper's eyes widened.

"Masao!" he shouted urgently.

The door opened and the ones in the room froze for a moment as Byakuya entered the room alongside Bazz-B and a very concerned looking Haschwalth.

"What's he doing here!" Uryuu shouted, "Byakuya...!"

"He's here to help," Byakuya assured them, "Bazz-B suspected that we needed someone who had more knowledge of the means used to impregnate Ishida Ryuuken."

"We will need to stabilize them both and take them to Silbern."

"No!" Uryuu objected, coming to his feet, "Leave us alone! He wouldn't want you to touch him!"

"Uryuu, do you want your father and baby brother to live?" Haschwalth asked calmly, "If you do, then you will turn them over to my care immediately and let me take them to the palace. We have everything they need there, people who know how to help him, and the proper equipment to save their lives."

"You'll save him all right," Uryuu said accusingly, "and then you'll try to use him to force me to go back with you."

"I will only keep him there until he is well. Uryuu, he and the baby are comatose and they will die if we do not act quickly. I will take them to Silbern to see to their healing, and you are welcome to come and go as you wish...you, Isshin, and Byakuya."

"You're planning something," Uryuu snapped, laying a hand on his swollen belly, "I know you are!"

"Steps have been taken to ensure we will be able to return," Byakuya said calmly, extending a hand and touching the inside of his wrist.

The others watched as a silver band materialized where his fingers had made contact.

"Central 46 anticipated that the quincies might try to abduct us, and so before coming here, I allowed them to place this on me. It will allow them to recall me to Soul Society at their will if I am captured. And you know that, as long as you are with child, I have to be there to give you the infusions your body needs. The quincies know this too. If I am taken back, they have no choice, but to allow you to return. It's all right. Let them help us."

Uryuu rose and crossed the room, carrying his baby brother to Haschwalth and setting the infant gently in his arms.

"Fine. I want you to help us, but then you let us all go. I don't trust you."

"You have little reason to trust me. It's fine, but we really do need to go now."

Uryuu gave a short nod, sagging against Byakuya as his husband's arm wrapped around him.

"I'm sorry it took me so long to get here," Byakuya apologized, kissing Uryuu on the cheek.

"The important thing is that you're here," Uryuu answered wearily, "I feel like it'll be okay now."

Across the room, Isshin set the baby girl in Masao's arms, then waited as Kisuke unhooked the monitors connected to Ryuuken's limp form.

"Take him and go on," Kisuke urged him, "I'll stay here and take care of your daughter."

"Thanks," Isshin answered gratefully, lifting Ryuuken and moving to join the others.

"Bazz-B," Haschwalth said quietly.

The quincy officer nodded and bowed his head slightly, opening up the black gateway. Haschwalth led the group, carrying the baby boy and flanked by Isshin, who carried Ryuuken on one side, and Byakuya, who held the exhausted Uryuu against him. Bazz-B glanced back at Kisuke.

"Sorry," he apologized, "I tried to convince Haschwalth to let you come to, so that you could learn more about the chamber and the birthing process, but he thinks it would give you shinigamis too much advantage."

"I figured," Kisuke said dryly, "Go. Just take care of them. We can do our politicking later."

His fist clenched and he let out a frustrated breath as the darkness wrapped around the group and they disappeared from the room.