Chapter 2

The Loss

It has been a two months since I awakened to Soken and Uryu Ishida. They accepted me as one of the family, as Uryu's new older brother. Ryuken doesn't care much for being a Quincy, even with me being alive, I still don't understand why, he says it's because it doesn't put food on the table and that it wasn't a real job, but that doesn't mean you can't take pride in being one. Especially now after just losing two more Quincy. Although, come to think of it that just may be the problem. We lost Masaki who even though she married a Soul Reaper, was still a Quincy… and Uryu's mother, Kanae, also died the same day. I still don't know what to do about their deaths. It's hard to think this was a mere coincidence. I sensed there was more to their deaths than simple natural causes as the reports said.

I can't allow any more of us to wind up this way. I have to train harder. I went to where Uryu and I have been training for the last few months; it was in the woods and the specific spot we trained in was a rocky creek near a waterfall that fed into it. I could tell my powers were growing and quickly. Though Uryu wasn't with me, I can tell he's getting better, he could hold his kojaku bow longer and his accuracy was much improved as well. I was working to improve my hirenyaku, and the power of my reishi arrows, and I mastered one of my father's old power's, the ability to form a reishi sword. Though Quincys are known only to use bows, father liked the sword better, I'm not sure why but he did. When I was training with Soken and Uryu we trained for roughly five hours a day, sometimes less, sometimes more, but it was well worth it. From the time I woke up until now, the difference in my ability was like night and day.

Eventually I decided I was finished, I wanted to go home and be with my new family. It was a sad time, and I felt they needed me. Times were very gloomy for all of us.

Nine days after Masaki and Kanae's deaths, I went home from training on my own, everyone was very quiet. It was five days since the wake, and two since the funeral, it was still on everyone's mind. But Soken decided that it was best we start training again. I think it was best that we start up our schedule as well; it could help take our mind off the sadness, though it would be hard, it was a start.

We went to our usual spot and begun our normal training routine. I began firing my raishi arrows from Genrei Kojaku into the waterfall. I love the feeling I get from firing my bow, it fills me with pride, knowing who I am, what I am. A Quincy.

Uryu stood next to me, he was hurt deeply, his face showed deep emotional pain from the loss of his mother.

As the training continued his pain began to lessen, it was still there, the training helped to take his mind off of the loss of his mother. In a few minutes I gradually increased how many arrows per second I fired, I went from 200, to 300, to 400, arrows per second. Then I fired one powerful arrow with my full power and shot it against a boulder. There was a large explosion of blue light that easily shot up hundreds of feet in the sky, if not thousands of feet.

Everyone was stunned at the sight. Wide eyed and jaw dropped. I dropped to my knees though; it's been a long time since I last shot an arrow with my full power. Soken and Uryu rushed to my aid and assisted me up; Uryu said "That was amazing! Did that arrow have the full force of your spiritual power Akihiro?!" Uryu's sadness was blown away at the sight of the explosion. Seeing him happy like this makes me feel happy with him.

Soken said "So that is what your full power looks like in one arrow? I never thought you would attempt to train showing us your full power." Indeed, I never thought to try it until now in order to get stronger, and protect the last Quincy's.

"Yes, that was all my spiritual power, along with my stamina, put into one arrow. That was tiring; I haven't done that in a long time." They looked at me in puzzlement. They seem surprised that I shot an arrow with all my power behind it.

Uryu asked me "When did you last try to fire an arrow with all your spiritual power?" I thought back to before I was put in my sleep state. I use to do it after my birthday, to see how much my power grew as I got older. It gradually got more and more powerful, which had to be expected from someone like me, the son of Yhwach.

"Let me think back…hmmm…when I turned 15 if I recall, but I have gotten better since then. I still have room to become stronger and protect everyone!" I was proud of being a Quincy, and now with only us left, I needed to protect us now more than ever.