I have a feeling this is going to be an extremely long story… Ishida starts training waves Quincy flag

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Today worked out perfectly. Through pin-point timing and careful planning, he had managed to avoid his friends, especially Kurosaki. He walked up the road towards the white hospital building, as a sense of uneasiness started setting in. Today would mark the start of his training, but what did Ryuuken have in store for him?

As like before, Ryuuken took him down to the underground training room. Though he wasn't overly fond of that place, it was, admittedly a good place to train. In addition, there, he would not be detected, which was exactly what he needed.

When they got to the centre of the cavernous training room, his father suddenly swung around, and shot an arrow towards him. He dodged it, barely, and watched it streak past his ear; burning off a few strands of hair. The arrow hit the ground, exploding with such force that it sent shards of rubble streaking in every direction.

"What do you think you're d-" he started, but was interrupted by Ryuuken.

"Shoot your Kojaku arrow."

"What?" he asked, but under his father's cold expression, he formed his bow uncertainly and pulled back the bowstring; preparing to fire.

Aiming at nothing in particular, he released the arrow. It flew towards a pillar, and upon impact, made a small explosion, but left only a small hole in the concrete. Ryuuken didn't say anything, nor did he need to, as the expression on his face plainly read: "Pathetic."

"Your first objective: Increase the speed and power of your arrows."

With that, Ryuuken turned and flash stepped away. At first, Ishida was shocked and indignant. How was he supposed to accomplish the task if Ryuuken didn't leave any instructions?! But he knew getting angry wouldn't get the job done. He took a deep breath to calm himself down, drew another arrow and sent it to a nearby pillar to gauge his current ability. The arrow exploded against the concrete once more, but left a hole no bigger than the last one.

"Damn it!"

Frustration and anger setting in, he drew another arrow. He pulled it back with more force than he should, and was rewarded by the skin on his wrist, which split open in a clean line. The bow shattered in a shower of spirit particles as he clutched at his arm, wincing. Pulling out a smooth white handkerchief, he tore it into piece, wrapped them around the wound and tied it into place to serve as a temporary bandage. Looking at the slowly reddening cloth bond around his wrist he remembered his first encounter with Kurosaki, their first match. He shook his head, trying to clear out his thoughts. Now wasn't the time for reminiscing

Taking a few more steadying breathes, he stretched his hand in front of him, formed his pentacle shaped bow and prepared to fire again. Not wanting to give Ryuuken the satisfaction of knowing that he had failed, he was determined to succeed.

The enclosed room gave no sign of how much time had passed, but when exhaustion finally overcame him, and he slowly sank to his knees, the room was already riddled with holes, each deeper and wider than the last.

As he rested, he racked his brains for ways to further improve himself. He closed his eye and saw his past battles playing behind his eyelids like an old movie. Each battle could hold some clue to how he could get stronger; he just had to look for it.

From the beginning, he found that drawing the bowstring to maximum could increase the arrow's speed, but this was both risky and unreliable as he ran the risk of overshooting his limits. For now, all he can do is draw it slightly further than usual to slowly stretch his limits. Strength was also a problem. Before, he could draw in spirit particles quite effortlessly, but now, drawing in a similar amount too more time and effort than he should expend. How was he going to counter that problem?

Suddenly, he had a stroke of inspiration. He got to his feet, formed his bow, and slowly pulled back the bowstring…

XXX

Cliffhanger " shot I'm trying to siphon things off the anime and manga so that it's slightly more canon. I seriously think that I'm posting faster than I'm writing now… is lazy