Title: A Father's Pride
Timeline
: the day after chapter 76 of Entropy
A/N
: Just tying up a loose end I never really addressed in Entropy. Why would Ryuuken be carrying that pendant?
Disclaimer
: I don't own Bleach.


When I left home to live on my own, I never wanted to go back. I didn't think I'd ever be back again. I certainly didn't think I'd be here twice in the span of two days. But he is, and Ryuuken has no intention of staying any longer than he absolutely has to.

Ryuuken frowns as he opens the door to his father's now-vacant bedroom. The window has been left open, a little gust of wind making the threadbare quilt rustle. Hot, bright sunlight makes the dull red and yellow checkered patterns seem somehow brighter, newer, almost as they did thirty years ago, when they were new. Of course, a moment later, Ryuuken is given clarity and the sheets are old and moth-eaten again. Still, for just a second, the whole room looked different.

Now where would he have put it?

He stares around for a moment, brow furrowing in frustration, wondering why he's even bothering to look for it, before it occurs to Ryuuken to look through what would have been Soken's nightstand when he was still alive. Ryuuken opens the top drawer, and sure enough, sitting on top of a couple of old, dusty books, is what he was looking for.

The metal is cool in his hands as Ryuuken lifts the pentacle pendant out of the drawer, the chain sliding over his fingers. He looks it over with narrowed eyes.

Soken lifts something out of a drawer in his nightstand. "Pay close attention," he says to his son, serious, almost stern. "I want you to remember what I tell you today."

Nine years old, a bit tired—it's been a long day—and frankly already a little bit scornful of anything his father considers important, Ryuuken stares at him, outwardly looking a little bored. All the same, Soken adopts the expression he wears now so rarely that Ryuuken can't help but perk up a little inside.

From the drawer, Soken pulls an oddly shaped pendant, with five prongs instead of a four-pronged cross, larger than what Ryuuken uses to help channel his energy when he trains with his bow. He bends down on one knee, and puts the pendant in Ryuuken's hands. The pendant is heavy, almost leaden; Ryuuken frowns down at it.

"When I die," Soken says, very quietly, "this will be yours. You must take it, and keep it. And when you die, it will then be given to your eldest child."

Ryuuken supposes he should consider himself glad that Soken never wore this pendant on his person or that, if he did, he only did so rarely. He wouldn't have liked to have to take it off of the old man's corpse; he's no grave robber.

Soken told him more about the pentacle pendant later. It once served the purpose of being the property of the current head of the clan, passed down from the clan head to their eldest surviving child. It was never used for combat, and, oddly for any Quincy (one of the few things most Quincy had in common was an emphasis on utility over decoration), was merely ornamental. These days, it's come to symbolize something else, something Ryuuken has tried to extinguish for so long.

I've never understood how he could be so confident that we were the last; I'll never forget his face when he found out about Sayuri and her family. I mean, they were still alive—at the time, anyway. There could be Quincy in hiding anywhere in the world, and he wouldn't know, because they wouldn't know about us to contact us. How could he be so sure?

In the end though, I suppose that he was probably right. Maybe not, but probably.

Ryuuken took the notes that he did from this house yesterday out of curiosity and a sense of foreboding. Though there is nothing to bolster this feeling, and he gets the nasty impression that he's starting, just a little bit, to behave like his father, Ryuuken does feel like some day, he'll need to know the techniques Soken never taught him, even if he doesn't have any inclination of ever living as an active Quincy again.

The pendant, on the other hand, has no practical use. It isn't used to channel spiritual energy (not that Ryuuken needs a pendant for that anymore), and is nothing more than an ornament. The only value that could possibly be attached to it are the monetary and the sentimental; Ryuuken has no need of the former from this thing and no want of the latter. Why should he even think about taking it?

Why take it? he wonders pensively. Why not let it sit here and gather dust, forgotten for the rest of time? It would stay until the house crashed around it, or until looters broke into the house and sold it for cash or had it melted down. The last real relic of the old days before the war, a symbol of destructive pride, my father's pride… It should simply be forgotten. I certainly have no intention of ever giving it to Uryuu. Why should I take it?

Maybe some questions are simply better left unaddressed, and the motivations for the choices made unexamined. It certainly leads to less headaches than what there would be with close examination. And maybe, sometimes, it's better just to humor the dead, even if the living are the only ones that matter.

I can only imagine the old man's face if he was to learn I did this.

Ryuuken tucks the pendant in his pocket, and takes his leave of the house, intending never to return. For a moment, he considers closing the window, but decides it might be better just to leave things as they were.