A/N: Personally, I don't think Uryuu's mother ever had all that much to do with souls beyond her relationship with Ryuuken. The odds of her being a Quincy, which I have read about in some stories, just seems abysmally low unless you want to add the survival of the Quincy race in other regions into the equation. Which I really didn't want to. This story is getting excessively complicated enough as it is without me adding a load of OCs in order to account for various stuff.
Sometimes I think it's not me coming up with the ideas and it's just writing itself... which is actually pretty creepy when you think about it. Things want to be put to purpose. It wants to be written.
Anyway, enough of my insane author thoughts...
It took a little while for him to arrange the flowers he brought properly with the others that were already there. Somehow, he could still smell the scent of cigarette smoke on the air, as if Ryuuken's presence was somehow lingering over him still.
Either that, or he's still here... which wouldn't surprise me. Reaching out with his other senses revealed nothing, although Ryuuken's reiatsu had always been difficult to detect at the best of times. Although if he was present, it did raise the question of why he was hiding himself.
"It's been a while, hasn't it?"
Uryuu paused. To talk to a slab of stone in this manner was ridiculous in some ways. He knew with utter certainty that his mother had long since moved on from the Living World since then. Had she still been there, he might have been able to perceive her, but she was not. Opening up his heart to a grave marker was completely and utterly illogical...
But... maybe... somehow she'll hear anyway.
"You don't need to worry," he continued, quietly, sitting down. "I have been working hard. I'm still at the clothing shop; nothing much changed with regards to that since last time I came, although... somehow... I seem to have ended up with a shinigami following me around." The corners of his lips turned briefly upwards in an almost-smile. "I wonder what you'd make of Kuchiki-san. Although it means I haven't seen Ichigo so much recently..."
Memories of his mother were few; after time her face had faded somewhat in his mind. Souken had commented once that he took after her once - it was probably one of the only memories he had of Ryuuken actually smiling as well. Nowadays, the concept of such a thing was ludicrous.
Things had been different then, though. And there was still just the faintest recollection of her perfume, her smile, the hair that everyone told him had once been hers, before the tumour took hold in her brain and she went beyond saving by any doctor or shinigami. His memories of the event were vague; Isshin had, in the earliest instance he could remember clearly after her death, taken him aside when Ryuuken had been unable to and attempted to explain what had happened, gently, to a five-year-old child.
Uryuu hadn't understood the meaning of the word 'cancer' back then. His parents were perfect beings, immortal, untouchable by age or sickness in the mind of a child. The concept of cells that lived too vigorously had been beyond him; the idea that there was a disease that his father could not cure was unfathomable.
In the end, she had chosen to take the proud way out, rather than permit her only son to watch her degenerate so far as to forget him.
He stood up. There was really very little else to do. She would not respond if he waited here long enough, and he had the uncomfortable feeling of being watched.
Besides, Rukia Kuchiki would probably manage to wreak some manner of havoc without him if left for too long...
The air trembled slightly against his skin, a familiar prickling sensation of the very faintest strain of reiatsu -
Shit!
He started running, before deciding to abandon all pretence at normality and making full use of Hirenkyaku to get to his apartment. Hopefully the shinigami would have given into her curiosity and followed him, since it wasn't as if she listened to him for anything else -
- but he could just sense her reiatsu there at the edge of his perception anyway -
- and there was another tremor, from another direction.
Ichigo hesitated.
There was still no connection: Uryuu's heart had either stopped, or was closed to him now.
It's better than taking the risk, he conceded, wrapping his reiatsu closely around himself and drawing it inwards so as to disguise his presence before stepping through into the Living World.
Maybe it was mere selfishness, possibly an overreaction, but hollows did not generally make friends easily. Even polite acquaintances were a rarity, due to the common propensity of eating anything that became too close. Anything that touches a hollow's heart is held sacred; regrettably, the normal action for most hollows in this regard is to ensure that whatever does so never leaves, usually by eating it.
One might possibly argue that this was not sane or rational behaviour, but then again, most people would consider anyone capable of perceiving the dead and the monsters that come in the night - above the age of about seven, of course - to have questionable sanity in the first place.
Unfortunately, Ichigo, a perfectly sane and rational person (by human standards, anyway), decided that the most obvious place to start looking for Uryuu Ishida would, of course, be at his apartment.
Rukia scowled, glaring at the notebook. It lacked the essay required on the details of the Second World War, but did feature a rather interesting cartoon involving rabbits.
Why did that idiot human have to decide to start being all mysterious?
The small Soul Phone started beeping, frantically. It was so fortunate that Urahara had managed to get her a replacement after the other one had been crushed underneath the tyres of that vehicle, although it had used up the last of her credit. The thing was invaluable, although unfortunately, since her reiatsu was still pretty much depleted, she was still reliant on the Quincy (that jerk, failing to understand the full glory of Chappy, she thought with a sniff).
There was the little triangular symbol of a garganta about to open shortly halfway across town. She got up; it was a pain that Uryuu decided to go out at this of all times -
Odd, she frowned, it almost looks like the symbol representing location changed to a triangle, too -
There was a slight grating noise from behind her.
She froze, just before the door flew open and her attention suddenly snapped to Uryuu, traces of blue reiatsu still about his feet and fear transparent on his face, before she reacted instinctively to the movement at the edge of her vision and turned around -
"Kuchiki!"
Then, nothing.
"...you're not blaming me for this one."
"..."
"I wasn't even TOUCHING her!"
"...you looked at her."
