Long time no see, sorry about that. I burned out really hard on this story and started to hate it, so I just.. stopped working on it. I make no promises on when this will continue to update, but I will keep picking away at it.
Lessons with Ichigo continued on.
As Kisuke had expected, Ichigo's enthusiasm waned within the first several days. Unlike what he'd expected — mostly from his own half-remembered days as a young soul watching other young souls — Ichigo didn't give up; instead, determination took the place of enthusiasm and drove Ichigo on past the point his enthusiasm died.
Kisuke kept the lessons short and to the point, focused on meditation and getting Ichigo to recognize his own reiryoku. It was the absolute basics but, given how powerful Ichigo was even with the seal in place, skipping steps when they had time was unthinkable.
Ichigo even did the exercises with minimal complaint, even the ones Kisuke asked him to do at other times. All in all, a truly exemplary student and one Kisuke was becoming proud of with every tiny step forward Ichigo took.
His lessons with Uryuu, on the other hand, were currently less about Uryuu learning anything and more about Kisuke learning what Uryuu could do. He'd seen Quincy in action a few times, but he'd never studied them or their skills; had, in fact, seen no need to do so. He knew the basics of how their skills worked and various ways to kill a Quincy, but… nothing concrete. Nothing that could help him teach a Quincy.
(After all, Uryuu already knew how vulnerable he was to Hollows and Shinigami alike. He didn't need that knowledge.)
(What he needed was how to become stronger.)
It was a joy to work with such a young mind though; Uryuu had enough of the basics to know many of the hows, but not enough for his mindset to become rigid and unbending. He was curious about Kisuke's insights and ever willing to experiment at the slightest hint of an idea, no matter how questionable or dangerous.
Kisuke did his best to keep their experiments safe. Uryuu looked up to him too much, was too taken by the idea of having a teacher again, to ever say no.
(Being so trusted, so beloved, was disconcerting.)
(But he swore he'd never take advantage without good cause, and 'for the sake of curiosity' was not a good cause.)
(He knew how to be patient.)
But even with all the fascinating things he was learning from Uryuu, quiet evenings with the boy were quickly becoming his favorite. It was… nice. Calm. Domestic in a way Kisuke never thought he'd have, much less enjoy.
(He still needed to get back at Yoruichi for laughing at him…)
(What to do, what to do…)
Well. Early evenings were for Uryuu whenever the boy wanted. Which, as the weeks went on and Uryuu became more comfortable with him, became more common.
"What are you teaching him?" Uryuu asked one evening, leaning into Kisuke's side and playing absently with reishi threads.
"Meditation. No one thought to do so before now." Kisuke answered, watching Uryuu's skillful manipulation of reishi in fascination. He'd seen it time and time again, but it still never failed to make his mind spin with the possibilities.
"Oh…" Uryuu stared at the web of reishi stretched between his fingers, then pressed his hands together and let the threads dissipate into firefly flickers of light. "Should I… teach him how to do this…?"
Kisuke considered it; there was no evidence that Ichigo took after his mother's Quincy nature but… it was also true that he'd never been taught. Specialized skills never manifested unless trained. "Give it a month or two first," he decided. "I'd rather he have a grounding in basic control of himself before we try for specialized control exercises, okay?"
Uryuu looked up at Kisuke thoughtfully. "And… if he can't learn this? Will you still teach him?"
"Of course I will," Kisuke said firmly. "I know plenty of control exercises myself. Something I know should work for him, and I can always create something custom for him if nothing works out."
Uryuu's look turned assessing, before a faint smile stole across his face and he looked away. "Thank you," he murmured as he brought his hands up one more and recreated the loop of reishi around his fingers.
"All four of you are under my protection," Kisuke reminded Uryuu as he reached out and ruffled the boy's hair, smirking at the noise of protest that sparked. "I'll not abandon any of you, no matter how easy or difficult teaching any of you might be."
Uryuu's concentration broke and he reached up to bat at Kisuke's hand. "Why the hair," he whined, giving Kisuke an adorable puppy-scowl. "You always mess with my hair."
Kisuke laughed and pulled Uryuu into a hug. "Because you're adorable and it's fun!"
"Mean," Uryuu huffed as he returned Kisuke's hug. "I'm not adorable."
"Maa, maa, of course not, I apologize for the aspersion on your character." Kisuke smiled fondly as Uryuu stuck his tongue out and pulled away, returning to his interrupted practice.
The reishi came easily to Uryuu's call, spinning into threads and looping around his fingers. It even moved like real thread when Uryuu began to play cat's cradle with it, sagging and pulling taut in time with his motions.
Uryuu needed something new to work on, more foundational Quincy arts to practice until he internalized them.
(It was time to see what he could steal from Ryuuken.)
Kisuke started the next day, stalking Ryuuken as the man went about his daily routine, looking for an opening he could exploit; not that it was difficult to discover one. The man practically lived at the hospital, and a quick peek at the roster that the doctors relied upon proved that the man would be out of the house for almost the entire day.
(What sort of shifts did doctors have anyway?)
(Were all doctors like that, or just Ryuuken…?)
(Well… he supposed it didn't matter.)
He took his time combing through Ryuuken's exasperatingly large mansion, probing for hidden rooms and flipping through every book he came across, hunting for the knowledge that he knew had to be somewhere.
(Surely it had been written down at some point, right?)
(No one left such important information to be passed down verbally anymore, did they?)
The first day's search turned up nothing, nor did the second day's search, nor the third or fourth or fifth…
In fact, no matter how many rooms he checked and how many hidden rooms he found, nothing he discovered was related to the Quincy except tangentially: a few lineage charts that he copied, some meaningless babble about their creed, a handful of differently shaped Quincy pendents…
Nothing that was useful. Nothing he could use.
It was Uryuu who finally pointed him in the right direction, when Kisuke gave in after a week and told the boy that he was trying to find proper teaching materials for him. Uryuu had immediately asked why Kisuke thought Ryuuken would keep anything important in the mansion that stood empty more often than not, instead of keeping it close to him in the hospital.
(He… didn't like the fact that a child had to point out the obvious to him.)
(He'd gone soft in the intervening decades.)
(He needed to fix that…)
Of course, searching the hospital was more difficult than searching the mansion; in order to avoid detection, he had to ditch his gigai in favor of stealth as a spirit. Which also meant keeping a firm grasp on his reiatsu and a sharp eye on where Ryuuken was at all times.
(He wasn't afraid of the Gotei Thirteen finding him after all these decades, not when they'd had so many opportunities before now.)
(But if Ryuuken knew he was poking around…)
(Well, he didn't want to test fate.)
The hospital was larger than the mansion, filled with more nooks and crannies than he knew what to do with, and every single one had to be investigated for anomalies. After all his experience searching through the mansion, spotting the faded traces of defenses and the odd curl of half-hidden reiatsu was… easier.
(Not that it helped.)
(Damn Ryuuken and his repudiation of everything Quincy!)
Kisuke started at the top of the hospital and slowly worked his way down, sometimes spending an entire day searching a single floor; he needed to be thorough, in order to make sure he didn't miss anything, but the slow pace grated when all he wanted to do was find Uryuu's rightful heritage.
Floor after floor turned up empty, nothing but dead ends and faded wards, and Kisuke… Kisuke began to worry.
(What if Ryuuken had stashed everything in a pocket dimension and then allowed the spell the fall?)
(Or what if Ryuuken had decided to store everything somewhere else?)
(If it wasn't in the mansion or the hospital… where could it be?)
He did his best to shove his worries aside in order to focus on his slow, methodical search; there was no use worrying until he'd exhausted every avenue he had. Until he knew the Quincy materials weren't in the hospital, he needed to focus on what was in front of him. He knew that. He did.
It just… grated to return to the shoten day after day with nothing to show for his efforts.
(Thankfully, Uryuu was patient.)
(Thankfully, the boy had plenty of skills to refine.)
(Thankfully, thankfully, thankfully…)
It wasn't until he reached the sub-basements that he finally sensed something: an almost imperceptible hum against his skin. It was so faint that he'd have overlooked it if he hadn't just spent weeks training his senses on almost identical traces.
It was a good sign, a promising sign.
Something was down here. Something active, and powerful, and hidden.
(Just what he was looking for.)
Of course, it wasn't that easy. Knowing it existed and finding it were two entirely different things, and he'd already found several traps that Ryuuken had scattered about to hinder any searchers. It took him another two days to work his way through the security around the sub-basement, and a third just to untangle the complicated lock around the nondescript door, but—
He'd done it.
He'd done it.
The door swung open on silent hinges, revealing a small, cramped room, packed floor to ceiling with crates and boxes and more gear than he'd ever seen in one place; there were custom armors on stands, racks of staves and unstrung bows, cloth uniforms tossed atop any flat surface…
And boxes. Endless boxes, stacked one atop the next, leaving barely any space for Kisuke to walk.
(The whole room smelled like regret and despair.)
Kisuke pried open a crate, grimacing first at the dust that swirled into the air as he shifted the lid and then grimacing deeper at the sight of what was inside the crate: pieces of armor, child-sized and never put together.
Far more than Uryuu would ever have needed.
He closed it.
Moved on.
Another crate: more armor pieces, adult-sized this time.
And another, filled with arrows, the fletching ragged and moth-eaten.
A small box of wrist guards, all different sizes.
A tackle-box filled with coiled bowstrings, neatly organized.
And on and on, box after box of things, dusty and faded and moth-eaten; the detritus of a lost and dying people.
It made Kisuke's fingers itch with the desire to dig deeper, to investigate everything locked away in a sub-basement, behind enough wards and traps to keep anyone untrained far, far away, but… he couldn't. He didn't have time. He needed books, needed information, because without that everything else in the room was nothing more than dead-weight at best and deadly at worst.
(He'd come back later.)
He finally found the books after another hour or two of digging, tucked away behind everything else, crammed into heavy boxes and stacked nearly to the ceiling itself. It was difficult to wrestle the first box down, and he grimaced at the sight of clear packing tape sealing it closed; if Ryuuken ever checked on this room—
Well, he'd probably know anyway, Kisuke mused wryly, glancing back at the faint footprints he'd left in the dusty floor.
Mind made up, he moved back to a previous box and pulled an arrow free; the tip wasn't more than vaguely pointed, being made for target practice, but it would do. He sliced the tape, opened the box, pulled out the first book he could reach and opened it—
Kisuke scowled at the text in his hands and snapped it closed, annoyed by the pedantic, overly dry text he'd seen. He suspected it was a book on advanced theory, but… the writing style did not give him confidence in the sort of books that the Quincy preferred.
He set it aside and began to dig through the rest, choosing to keep only one book from the entire box, and then swiftly repacked it and pulled down the next box in line, only to repeat the whole process. Again and again, box after box, growing more and more despairing with every book he flipped through.
(Quincy sure did like their advanced, pedantic writing…)
(How in the world were children expected to learn anything?!)
(Not even the Shinigami Academy had such stuffy, dry texts, and most Shinigami hopefuls were practically adults!)
By the time he'd worked his way through every box of books he could find, he had a grand total of five books with potential, none of which he would dare give to Uryuu for the boy to puzzle out on his own.
Still, it was a start.
(Time to get reading.)