Kisuke never meant to cause Uryuu so much distress. He'd simply wanted to read up, to prepare himself properly for when they went over it together, but as the days went on and he dug deeper, he found himself bouncing from book to book in order to cross-reference different bits of information.
His notes had expanded to fill one of his research notebooks with a mish-mash of speculation, diagrams, and the tiny gems of useful information he found scattered throughout the dry, dense books, and he'd wanted to put some measure of order to it before he went over it with Uryuu, but, well…
Time was certainly a fickle beast.
Still, after all the digging he'd done, it was significantly easier to understand the terminology Uryuu was tossing around, and with his newfound grounding in Quincy theory, finding Uryuu's mistakes and correcting them was quicker, easier. And with a teacher who understood what he was doing, Uryuu was beginning to advance in leaps and bounds, tackling skill after skill and training relentless until he had them down.
(It was almost nostalgic to watch Uryuu's growth, to feel his determination and drive echoed in unwavering reiatsu.)
(Uryuu would have grown terrifying even without Kisuke's intervention, but like this he would become a legend.)
Even Ichigo was beginning to advance, his reiatsu beginning to tame to his will as he practiced his control exercises. Kisuke was still uncomfortable with the idea of teaching him anything beyond control — at this point, it was less to do with what Shiba Isshin would think and more to do with the damage Ichigo could accidentally cause — but Ichigo didn't seem to mind. The boy just set his jaw and dedicated himself to mastering what he did know.
("Your control is as wild as your hair," Uryuu told Ichigo with a huff, squinting at the tangled reishi strings that Ichigo had produced. He reached out and plucked a strand like a guitar string, then pursed his lips and tugged on it, bright, cheerful laughter bursting forth as Ichigo yelped and tumbled forward. "You could just release it when I do that!"
"But it won't go away!" Ichigo said with a pout, not bothering to get up from where he'd fallen. "Help?"
Uryuu made a thoughtful noise and squinted at the bright lines. "I suppose I can rescue you. Again. For like the hundredth time today," he said haughtily as he reached out and began to pick the tangle apart, using his Quincy abilities to dissolve bits as he went. "Though I have to ask, are you secretly a princess?"
Ichigo's squawk of protest had Kisuke biting back laughter and turning away: the two boys could handle Ichigo's mistake just fine on their own.)
Spring faded into summer, and Kisuke made sure to have a small birthday party for Yuzu and Karin, inviting their close friends from school and getting a cake and some little gifts for each of them. Yuzu cheered and clung to him in a tight hug, while Karin pretended she was doing a favor when she slipped close for a hug of her own.
(She clung just as tight as her sister, not that Kisuke would ever tell her.)
Faced with strange kids that he didn't know, Uryuu retreated to Kisuke's side and stayed there, watching the group with confusion. Uryuu's eventual retreat from the common room entirely was almost expected — nearly a dozen children half his age, of which he only knew two, was more than Uryuu had ever had to tolerate before — but Kisuke still kept a mental watch on Uryuu just to be sure. He even made sure to reach out every so often to brush his reiatsu softly against Uryuu's senses, just to make sure the boy knew he wasn't being ignored.
Overall, the party was a success and the twins went home more cheerful and excited than he'd ever seen them be.
("Does everyone have parties like that?" Uryuu asked when Kisuke came to check on him before bed that evening.
Kisuke knelt beside Uryuu's futon and said, "If they want to. Yuzu and Karin invited their friends and picked what they wanted to do. If they'd each wanted something different, I'd have let them have two parties."
Uryuu's nose wrinkled as he frowned, confused and thoughtful at once. "So… it was their choice?"
"Yes," Kisuke confirmed.
"Oh," Uryuu said thoughtfully, like it was a revelation, like he'd never considered it like that before. His right hand lifted from the blankets, palm turning towards Kisuke in the small gesture Uryuu had taken to using when he wanted a hug.
Kisuke leaned in and hugged Uryuu, smiling in fond amusement as the boy wriggled beneath his haori.
Still, the conversation left him with a great deal to consider; Uryuu hadn't any requests the previous year, and Kisuke had thought it simply a result of everything that had occurred, but perhaps… perhaps Uryuu had expected that Kisuke would make the choice for him, without any input on his part.
Perhaps Uryuu had decided that the choice to not have a party was Kisuke's decision, instead of Kisuke being unsure if the boy would even want one and thus waiting for Uryuu to mention it.
He would need to tread carefully this winter.)
Things finally settled back into a routine after the party: training and homework and time spent holed up with Uryuu, going over the gems of knowledge that Kisuke had gleaned from the texts.
It had been pretty obvious from the moment Kisuke handed Uryuu the least-dense book he'd found that Uryuu had no idea what to do with it. Uryuu had admitted — awkwardly and without looking up at Kisuke even once — that his grandfather had never taught him from books, but rather just imparted verbal lessons.
(Really, it was probably for the best.)
(Either all the 'good' training manuals had been lost over time, or the Quincy had never created training manuals meant for beginners.)
Still, it meant that they spent most Sunday mornings doing nothing but going over the theory of different Quincy skills, without doing much practice. It was hard — incredibly hard — to simplify his language so a pre-teen human could follow him, but he was getting better at it. Mostly. With effort.
(It was a good thing Uryuu was so quick to learn, honestly.)
Once Kisuke started to really get the hang of teaching Uryuu, their progress advanced at a pace that Kisuke was certain most people would be taken aback by. Uryuu was a quick learner, and while Kisuke would not say the boy mastered things quickly — it took more than a bare week to truly master something, even for a genius like Kisuke — it was true that he internalized skills and abilities at an uncommon rate.
Mastery would come in time, once the boy had all the basic skills that Kisuke could find.
(Besides, better a broad skill-base than a tiny pool of 'perfect' abilities, in Kisuke's opinion: that way, Uryuu was a generalist enough to survive whatever came his way.)
Life went on like that until it was suddenly two months later and Ichigo's birthday was just around the corner. This one was more laid back than Yuzu and Karin's party: Ichigo only wanted his friend Tatsuki and Uryuu around for it, so it wasn't much different from a normal day at the shoten.
Minus the gifts and cake, of course.
(When the time for gifts arrived, Uryuu watched, restless and uncertain, and Ichigo unwrapped the boy's gift and held up the cream poet's shirt.
"You made this?" Ichigo asked as he examined the slightly uneven seam down the side.
Uryuu nodded jerkily. "W-well, you're always reading those ridiculous plays, so…"
Ichigo huffed and wrinkled his nose, even as he folded the shirt with care and set it with his other gifts. "They're not ridiculous," he complained good-naturedly. "But thanks. I like it."
Uryuu crossed his arms over his chest and fixed Ichigo with a steady look as he said, "They're just as ridiculous as you, princess."
Kisuke laughed at Ichigo's mock-offended expression paired with the mischievous gleam in his eyes, and was unsurprised when Ichigo swept his arms out and launched straight into a recitation of the current play he was reading.
Uryuu groaned and slumped forward over the table, but Kisuke knew him well enough to read the relief and happiness in him despite his dramatics.
Kisuke tucked the memory away in his mind, more content than he'd been in a long, long time.)
Not all things were good, however.
That evening, Isshin arrived at the shoten after the children had all gone to bed. He came and he snarled, demanding that Kisuke cease his schemes, cease lying that he cared for the children, cease pretending to be what he wasn't.
(Kisuke knew what Isshin believed him to be: ruthless and cold, an assassin to the core, a monster who would unhesitatingly use children in his schemes.)
(Isshin had the right of it, if Kisuke was being honest.)
(But something about these children, about Ichigo and Uryuu mostly, made him want to be better. To be different.)
(It didn't change who he was, who he'd been trained to be, but for these children he'd do his best.)
So Kisuke simply smiled his best deadly-polite smile and reminded Isshin that children were strange beings and that they likely still needed time. He asked after Isshin's plans for Ichigo's birthday, for the twins' birthday, and received only silence in response.
Isshin slunk back home after that.
Time moved on. Training, homework, lessons. Routine. Domestic. All things Kisuke never expected his life to contain.
(Sometimes he paused in the doorway to the common room and just watched, unable to believe that these four tiny humans had turned to him, trusted him, cared about him—)
(It was a strange, fragile feeling in his chest, one that felt like it would crumble at the slightest nudged, but instead…)
(Instead, every day that passed only made it grow.)
Tatsuki became a more common sight around the shoten after Ichigo's party, though she rarely stayed as late as Ichigo and his sisters did; she had her own family after all, and that family loved her and supported her and wanted her to do well, and in return she actively wanted to spend time with them.
(Kisuke was relieved that he didn't have a fifth child to vaguely parent.)
However, the more time she spent with them, the more obvious it was to Kisuke that years of friendship with Ichigo had strengthened her soul to a point near activation. Ichigo was making great strides in controlling his reiatsu, but those near him still bore the brunt of his presence day after day. His tiny, growing body couldn't actually contain all his power, so it continued to spill forth like a river, though it was no longer a river in flood at least.
Ichigo would get there in time, once he'd stopped growing and started to settle into himself as an adult, but that was a long way off.
And until that moment arrived… well. Kisuke was going to need to keep an eye on the people who interacted with Ichigo the most, especially the boy's classmates.
It wouldn't do for another tragedy to happen around the boy.
(Kisuke wondered how long it would be before Tatsuki woke.)
(If they were lucky, perhaps she never would. Perhaps she would remain safe and at peace, unaware of the strength lingering in her soul and giving her the ability to survive so close to Ichigo.)
(Kisuke doubted it.)
(Things never went quite so smoothly in his experience.)
(But that was a worry for another day.)
(For now… for now they all had time.)