Chapter 12: Practice makes perfect
It's been a full week since the five brothers left the hospital and a full week ever since Ichigo caused that reiatsu stealing rain that drove the soul reapers away. True to their word, both Vas and Rei explained the three hollow-like energies that were scoping the hospital out once they got home. G was concerned while Shiro was pissed that a bunch of new people wanted a piece of them. Ichigo simply listened in on what his brothers were discussing and was in a slight awe of just how organized they were despite how he usually saw them. It did get a bit of a chuckle out of him that later turned into full blown laughter from all of them.
When they left the hospital, Ryuken told them to lay low for now as he still had no idea what was going to happen as of late. Ichigo was excused from school via a doctor's note saying he was in a bad accident and had to be hospitalized for a time. When the brothers made it back home though, Ichigo wanted to know more about his and their powers and how to control it properly. To say that G was feeling ill after hearing this was an understatement as he passed out right after. Shiro was actually excited to see just what Ichigo could do. Vas was apprehensive as he thought it was too early for Ichigo to do any type of training at all. Rei was silent as he was in deep thought.
Ichigo was determined to be useful to his older brothers though. He didn't want to be weak and be saved by them like before, and he definitely didn't want to be kidnapped like that again without putting up some kind of fight. The words he said to them was what caused Rei to make his decision.
'You guys have always protected me and taught me everything I need to know, but if I can't actually use what ya'll have taught me, then what's the point of it all?'
Rei then decided to allow Ichigo to train in their basement as it was where they trained. This caused the boy to raise a brow as he had never been down in the basement before. In fact, he didn't even know they had a basement. To that, Rei just smirked and led Ichigo to a door at the back of the house that he was always told was just where heater was. Ichigo remembered being told to never go in there as he could hurt himself, so with the knowledge that this led to a secret basement was exciting to him. You can imagine his disappointment when all he saw was a standard heater in the small room. Ichigo was about to question his oldest brother, when he saw Rei point down to the floor. Ichigo looked and saw what looked like a small tarp covering something. Rei moved the tarp to reveal a trapdoor. He opened the trapdoor, and it led down into a darkened room. While Rei went down first, Ichigo was feeling a little intimidated. The darkness reminded him of his time back in that lab next to that evil clown-man. It was only when Vas placed a hand on his shoulder that Ichigo snapped out of it. He turned to see Vas and Shiro smiling and grinning, respectively, to him. Steeling his nerves, Ichigo climbed down the trapdoor and realized that it seemed to go on forever. Vas followed while telling Shiro to watch G, much to the albino's irritation.
"How far down does this go?" Ichigo said to himself as he kept climbing down the ladder.
"Pretty deep actually." Vas answered him from above. "It's one of the only ways we could think of to train without gaining anyone's attention."
"You mean those soul reapers?" Ichigo asked.
"Them and anyone else really." Vas answered as he could see the faint light at the bottom of the ladder. "The deeper we went, the harder it would be to sense our reiatsu. Even uncle Ryuken can't sense us when we train down here, and his senses are incredibly sharp for a Quincy."
Ichigo nodded as they finally reached the bottom and he saw an opened door with light coming out of the entrance. Vas led Ichigo inside and the boy was astonished by what he saw. The entire area was massive in size and domed in its structure. The walls were lined with many lights all around so that not a single square inch of this cave formation wasn't visible. The ceiling was over six stories tall, and the walls were so far apart that you could most likely fit the entire high school inside and still have space to add more. The ground was rough, but stable enough to walk on and there were many large rocks all around the place.
To Ichigo, this was one of the most phenomenal sights he had ever seen in his entire life. At least it would be had he not been kidnapped by all those psychos earlier.
"Alright Ichigo," Rei started as he was sitting on a lawn chair near the entrance. Ichigo noticed seral other chairs there but decided to leave it for now. "What I want you to do is summon your bow and fire an arrow at a few of those rocks over there." He pointed towards the large rocks in the distance that were larger than people.
Ichigo nodded and remembered what uncle Ryuken said before they left.
'I would advise caution whenever summoning the Ryu no Tamashi as we don't know just how powerful the release of it could be, but if you do need to summon it, then focus on a small portion of its power. Do not allow yourself to lose that focus and only start off small. Understand?'
Ichigo took a deep breath as he remembered the words of his uncle, closed his eyes and focused on a small portion of his bow. He focused and could feel it inside of him. The rush of power and the downpour of foreign energy from everything caught in his storm last week. He concentrated hard to only release a small part of this power, enough to destroy a rock, and felt something form in his left hand. He opened his eyes to see the same blue bow with white markings going down the shape of it. He sighed as he felt the power off of it was enough to destroy the rock and smiled to himself. When he turned towards his brothers though, he could see them breathing heavily and sitting on the ground.
"What's wrong with you guys?" Ichigo asked as he was baffled by their current states.
"Next time Ichigo," Rei started in between breaths as he was sweating. "Try to just release enough energy to destroy the rock, not enough to take out a building please."
Ichigo raised a brow. "But that's exactly what I did."
Both Vas and Rei looked at each other before looking back at Ichigo. If that was enough to bring them down and he was only envisioning enough spirit energy to destroy a rock, then how would it be if he released enough to face any of them, or even a captain?
Rei was the first to get up as he saw that Ichigo had summoned his bow and could feel the power coming from it. Maybe it was a good thing that he allowed Ichigo to train, otherwise who knows just what might happen if Ichigo lost control again. "Okay then Ichigo. Take aim at any rock, concentrate on only taking out that target, pull back and let it rip."
Ichigo nodded with a smile and turned to face the large rocks in the training area. He spotted one that looked the right size, about the size of person, and decided to take aim at it. He held up the bow and remembered just how Ryuken showed him how to draw a Quincy bow. He focused and raised his right hand to the bow. A thin line formed that was damn near invisible and Ichigo drew it back. The line moved towards him without resistance until it was fully drawn and could not move back any further. Ichigo took a breath as he envisioned an arrow just like how he was told to do by Ryuken and tried to keep it small enough to hit the rock. A white arrow made of reiatsu formed in his hand and the bow and Ichigo took aim. Since this was his first time doing this, his form was off and sloppy, but he had the right thought process to archery. The arrow was thin and flimsy looking, making both Rei and Vas think that it wouldn't travel far or even do damage to anything it did travel far enough. Both were satisfied that Ichigo was starting off small and hoped to progress him further in time, that all went out the window once Ichigo let the arrow fly.
And fly it did.
The arrow zoomed forward at speeds that neither older brother anticipated, and it struck the large rock dead center, leaving a rather large impression on it. Both Rei and Vas were astonished by what they saw and were genuinely pleased to see that Ichigo had held back so much. Maybe he really did only release enough energy to destroy a rock and the pressure they felt was Ichigo releasing too much at first. That was a good theory, until what happened next to the rock Ichigo shot. The rock began to glow from the same white color as the arrow.
"What the hell?" Vas said to himself as they all watched the rock continue to glow even more.
"I don't think that this is-" Rei started before being cut off as the light finally died down and the rock was then turned to ashes. "-normal."
"Whoa." Ichigo said to himself as looked to his bow and saw one of the symbols began to change colors from white to red with a glowing blue outline.
'So,' A voice in Ichigo's mind started. It was deep and menacing but held a genuine curiosity to it. 'You are my new master?'
"What?" Ichigo said to himself as he looked around for the voice, confusing both Rei and Vas.
'I said that you are my new master,' the voice continued as it chuckled to itself. 'It seems that fate is indeed a cruel and violent mistress indeed.'
Gonna end this chapter here. This was a good write as I feel this was an appropriate way to introduce a new character to the story. It will be explained in the next chapter, and we will see what the soul society is up to as well.
Unrelated note, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is too damn fun. Been playing the crap out of it since it dropped yesterday.
Anyway, stay awesome, and as always...
PEACE!
