#also this is not to say that ryuuken would have actually escalated to physical abuse

[akaluan-dark]

Shattered Eclipse Pt4

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | ????

((Definitely a not-good fragment. I don’t enjoy this one at all. Figured I might as well bite the bullet and post it, instead of continuing to avoid it like I have been.

WARNINGS: emotional abuse, fear of potential physical abuse))

“I see you’ve finally awoken,” an unwelcome voice broke through Uryuu’s meandering thoughts and drew him back to the present.

Uryuu turned to stare coldly at Ryuuken, at the man who had sired him and given him back his powers and told him cease having any dealings with Shinigami. Who was now standing, stiff and out of place, in this world of Shinigami but yet was still comfortable enough to frown disapprovingly at him. As if everything was his fault. As if he was still, still so wanting, so hopeless, even after all he’d done, all he’d survived.

“I have,” Uryuu said, just as stiff and cold as Ryuuken’s words.

“Good. Then it’s time for us to return to the living world, to your proper place.” Ryuuken spoke confidently, as if taking for granted that Uryuu would agree, would willingly leave with him. “They should have never placed you with Kurosaki Isshin. He’s a brilliant doctor for being an idiot, but he runs a home clinic, not a hospital. Given your condition at the time, and given that the Shinigami apparently decided to abandon you with—”

“Get out,” Uryuu snarled, as he glared up at Ryuuken. How dare he. How /dare/ he? “Get. Out.”

Ryuuken blinked, startled and wary and still so heartbreakingly frigid that Uryuu wondered how the man’s reiatsu still felt alive. Even Rukia’s reiatsu was warmer, filled with ice and snow and yet so much /joy/ at his living that it /hurt/ because /what was he to her/.

“Uryuu..?”

“I won’t have you just… just coming in here and belittling those who kept me alive!” Uryuu clenched his hands, trying to stop the trembling from betraying him. “Would you have done any better? Or would you have ignored me, left me to rot in my own inner world because of your goddamn /pride/ and /unwillingness/ to deal with Shinigami?”

“Quincy don’t have inner worlds,” Ryuuken stated firmly, implacably, his eyes narrowed and his body stiff. “And as the director of the hospital I have many duties that need to be seen to day to day. It is also not my place to try to do everything; that is why I have other doctors and nurses on staff, to take care of all the things I cannot.”

Uryuu slumped back into his pile of pillows and gave a hollow, brittle laugh. His father was so /blind/. Had he really once looked up to this man? This empty shell of a person who stood and spoke of duty and saving the living and /ignored the changes in his own son/. Had he really wanted to /prove Ryuuken wrong?/

Orange-striped hair fell across his face. He didn’t bother to sweep it aside. Stared up at the man through two-toned hair and let his laughter die a broken death. “That’s where you’re wrong. I’m not a Quincy. Or a Shinigami. I don’t know what I am, but I’m /something/ and that /something/ is no longer human. Could your nurses even see me, Ryuuken?”

Ryuuken’s silence would have hurt at one point, would have made Uryuu turn away and reassess his approach, but right now… Right now he had never wanted to see the man who had sired him dead more than he did in that instant. His silent, empty mind echoed with a fury that couldn’t quite touch the core of his soul, but still blazed through his body and made his clenched fingers tremble with restrained emotion.

“I doubt they could,” Uryuu spoke, voice cutting and teeth bared in an unnatural grin. “Urahara pulled a trick when we left, turned us humans into reishi constructs. And then, while in that state, I merged with a Shinigami soul. With /Ichigo’s/ soul. Somehow I doubt they wanted to take their chances on turning my /barely living body/ physical again.”

Ryuuken’s breath caught in his throat, and once upon a time Uryuu would have pounced upon that sign of weakness, on that shred of /possibly he cares/, but that was a long time ago and now all he felt was that trembling rage and empty fury that drove him to his limits.

“I’m not a Quincy anymore,” Uryuu told Ryuuken coldly, ignoring the way the words tried to catch in his throat. “I’m not a Quincy, and I’m not a human, so I guess I’m not an Ishida anymore. Go away, Ryuuken. Go back to your hospital, to your /living humans/. I may not belong with the Shinigami, but I certainly don’t belong in your narrow little world anymore.”

With that, he turned away, stared out the window, ignored the man who had sired him. Fought to keep himself from tensing up as Ryuuken’s expression, reflected in the glass, grew stormy, and the man stalked closer. He was essentially at the other’s mercy, too weak to rise, too weak to fight… where were his watchers? Would they leave him to the non-existent mercy of his father, or…

“I think that’s enough,” Kurosaki Isshin’s firm voice broke the silence, as the ex-Shinigami appeared next to Ryuuken and held him back. “You can talk with him later, Ryuuken. Let’s just… go back home, okay?”

Uryuu breathed a sigh of relief as the door closed behind the two, leaving him alone with his thoughts. With his memories. With the silence.

He buried his head in his hands and refused to acknowledge the tears that slipped between his fingers.