Entry for bleach_contest - week #19 -- vindicate
Entry for bleach_contest
week #19 -- vindicate
Title: Lapse in Judgment
Rating: PG
Pairings/Characters: Ishida Uryuu pov, mentions of Kurosaki Ichigo, Kuchiki Rukia, Urahara Kisuke
Warnings: **spoilers** Takes place during volume 4, 5 and 6 of the manga
Word Count: 2,098
Description: Ishida reminisces on the day his intellect failed him.
Beta(s): akiahara & rozella_rising
I can still remember the very first time I saw him in spirit form. He ran directly in front of me without even a glance, searching for a hollow I had already dispatched. I’d known for a month what he had become, but this was my first look at him in his shinigami form. I detested him. He looked just as idiotic as he did at school; bright orange hair wildly unkempt, outfit slightly mussed as if he could never keep his clothes looking pressed.
Kurosaki Ichigo was a disgrace. From the moment I felt his reiatsu change and realized what he’d become my blood began to bubble. A few weeks later it began to simmer and by the time of our first encounter my blood was a rolling boil. It was clouding my judgment and making me crazy beyond my normal cold reasoning.
I will never forgive myself for what I did. I will never stop berating myself for the pain and agony I caused everyone involved. Worst of all I will be forever indebted to a substitute shinigami whom I want to despise with my entire being, but cannot. I must be grateful to him, because without his untapped power, not only would our lives have been lost, but so many more would have perished as well. The stain on the Quincy would have been seen as even more arrogant and unyielding than when they were slaughtered for refusing to listen 200 years ago.
So as I said, the first time I saw Kurosaki in his shinigami form was illuminating. He had no idea who or what I was. I stood there as he ran past, not bothering to hide my reiatsu. The fact that he didn’t even pause in his pursuit of a now vanquished hollow, proved that he was as dull in this job as he was in the classroom.
He obviously had no talent as a shinigami. I gave him another week before some hapless hollow skewered him to a tree. I was even convinced the strange shinigami who dragged him around like a disobedient puppy wouldn’t be able to save his sorry hide. It was obvious she’d lost most of her powers, probably to Kurosaki. That’s why his sorry ass was doing most of the work while she was doing the directing. It would have been humorous if it weren’t such a nauseating sight to watch.
The first time I confronted both shinigami in my Quincy garb, Kurosaki had the gall to call my rigidly pressed and impeccable attire a mad scientist uniform. It was utterly appalling, although not that shocking given his background and lack of self discipline. It was also painfully obvious he couldn’t even begin to feel the hollow that was fast approaching. He looked so dim and confused when I confronted him. I would have laughed if it were in my nature to do so.
It was rather entertaining to dispatch the hollow right in front of him. He was as confounded as ever and once again I almost wished I had the feelings necessary to laugh. When I told him how I truly felt about shinigami, the vein on his forehead bulged so far out that I began to wonder if I would get to see an aneurysm in process. Unfortunately, or given hindsight I should say fortunately, he remained whole.
Kurosaki’s ire wasn’t easily put aside, which of course I anticipated with ease due to the number of arguments with the faculty and the number of fights with the upperclassmen. The orange nuisance was not what anyone would call subtle.
The following day, he actually thought he could follow me home. How absurd. The delinquent couldn’t hide from a psychic monkey and I told him so. I became more and more angry; looking at the shinigami standing there with no understanding of his powers or his flaws. My blood began to pound. Kurosaki knew nothing of reiraku. I had to show him. His idiocy and incompetence was overwhelming. The blood in my veins that had steadily been boiling me alive erupted like a volcano and the decisions that followed, shame me to this day.
I challenged that useless shinigami to a duel. He of course assumed I meant to fight him with swords. However, what my ire had dredged up from my soul was conceivably the worst mistake of my life. I would pay dearly in the future trying to remedy it, but let’s leave that story for another day.
My ill-fated dispute with Kurosaki was not a duel of wits or armament, but an imprudent duel of numbers. He called it correctly right from the start, I was a fool. I cast the die and snapped the hollow bait without a thought to the consequences of my actions.
All I could see was hate. I hated shinigami because they allowed my grandfather to be murdered; I hated Kurosaki because he was witless and ignorant. I think most of all I hated myself. In my rage I had decided this course of action would absolve me of my sensei’s death.
It was completely illogical. I wish I had seen it then. If I had, maybe Rukia would have become human with the hougyoku permanently sealed and beyond the reach of even Aizen. Inoue might have been spared the burden of her powers. Undoubtedly, though, Arisawa, Sado and many others would have been spared their injuries and trauma.
It’s a moot point to belabor my faux pas, but still, it is something I ponder on occasion when I can’t quite fall asleep at night. Those moments that seem to last an eternity as you drift off, yet aren’t truly asleep. That is when the error of my ways tends to haunt me the most.
The second that bait was snapped it began to disperse and attract hollows. Naturally, Kurosaki blew a gasket. Never one for delicacy, he assaulted me, berated me then promptly ran off to save his family, all the while never understanding his friends were in as much if not more danger. Yet even his naiveté did not outweigh my insanity at starting this duel.
It became clear very quickly that not only had I miscalculated the in the amount of bait I used, but I was going to shame my grandfather in a rather horrific way. I could no longer kill the hollows with just one shot and the number of the beasts just kept increasing as if I’d used 10 tablets instead of one. The quantity of hollows should have long ago begun dissipating, but they clearly weren’t. I had actually begun to hope Kurosaki wasn’t the complete failure I had made him out to be.
I had started this chaos to prove Quincy were superior; to avenge my beloved grandfather’s murder; to restore my pride and honor for not being able to save my sensei. What I found I had created was a catastrophe of epic proportions.
I believe I was actually relieved when Kurosaki kicked me in the back of the head and demanded we fight back to back. Even to one as dense as that orange disaster, the story of my grandfather and his dreams were clear. The two of us fighting together was something my grandfather had longed to be a part of. I had found an opponent who had inadvertently granted my sensei’s wish.
I asked Kurosaki why, why he would fight by my side? To my shame and horror I heard the story of his mother’s death by a hollow. We weren’t so different after all and somehow that made it all so much worse. He didn’t fight hollows for fun or fame, as I had once suspected, but for vengeance and protection. I cringed inside at how alike we were and wondered how I could have been so disgustingly mistaken about this man beside me.
Fighting by his side we were an effective team. I had begun to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Then it all went to shit again. I realize cursing is not an acceptable Quincy fault, but in this particular case it is the only accurate way to say it.
When the Menos Grande ripped through the heavens, the shit truly hit the fan in the most shocking way. It was painfully obvious to me that my blunder in starting this duel was going to have consequences of grave proportions. There would be no way for the two of us as strong as we were to defeat a Menos. I hid my shudder, but the guilt I was feeling made me angry and the subsequent argument with Kurosaki was a ridiculous distraction that we could ill afford.
Thankfully we were spared having to fight the hollows by the appearance and help from Urahara-san. It was immediately obvious he was supremely strong and not at all what he appeared to be. At the time he was a complete mystery to me, but Urahara-san is another one of those stories that must wait for a more appropriate time.
It was rather revolting to watch the Menos eat its fellow hollows as it gained entry into our world. I believe I even let slip a rather un-Quincy like response to this sight. Although it was nothing compared to the response I wanted to give whilst watching Kurosaki rush off with no other plan than to cut it down; what lunacy. Even that in turn couldn’t compared to my astonishment at finding out what happened to my bow when I accidently touched Kurosaki’s zanpakutou. It was enormous and somewhat frightening even to me.
Sadly once again the orange haired menace was completely oblivious to my actions and the implications. Honestly it felt less than manly to have Kurosaki’s sword strapped to my head. However, to right my wrong, I would gladly have looked like Asano Keigo on a bad day.
Once again my brilliant if somewhat undignified plan was thwarted by that orange idiot. Watching him run off once more half cocked with no plan, actually depressed me. I knew I was going to watch him die and I truly regretted it. I had come to realize that Kurosaki was brave, if somewhat impulsive. He was impressive to watch though. There were so few people left in the world who would give their life to save people they didn’t even know. On that particular day my grandfather would have been more proud of Kurosaki than me. However, what annoyed me more was realizing my mistake was going to cost him his life.
Fortunately for us all, Kurosaki was a man beyond measure. His true power was yet to be revealed. Even as he blocked the Menos’ Cero, it was obvious to me he was much more than a mere shinigami. He absorbed that blast and reflected it right back at the Menos causing severe damage.
To this day I shudder to think what would have happened to that orange pest if he had continued to fight instead of watching the Menos retreat. Especially since what did happen was horrifying enough. Kurosaki’s spirit energy went so wildly out of control that even my proximity to him was causing my bow to distort to huge proportions. It was apparent that without help he would be destroyed by his own power in a way as dramatic as his recent actions.
I could have walked away and left him to his fate. He was a shinigami after all, and Quincy hate shinigami. My pride wouldn’t allow me to deny what he’d done, though. He’d cleaned up my mess. He had saved the day. He may have claimed he wasn’t superman, but watching him that day was the closest I’d ever come to admiring someone as much as I did my grandfather.
So, really, I was unable to just walk away and still retain my Quincy pride. I took the only idea I had and ran with it. I gathered Kurosaki’s racing spirit particles and shot arrow after arrow into the sky turning my hands into little more than tendons and bones. I did, however, manage to throw a few well placed sarcastic remarks his way, alleviating my discomfort.
In the end no matter how I try to justify it, the situation is clear. Grandfather’s goals, of shinigami and Quincy working together to face the threat of the hollows in the real world, was vindicated not by me, his grandson and student, but by an obnoxious shinigami with ridiculous orange hair. It is almost too depressing for words.