The thought of kisuke building wings for himself is stuck in my brain for reasons beyond me or my control.
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Kisuke frowns at the mess of mechanical and magical parts scattered across his workbench, trying to make the bits and bobs resolve into something logical; when he’d started this project, he hadn’t expected it to be so… so convoluted, but maybe he should have.
There’s a reason humans rely purely on magic in order to fly, instead of crafting themselves actual wings, after all.
But he’s set himself upon this path and he’s not going to give up just because it’s hard. He’s pretty sure that he can figure it out given enough time — hopefully without resorting to using reiatsu in the process — and then he’ll have actual wings to play with!
And if he can do this then… then…
He doesn’t know.
Maybe he’ll sell bespoke wings to people who want them? The extra funds would be nice, but the idea of having to deal with commissions is a strange thought. Truthfully, the idea that anyone would want anything that he makes is an even stranger thought, but he’s spent more than enough time on the internet to know that there are people out there who will pay absurd amounts for actual working wings. He just has to offer proof of concept in the right places, to the right people, and things will fall into place.
Kisuke sighs and reaches up to tug at a lock of hair, trying to refocus on the present instead of a potential-future. Nothing matters until he can finish up this set for himself, of course, which means he has to actually finish it. Not stare blankly at the pile of parts and hope vaguely that it takes form by itself.
He hums. Leans in.
Gets to work.
He doesn’t work on just his wing project, of course, so a day turns into a week turns into a month turns into months with no end in sight, but he’s making progress. Slow progress, but progress none-the-less.
It’s actually a pretty rewarding project, if he’s being honest. It’s fun, fun in a way that things haven’t been in decades. Fun in a way that he never thought anything could ever be again.
It’s challenging and intriguing and logical, but it also requires that he dive into research fields that he’s never touched before in his life. There are so many Living World sciences to learn that he’s never quite known where to start, but this project… this project is giving him the opportunity — and the reasons — that he’s never had before.
He researches how birds fly, researches how air moves, researches metallurgy and magical manifestation and robotics and so many other bits and bobs that sometimes it feels like he’s drowning in information. Sometimes he has to set the project aside in order to build something else, just because a thought won’t leave him alone once his brain has put the pieces together.
He never really shows anyone those side-projects — doesn’t think anyone will be interested in them, to be honest — but they’re fun and they do have a use.
The more Kisuke puts together, the more he learns and the better he gets. His first efforts are… crude, to put it mildly, more mess than use, but even his failures are fascinating; Seireitei doesn’t have magic per-se, not to the same extent that the Living World does, so he’s never put any effort into researching it before now. Seeing all the ways it can fail is like discovering kido-crafting all over again, and sometimes he can’t help but shove magic types together just to see what happens.
(Explosions, usually.)
(But sometimes something else, something new, something fascinating occurs instead.)
(He lives for those moments of discovery.)
By now, he’s, ah… renowned in certain circles. He has five mages willing to supply him with both standard elemental crystals — a dime a dozen online, but he’s starting to trust these mages and their abilities — and with rarer, more expensive set-spells. They’re even interested in the results of his experiments, sometimes to the point of offering him extra crystals or new set-spells to experiment with.
(Apparently, not many people are willing to risk explosive experiments.)
(That’s fine.)
(More fun for him!)
It’s not his original project, but Kisuke doesn’t believe any research to be wasted research, so it’s fine.
He’ll find his answer eventually.
Somewhere along the way, he ends up… accidentally stumbling across his answer while shoving different combinations of set-spells together to see what happens.
It’s a complex, delicate piece of work when spun together into a single spell; its carefully balanced elements make its structure as beautiful as lace and stronger than steel when crafted just right, and it takes weeks for his mages to figure out how to cast it correctly. There’s plenty of explosions in the process, based on the mishmash of notes he finds in the shared research document, and it makes him abruptly cognizant of exactly how lucky he is.
(He would never have been able to reach this moment without his favorite mages supporting him and working together.)
(As talented as Kisuke is, he’s no mage and never can be.)
(Magic is for the living and for the spirits of those who were mages when alive.)
(Kisuke is neither.)
Of course, the just right bit is important, because the slightest disturbance during the initial casting can turn the set-spell into an explosion waiting to happen, as Kisuke learns while experimenting with the first one he’s sent.
It’s fine, though, it’s fine. The mages are worried-apologetic-dismayed when Kisuke reports it, but Kisuke doesn’t care.
They’re working through email and shared notes and the occasional live chat, not side-by-side. Kisuke doesn’t expect perfection in these cases — wouldn’t expect it even if they were working side-by-side, considering how experimental this whole thing is! — so a little unexpected explosion every so often is fine.
(Not that any of the mages seems to agree, considering how much the others chide him about being careful with brand new spells.)
(The concern is… strange, but also… nice?)
(Weird.)
Still, the next several set-spells Kisuke experiments with work out better, and he quickly learns how to tell which ones are viable and which ones aren’t. There’s a sort of… hum… that set-spells have, he’s realized, not so much audible as something felt while holding the crystal, and if he focuses closely enough he can sense which ones are unstable and which aren’t. It’s a useful skill, though apparently a rare one? At least according to his favorite mages, it is— something about it meaning he’s extra sensitive to magical energies, even though he isn’t a mage himself.
(Apparently, if he’d been a mage, he’d have instinctively blocked the sense out when he was young in order to not be constantly overwhelmed by it.)
(He wonders how many mages can’t do that, and are therefore constantly on the edge of over-stimulation because of it.)
(He wonders if he can find a way to help.)
(Hmm… a project for later.)
Regardless, now that Kisuke’s pretty sure he has the set-spell necessary to support flight, things go faster. He builds and tinkers and tears apart and rebuilds, slinging the exo-skeleton on and off with growing ease, the magical connection becoming smoother and cleaner with every iteration. Kisuke doesn’t want there to be a menu or buttons or anything of the sort to control the wings, not when magical prosthetics are already capable of interfacing with the brain and translating intent into action.
He just… needs to adapt it to work with limbs the body’s never had.
Somehow.
Somehow.
Except the brain is an incredible thing on its own, and it ends up being less about teaching the interface to work with extra limbs as teaching his brain to consider the wings part of his body. Which is a bunch of trial and error — lots and lots of error — but eventually the stuttering, twitching mess slung across his back starts to smooth out, starts to flex and shift and spread, and the interface—
The interface does what it was built to do.
Kisuke can feel it as his new wings spread. Can feel it when he accidentally bumps a wing against his workbench. Can feel it when he runs a hand over bare metal struts and magical feathers. Can feel so, so much—
It’s a bit too much, if he’s being honest, especially when he takes the wings off and suddenly loses all that extra input. It doesn’t hurt, at least, but it’s weird and leaves him feeling unbalanced for a while afterward.
(A side-effect he’d never considered, but one his mages are quick to point out is expected if he’s going to use that method of connecting the wings to his mind.)
(Ah well, he’ll adapt.)
(It’s what he does, after all.)
From there, it’s just a matter of refining the wings, both in looks and in function, and then… and then—
And then he can finally fly.
His first flight is less ‘flight’ and more ‘uncontrolled tumble’, but Kisuke isn’t bothered by that.
(He may be trying to run (fly) before he can walk.)
(Just maybe.)
He gets up, brushes himself off, and tries again.
And again.
And again.
Until he finally figures out how to coordinate his wings to gain lift, and then it’s almost like everything just clicks into place; not that it becomes easy as such, because it doesn’t, but things start to make sense at last.
(His dreams become weird, tangled messes of extra limbs and feathers and darting flight.)
(Even his normal dreams start to be invaded by wings.)
(It’s weird, but apparently normal?)
(How do brains even work?)
It’s fun though, especially as soon as he stops face-planting as often! Soon he manages to take off, fly for a bit, and then land without falling, and if that’s not an accomplishment he has no idea what is.
(Landings are hard okay?!)
It gets even better when Kisuke has Tessai record one of his short flights and then send it to him, so that he can share it with his favorite mages. Almost instantly he has five very, very interested mages who want their own wings to play with and, well, who is he to deny them when they’ve helped him so much?
They give him suggestions on what to try, too, and while some of them work out terribly, other suggestions actually help. They’re basically writing the whole manual from scratch here, which seems to excite everyone, and Kisuke… Kisuke sometimes can’t help but stare wistfully at his screen, wondering what it would be like to work alongside these five in person.
(He bets it would be incredible, bets it would be like nothing he’s ever done before—)
(But this is still more than he’s ever had before, so he’s going to treasure every moment he gets.)
(He’s learned not to look a gift horse in the mouth these days.)
(Besides, now he has wings!)
(And that’s enough for him.)
original tags on the postfeel free to imagine anyone you’d like in the mages positions
it doesn’t really matter much to the story itself
in this au there’s magic in the living world alongside reishi and spiritual powers
but it’s not really Tanya the Evil style magic
basically you can have elemental ‘charge’ crystals which are basically just pure magic energy used for whatever
and then you have set-spells which are kinda like the magical equivalent of tools
anyone can use them
but only mages can create them
and they need to be recharged on occasion