There would always be a part of Uryuu that enjoyed combat.
It might have been the adrenaline- that rush that brought everything into perfect focus, making him aware of his life and his desire to live in a way that was sometimes hard to find. It might have been the pure physicality of it, grounding him in his own existence. It might have been the technical skill, putting his practice and training to use and seeing the effects of it on the bodies of his foes. It might have been the way blood made him feel half-drunk, sated in a way that was rare to find anywhere else.
Uryuu had accepted this part of himself long ago. He was not built for a life of peace. The Quincy were warriors, after all, and even despite all his changes he was still Quincy at his core.
Still, it always seemed to take him by surprise whenever a good fight had him on a high, arrows and threads alike cutting through those who were foolish enough to stand against them. The Fullbringers had attempted to turn them against each other, and it might have worked years ago- it was a good attempt, clearly well-practiced and engrained into each of them. He could even feel an attempt to add something to his memories- but it fit in with the lie they told, the lie the Shinigami bought, not the acutal truth. And this Tsukushima couldn’t be trusted if he’d never been down in the labs.
He lost himself for a bit in the harmony of combat- it was a response they were all still training themselves out of, but until then they had Kisuke to keep them leashed and from going too far. The world narrowed into his targets and his bow and his pack, putting arrows into joints as Ichigo clashed with their leader and Chad slammed his shield into constructs until they shattered and Orihime’s shields flickered in and out of existence, shoving back enemies and fixing up bits of damage and blocking attacks and letting them bounce off of things all at once. The scent of blood was thick in the air, cloying and almost sweet, and Uryuu dove into the shadows and up out of them again to kneecap Tsukushima, the fool.
Eventually, they managed to deal with them- a pile of dismembered corpses and a few left alive who’d either fled or been marked for survival, and it was then that Uryuu glanced up and saw a collection of horrified Shinigami.
For just a moment, he froze, and he could feel the others doing the same. They’d planned on the Shinigami remaining out of their buisness for a few more weeks- long enough to put on a proper show about the incoming threat (for an army that had had a thousand years to plan, they were doing a poor job at implementing stealth). Orihime came to the rescue, though, the best actress of all of them.
“Oh, thank goodness you’re here!” she cried, hamming it up enough that Uryuu pinched his lips together, trying not to laugh- hopefully nobody else noticed. “One of the Fullbringers- Tsukushima- was good at making people believe the stories he told- did he get any of you? He was trying to turn us against each other, but he didn’t realize that none of us would ever do the things he tried to get us to believe we’d done- they’d done?” She trailed off, considering how to phrase the statment.
Slowly, Kuchiki-taichou nodded. “Indeed. It seems that the outer edges of his power managed to make an impact- clearly, these were difficult foes.” Ichigo nodded, swinging Zangetsu’s long blade up to rest on his shoulder.
“They were. We’ve been trying to figure out what they wanted for weeks- one of them even tried to go after Karin and Yuzu.”
The Shinigami swallowed the lie easily, and soon enough the new patrol schedule was discussed and they were invited to a party at the Shiba Estate- ostensibly to commemorate the end of the Winter War and most of the reconstruction, though there’d been enough congratulations to Ichigo on the recovery of his power that it was likely celebrating that as well.
Uryuu could handle Shinigami for one night- especially with a new war on the horizon and the promise of more bloodshed. Besides, any excuse for his partners to dress up was one to take greedily- the future was full of opportunities, and Uryuu was going to take ahold of them with both hands.