Chapter 58: Do You A Wrong

Ichigo stood quietly for a heavy moment, eyes on the golden waves beneath his feet rather than on the twofold immortal before him.

“To prevent a despairing son,” he repeated under his breath. “You keep saying Son, but I get the feeling you’re not talking about me.”

The Soul King regarded him, his expression as unreadable as ever. His eight pupils shifted ever so slightly.

“A vessel shaped from all that humanity became under Izanami’s echo. You were no accident, Kurosaki Ichigo.”

A soul forged with Purpose, burdened with Destiny. Layer by Fated layer.

Ichigo rolled his eyes. Naturally he wasn’t getting a straight answer, but then, at this point, he should have expected it. He folded his arms, fingers tightening around his own elbows.

“Shinigami dad, Quincy mom, Hollow Zanpakutō, hybrid me,” he said wryly. “Yeah, I know. But all the human variations were scrubbed clean by Sirzechs’ Pawn piece, except for the Hollow bits because, surprise, surprise, corrupted spiritual energies of anger, hate, pain and violence mesh really well with Lucifer’s Pact with Hell and Ajuka’s subsequent Evil Pieces.”

The Soul King ignored him and carried on.

“The Shinigami were the solution to Izanami’s perished handmaidens. Mortal souls possessing enough strength and fortitude that they may take shape and form and grasp power. But then, from where came the Quincy?”

Fragments of sundered divinity. Trickling and melding with the souls of humanity.

Ichigo's brows furrowed in thought. Sundered divinity? But then, he remembered a particular discussion with his father on that morning after his heartfelt night with Yoruichi. “From what I know, the Shinigami sundered you, kept you apart for whatever reason that apparently no one now remembers.”

“We willed it,” the Soul King answered.

All things fell in accordance with our Sight.

“You wanted the Shinigami to tear you into pieces?” Ichigo asked bewildered, a prominent frown forming on his lips.

“When the Shinigami cut us apart, shards of our divine energy echoed through the Realms of the Dead. Those shards soaked into human souls, to be reborn into mortal life as that which you know as Quincy.”

Human souls, yet remnants of our infinity.

The golden sea around them pulsed softly with each word, and Ichigo narrowed his eyes in thought. The Quincy were humans touched by the Soul King’s divine energy? But for True Immortals, they were their divinity, there was no difference. Which meant that the Soul King exists, in some fashion, inside every single Quincy?

“In the earliest days,” the Soul King continued, “they were mere mortals who could sense but the warp and weft of reishi. In time, they became hunters who could shape reishi into light. But every few centuries, a soul appeared more divine than those around it. A Quincy whose core shone brighter, whose essence felt closer to ours than to mortal clay.”

Power-bearers. Power-sharers.

Ichigo knew where this was going. His mouth twisted. “A Quincy that’s more you than human,” he inferred.

“Anointed Yhwach,” the Soul King confirmed. “A fragment grown self-aware and self-willed. He was the greatest concentration of our fallen divinity in a single physical frame. Enough that he could see into the currents of the future and shape mortal narrative.”

Ichigo grimaced, remembering his father’s old explanation. The ‘Slumbering Quincy King’ who reclaimed the power he had supposedly gifted to every extant Quincy bloodline. Including his mother... on the day Grand Fisher first hunted him.

Ichigo gritted his teeth and as his knuckles tightened. “So, when dad told me about the Quincy King’s sleeping cycle… that was just one more side effect of you being broken? Mom died because you decided to allow yourself to be sundered and give rise to this Quincy King, all for the sake of your grand plan?”

“Died yes,” the Soul King confirmed. “But born as well.”

Gravitas. When Power moves, it moves that which is around it. Or would you say otherwise, Tartarus?

Ichigo took a deep breath and closed his eyes, willing patience and understanding. Reminding himself that, not just his mother, but that these two had been shaping the lives of hundreds of millions, potentially billions, for eons. All for the sake of maintaining the balance of the Cycle of Souls.

“An intended consequence,” the Soul King said. “Yhwach’s mind was simple in the beginning. But Time shapes all things, and he grew discontented with our Will. Believing that we only begat suffering from that which we had decreed. Hence, he set his gaze on a world of his own philosophy.”

The Gear wished to become the Gestalt.

Ichigo let out a contemplative hum. Philosophy, huh? Tiamat did tell him that Will and Reality became the same thing in the Fourth World.

“Unable to contest our Will directly, he sought to replace us in entirety,” the Soul King clarified. “To undo the primal partition between the living and the dead.”

Without death, without life, all mortals would be freed of limitations. To be everything and nothing, all at once.

Ichigo blinked. That sounded familiar… too familiar. “The Void?”

“The Void shapes the edge of thought. It is the natural way of things.”

Surrounded by yet encompassing all things simultaneously. It is paradox, it is true.

Ichigo nodded to himself, that made sense to him. The Void was omnipresent. It may not have wittingly influenced Yhwach, but as the Nietzsche quote goes, ‘if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.’

“His first rebellion failed,” the Soul King went on. “He was not yet able to wield our divinity and the Shinigami of then were well accustomed to slaughter. We had even willed our own Hand to take up arms. The Quincy fell in droves.”

The first war was too early, the subtle changes of Destiny would need another thousand years to give rise to our intended outcome.

Ichigo looked at them, eyes narrowing. “You mean me.”

“The second rise came but short days after you regained your strength in the first flow of Time,” the Soul King said. “Yhwach made war, more powerful and wielding weapons that an older and feebler Seireitei could not defend against. A crushing victory.”

Slowly encroaching on this palace, to claim the Throne of Souls.

Ichigo looked on startled, “Wait… in the original timeline, the one where you didn’t keep me from regaining my Shinigami powers, Soul Society lost?!”

“Had events followed their intended course, yes,” the Soul King said, unfazed, “Yhwach’s victory was guaranteed. You had not the ability nor the knowledge to overcome him, and he would have consumed me. The fragment become the whole: a new Soul King. A complete victory.”

And a complete failure.

“Failure how?” Ichigo asked, even though he already suspected the answer.

“By means we hid from his gaze,” the Soul King said simply. “A single weakness to render him inert, and by your strike he would ever remain so. Without thought, without care, a comatose linchpin without Will or Sight. And with the quiet granted, you would have lived… and then died.”

Come your Mortal Hour, Amaterasu would have your prismatic soul sit upon on the Throne. Anon apotheosis.

He let out a quiet breath. So, Yhwach would have been the fire in which Ichigo would have been tempered. And, on top of that, had things played out just as intended, Yhwach would have reinforced the Soul King’s remnant divinity with his own fragment, making Ichigo all the more powerful when he inevitably consumed the comatose Quincy King and took for himself Izanami’s spheres.

Fuck.

It was such a meticulous plan. And it would have worked too, with him none the wiser until he actually sat immersed in the Fourth Dimension. And by then, it would have been too late.

“And you were just… fine with that?” he asked skeptically. “Allowing yourself to be consumed by a smaller piece of you, and then me?”

“We were never meant to sit here,” the Soul King answered. “The Heavenly Two forever altered the paths of Fate when they slew Izanami. But humanity’s salvation is paramount. For them, we would gladly embrace oblivion. Thus, Yhwach - the opportune cancer we fashioned, and the scalpel by which we would cut out the very rot we had become.”

All things were intended; all things were foreseen.

Ichigo pressed his tongue against his teeth as he muttered, “Then along came Ophis.”

And even so far removed from the waking world, the golden world of Time trembled at the mention of the Void Come. Ichigo watched distastefully as the glittering waters roiled and surged.

“The Infinite Ouroboros tore through causality,” the Soul King said. “It bent narratives that should have flowed down one path into another. The world was not meant to see the Spear of Finality so soon. An inert Yhwach would not have been able to seal the gap that had come, and you would have been yet far removed from apotheosizing.”

Izanami’s doom sealed in the Fires of the Scaled Emperors. Yet by their own showing, the skeins between the Living and Dead were repaired. That it be rent by their joint legacy – Lo! Fate!

Ichigo frowned as he remembered the jagged tears through reality left by the Slaying Spear.

Fucking Hell, he thought.

Rhongomyniad was already that damn powerful in the hands of the unworthy Kokabiel. How insanely powerful must have King Arthur been when he wielded the spear to its full might?

But then, the tail end of what Hades had said made both of Ichigo’s brows go high into his hairline.

“King Arthur is Albion and Ddraig’s joint legacy!? What does that mean?”

“Another’s tale.”

You tread a different path.

Ichigo rolled his eyes, dissatisfied. Well, in fairness, he did have Boosted Gear and its wielder sitting safe inside his realm. Maybe he could get the story out of the Welsh Emperor himself someday.

“So to rehash”, Ichigo said dryly, “Ophis, probably intentionally, screwed over your intended sequence of events that would have ultimately led to me becoming the new Soul King once I lived out my mortal life.”

The Soul King agreed. “The resultant tears in the Valley of Kuoh would have widened, swallowing the Earth and, inevitably, the entirety of the physical plane. The whole of the cosmos returned to the primal ooze, before life and death."

“So had Yhwach done nothing, he would have gotten what he wanted?” Ichigo noted with amusement. And then his mind churned shrewdly. “And because you would have no longer existed, Hades would have no one to cooperate with. Because forcibly trying to take an already broken and deteriorating realm would have probably just expedited said deterioration.”

“Yes.”

Truth.

“So you bailed on your own script,” Ichigo summarized. “You changed everything.”

“A dread gamble we made, by the agreement of Amaterasu,” the Soul King said. “She saw the spear’s descent, saw the way the Infinite coiled around the event, and understood what it would mean for all of existence.”

The necessary sacrifice to spare the World.

“So you knocked on Hades’ door,” Ichigo said.

“Indeed, we reached across boundary and called to the Unseen One,” the Soul King replied. “A compact was made. Aidôneus swallowed us, mending what had been scattered. Our divinity layered upon his own, our authority over death braided with his. In becoming one, we gained the strength to withstand events that would have shattered us alone.”

We ate it to become it.

The golden light thickened around them and Ichigo sensed, faintly, the echo of a vast darkness below that light, like a cavern beneath the sea.

“And what about Yhwach?” Ichigo asked quietly.

“Auswählen,” the Soul King said. “What we shared, we took back. Our divinity was reclaimed, his identity dissolved, and the fragment returned to its source.”

We ate it to become it.

Ichigo rubbed at his sternum, as if he could press down on the sudden, strange ache there. “Fine. Let’s say I accept all that. That still doesn’t explain why you nudged me toward Sirzechs in the first place. Why push me toward the Devils at all?”

“To counter the whims of the Infinite Ouroboros,” the Soul King continued. “But to also retain the role of ferrying the Dead, to keep your mythic ties to the Thrones of the Dead. You would be, and are, a psychopomp who walks all borders. One whose soul has been stretched across Shinto and Infernal structures. Becoming a Devil, and later a Demon, anchored you more equally to the Realms of the Dead. The other Pantheons could not have done so, for none but Lucifer’s children have an affinity for the First Flame.”

The legend of Satan, the role of dragging sinners into the Fire, it preserved the mythic identity needed to retain the Mantle of the Dead. Else, the cycle would have repeated when you took the Throne.

Fuck, he hated that it made so much sense.

“And along the way, Amaterasu gets to use me against Tsukiyomi – yeah, I figured it out," he said bitterly. "Doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together.”

“None care more for the people of Nihon than the Resplendent Sun.”

Do not doubt her affection, her love runs true.

Ichigo’s face turned jaded. “Love, huh? She has a funny way of showing it.”

“Love does not preclude design,” the Soul King answered. “Amaterasu’s affection for you is genuine. She treasures you. But she is also a Sovereign who has watched her world erode for an age. She will grasp at any tool that might preserve it. You were one such tool.”

Such is the way of the Undying.

Ichigo let out a tired sigh. Man, he was so done with all the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that took place all his life. First it was Aizen and Urahara, and now it was Ophis, the Soul King, Amaterasu and to lesser extent, Sirzechs.

But now he finally understood what Amaterasu meant when he had spoken to her the last time he had been Takamagahara…

This is why Zangetsu reacted so strongly in Amaterasu’s presence, why she had said his Zanpakutō had been named in her honor. Even as the Soul King and Hades plotted for him to take on the Mantle of the Dead, Amaterasu planned to use him against Tsukiyomi since before he was even born.

He tried swallowing down the immediate spike of anger, but his ire burned hot nonetheless. “Great, just fucking great! Apparently, I’m fucking everybody’s favorite piece on the board! Anyone else’s mess I’m supposed to clean up?!”

Fuck it, maybe I’ll just stay locked up in Infernity for the next thousand years!

“The weight you carry is great,” the Soul King said, and Ichigo noted the first touch of emotion in his voice since he had first spoken to him. Empathy? “But so too is the breadth of your agency. You have already diverged from the paths we drew. We did not foresee your place amongst the Sins. Nor the loves you cherished in spite of it. Even we cannot control all of eternity. Perhaps, you are already looking back onto us, as a Demon turned Divine?”

You are the first mistake we are pleased to have made.

“A mistake?!” He repeated affronted. "Is that supposed to make me feel better? Really proving yourself Zeus’ brother, aren’t you? Birthing superpowered ‘mistakes’ is a family trait apparently! But seriously, I’m fucking tired of people deciding things and dictating my life for me!”

“It is the way of things,” the Soul King said, and there was something like weariness in his tone. “Those with power dictate the fate of those without. Mortals have always been subject to the whims of the Undying.”

Fairness is not inherent in this or any other world. All must obey that which is above.

“But you know this, Demon of Anger and Hate, who rules over countless mortal souls in your own Kingdom. We are all subject to the roles in our stories. This is your fated role.”

Even as ours is to do you a wrong.

------

The mind-numbing headache continued to persist.

If anything, the demonic pressure saturating the cavern made it worse. Yasaka pressed her fingertips to her temples, steadying her breath, trying, failing, to sort through the fractured echoes still scraping against the inside of her skull. Memories that were hers yet not hers. Futures that felt real but unreal. And the lingering aftertaste of Takamagahara’s light clinging to her mind like star-streaked gold.

And over it all, hanging like a thunderous cloud, the knowledge that her husband lay behind those obsidian doors, fighting for his life.

Her stomach twisted.

She really was not enjoying this wretched place.

The air here was thick with sulfur, heat, and demonic essence: so much of it that she had to maintain a constant sheath of spiritual protection just to breathe. Her head pulsed with each wave of it. The monstrous Imperators that served her Ichigo circled before the Irameron, further strengthening the evil that infused this place.

She had forgotten, because of how kind and caring and utterly loving that he was, the monster that lurked behind her husband’s eyes. Through the pain in her head, Yasaka managed a laugh. I’m Satan’s bride.

She was broken from her thoughts by Saviġuk’s claws clicking sharply across the volcanic glass as the gargantuan wolf prowled in volatile silence.

Grayfia’s voice came soft. “Your Highness, please try to steady yourself. Pushing against the paradox will only worsen the strain.”

Yasaka exhaled shakily and, for a brief, irrational moment, wanted to strangle the Demon. She knew that, she didn’t need to be told like some fledgling! But then, just as quick as the burst of anger came, it was pushed out by her meditative techniques.

That would be Ichigo’s corruptive influence poisoning my already Time-addled mind.

Her husband really was an absolute terror when he wasn’t – couldn’t, her mind whispered traitorously – holding back his power. She swallowed thickly. “I am trying. It is proving to be… challenging.”

She closed her eyes and circulated her chakra once more, allowing warmth to sooth gentle in her hectic mind.

She had been ripped out of time, forced to reconcile the impossible, hurled into the presence of True Immortals. And now she was here – one of most vile corners of the Underworld deepest wound - trying to hold her psyche together while her husband was literally trying to hold himself together.

Her throat tightened. She just wanted to be back in Kyoto, holding her daughter while being nestled in the arms of her husband

“How long?” she asked quietly. “How long will he remain inside his Inner Sanctum?”

Grayfia’s expression shifted with tension, restraint, even a flicker of helpless uncertainty. “I cannot say.” She folded her arms beneath her chest, almost protective. “Under normal circumstances, Ichigo’s regeneration would have restored his physical body within seconds. But the divinity poisoning him is… potent. His demonic essence must purge it before the body can reform.”

Yasaka swallowed, nails digging into her palm. “Do we know how much divine energy afflicted him?”

“We do not know.” And Yasaka closed her eyes grimly at the female Demon’s words. “By the time Sirzechs had returned to the Underworld with Ichigo… all that remained of his body was his head.”

Yasaka’s blood ran cold and she felt the color drain from her face. From the corner of her eyes, she saw the Dragon King visibly next to her. A head? All that was left of her husband was his head? She felt tears pool in her eyes even as a horrid tightness clutched at her chest.

Grayfia’s eyes wavered, but she continued. “What extent of the damage lies deeper, within his very core… only Ichigo himself knows.”

Yasaka looked to and fro: hopelessly, desperately searching for… she wasn’t sure, anything, really.

Her words came out forced, around a dry tongue. “Wi-will he be in there a few days? Weeks? Months?” And her voice cracked high with each word.

She couldn’t breathe… in this awful, wretched place filled with so much vileness she couldn’t breathe, and it felt like invisible walls were closing in on her. She couldn’t breathe an- I want my husband! She screamed in her mind.

Grayfia’s gaze softened considerably. “He will recover, Your Highness. The Irameron is the font of his being. So long as his soul endures, it will restore him.”

Yasaka nodded absently to herself, eyes still wide and colored with dread.

After several terse moments, she realized belatedly she had started biting her thumbnail - an old, unbecoming habit from childhood she thought she had abandoned centuries ago. She lowered her hand quickly, embarrassed, but the anxiety twisting her gut refused to ease.

And the absolute worst part was, she couldn’t stay here.

She wanted to. She wanted nothing more than to collapse beside those obsidian doors and wait until her husband walked out whole again.

But Kyoto...
The leylines...
Sköll and Hati prowling her skies...
And most importantly, her Kunou...

Her absence was already too long.

She closed her eyes briefly, gathering herself. She needed to distract herself. “How is Infernity holding?” She knew too well that Demons were inherently tied to their realms. With Ichigo in such critical state, the realm must be going through absolute chaos.

Grayfia hesitated, but after a quiet second, the woman decided to answer with blunt honesty. “There have been earthquakes, sea storms, and violent magical currents.” She inhaled slowly. “But no permanent damage of any sort. At least, nothing Ichigo cannot mend when he wakes.”

“And the people?” Yasaka pressed, heart pounding. “Do they know?”

“No.” Grayfia’s mouth tightened. “And they must not. The chaos that would erupt if it was revealed that a Crown Prince was so critically wounded would be catastrophic. In order to suppress the rumors, the other Satans are attempting to stabilize the realm from the outside – Lord Ajuka especially. Alas, they cannot interfere directly within Infernity, but they can dampen its outer tremors. For now, that is enough.”

Enough... she repeated in her head dejectedly. She prayed that it was.

But her mind then turned towards her own country once more, and a sharp pang of guilt struck her. She was Ichigo’s wife, but she could not remain by his side. Not without risking catastrophe in her own land.

She exhaled, heavy and so very tired. “I must return to Kyoto.”

Grayfia nodded sympathetically. “I will escort you out. To protect its master, Infernity itself warded the area and made it impossible to teleport near the Irameron.”

Yasaka steadied herself and turned, only to freeze as another presence shifted behind her.

The Dragon King had moved subtly, and for the first since she had met the haughty Primordial, Yasaka saw uncertainty and fear naked in her ocean-colored eyes.

“When he wakes and is whole,” Tiamat said, the barest quiver in her ancient voice, “I will bring him to you myself.”

Yasaka blinked. “I-I…”

“Do not fret.” The dragon’s gaze drifted toward the Irameron, something fierce and possessive burning behind her stark fear. “He is strong. Strong enough to overcome this. Especially this.” She took a deep breath. “He will return to us.”

The reassurance was unexpected, and it cracked something inside Yasaka. Warmth washed through the terror knotting her chest. Gratitude rose, raw and honest.

“Thank you,” she whispered, bowing her head. “Thank you.”

Tiamat’s jaw flexed, but she inclined her head in return, a gesture no less sincere despite its brevity.

Grayfia stepped forward then, gesturing toward the massive stone path leading out of the volcanic chasm. “Come, Your Highness. The path is long.”

Yasaka cast one last look toward the obsidian doors, toward the place where her husband fought his silent battle, and then followed Grayfia up the molten-lit expanse.

Her headache had not faded. Her heart had not eased. But she walked with steadier steps all the same. She had faith he would return to her. And their revenge would be legendary.

------

For several minutes, Zekram allowed the voices around him to continue: not because he needed their ideas, nor cared from them in the slightest, but because listening to wants and complaints of others was a quick way to grasp their fears and insecurities. And how easy it was to maneuver those whose fears one grasped. Even when it came to Devils. Especially when it came to Devils.

He sat back, taking in the entirety of the opulent, even by Underworld standards, boardroom: and he carefully noted every frown and sneer and look of apprehension with what words they came with.

Oh, the piteous, lowly things hungering for power and purpose. He would give them the latter, only that it may serve the former. Namely, his own.

And though the assorted here were Lords of their own Houses, with reach and influence far outstripping the vast bulk of their titanic Empire, what were they compared to him? The First Demon? The First Pillar?

They murmured in the quiet of his watchful gaze, and those who took note of his drifting eyes changed their tones and shifted their demeanors.

But that it took so long for them to even notice his observant eye… such a shame. Their ancestors, the original Pillars, were so much more. That this is what passes for the Seventy-Two Pillars now… the ignominy of it all. It almost brought a tear to his eye… well, if he were ever capable of crying, that is.

“…official statements claim that the Crown Prince is hunting Sinners in another reality…”

“Unverified leaks from sources in the Khaos Brigade are conflicting, saying that the Lord Wrath is grievously injured.”

“…the Satans have issued no statements regarding the Summit’s negotiations.”

“Beyond insulting, we deserve to know what bargains have been struck!”

“…and if the rumors of his condition hold any truth,” one of his senior allies murmured, “then the power balance, even if temporarily, may be… uneven.”

That drew a faint tightening of Zekram’s eyelids. Uneven? As if they were suddenly so capable of standing against the unified might of the Crown Princes, even if one of them was felled low.

Still, the conversation had reached the point where stupidity might begin to bloom if left unchecked.

“That will do,” Zekram said softly.

Every voice ceased at once.

He surveyed the obsidian table they sat along, though he was all too aware of their shifting discomfort, and nervous gazes. And again, he found himself missing the never-ending machinations of his siblings. Both those then and then before.

 Perhaps he should provoke Gremory again?

“Curb your ambitions,” Zekram said. “Your stomachs cannot hold the feast you desire.”

He allowed a brief pause.

“Even if the youngest of the five is grievously injured, it is not your turn to bare your fangs at the Satans. You would be no more than a pack of mangy wolves entering a den of tigers. Even if one is injured, the others would tear you asunder.”

No one contradicted him.

“Focus your attention elsewhere, take the opportunity to move unseen where otherwise you would draw eyes.”

He could not risk the Satans paying more attention to Infernity than they already were. And these overly ambitious louts would jeopardize the opportunity presented to him in their ridiculous need to grasp at the smallest morsel of power.

Yes, Zekram was well aware of the anomalies in Infernity.

His spies had readily informed him of the tremors that rocked the realm, of the wild distortions in its magical atmosphere and even that hints of the other Satans’ magicks were detected on the outer borders of the demonic realm.

His fingers curled slightly against the basalt table - an unconscious reaction to a most welcome truth.

The Upstart Satan was injured. That much was evident. But how severely?

He hummed as he pondered the possibilities – he could only think of three.

One, the Upstart was critically injured, potentially kept out of commission for years, perhaps even decades. This would be the most ideal scenario. Two, he was injured significantly but not debilitatingly. Perhaps already on the way to recovery. Three, he was already recovered but avoiding the public eye to keep others thinking he was seriously hurt. Perhaps to tempt enemies, both within and without, to tip their hands.

In this regard, these new Satans were no different than their predacessors; they loved playing with the minds of their lessers.

Zekram’s jaw clenched once—soft enough that only those closest to him would hear the faint click of teeth. It was impossible to tell which of the three was most likely the truth, as the Satans has quickly clamped down on the flow of information. And sensing their vexed moods, most of the Upper Nobility had decided to lay low and quiet, not daring to tempt the ire of the Dark Lords.

One of his vassals cleared her throat, drawing his gaze to her. “There is… another matter, Your Majesty. They say that,” she looked hesitant, a hint of fear as her eyes darted as she continued in a hushed voice, “they say that the Infinite Ouroboros has returned to this reality.”

There was a collective flinch in the room.

He kept his face impassive; the matter had long been known to him. He was old enough, wise enough, to have felt the shifts in the eddies of fate. And not just the Void Embodied – Old Ones like him hadn’t failed to notice, the Illusion of Dreams had returned its gaze to the Earth.

Even now as he sat here with his retainers, the pantheons and greater mythos did the same. Planning and plotting around the ramifications of the Divine Two influencing the universe once more.

His own personal network of spies had let him know that trepidation rippled through upper echelons of the more powerful mythos. But for all the consideration and planning, none knew why the had returned to this reality.

He drummed his thumb once against the table - soft, rhythmic and thoughtful.

A narrow window presented itself.

One of great possibility. The youngest of the five had been injured, of that he was sure. And the other Satans would have the bulk of their attention on protecting him, while also keeping up the war effort against the Old Satan Faction.

And with the Divine Pair active once more, they’d have to turn their gazes outside of the Empire as well. The Satans would be spread thin, and there would be gaps in their ever-watchful gazes.

He felt impatience coil low in his chest, a tightening muscle he had suppressed for millennia. He could feel the tide of dark swelling, a bulging desire to WantTakeHave.

Now was not the time… but perhaps… for just a moment… he could give into sweet temptation.

------

Ichigo surfaced into awareness with the quiet ease of one rising from deep water, the last traces of his conversation with the Dead Kings dissolving into an ambient hum that faded into the vastness of his soul. And, for a moment, he simply stood on the rooftop; feeling the stillness that rarely graced this place. And then, as ever, the stillness broke rather unceremoniously.

“About fucking time!”

Zangetsu’s irritable bark hit him the instant his senses fully settled. His white-haired reflection stood a few paces away with his arms wide and his face morphed into an irate scowl.

Ichigo drew in a slow breath and exhaled through his nose, willing himself calm despite Zangetsu floating forwards and shoving his (their?) face inches away.

Because of course.

Of fucking course.

It wasn’t enough that he just went through an existential crisis after learning his entire life had been set up and manipulated by immortal extra-dimensional beings and their boxes of temporal paradoxes. No, not even remotely. He had to immediately deal with his insane, sociopathic, beyond annoying Soul-Sword right afterwards.

Fucking Lucifer, out of all the Hollows in the universe, he had to get stuck with the loudest one. Why couldn’t his inner Hollow have been someone as quiet as Ulquiorra, or as sweet as Nel?

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Zangetsu said scathingly, no doubt having read his mind. “I don’t mean to interrupt your seventeen-millionth identity crisis of the year, but in case you haven’t noticed – WE’RE FUCKING DYING!!!”

“Yes, thank you,” Ichigo said aggravated. “I remember the giant pillar of divine light frying all my internal organs, thank you very much. But you know what the damndest thing is? When you’re dying, your entitled to think your day can’t get any worse. And yet here you fucking are! Doing just that!”

“Oh, fuck off, Ichigo!”

The two glared at each other for what seemed to be several minutes, but finally, Ichigo broke away with a huff and stared off into his soul.

His soul-city had been struck with a remarkable amount of violence.

Entire skyscrapers of demonic steel and glass had been decimated and left shattered, their spines bent under some invisible, crushing strain; others were split straight through with jagged fractures running from base to the pinnacle. And the culprit of it all seemed to be a series of giant spheres of luminous gold, flying through and tearing through whatever that got in their way.

That being said, across the avenues and alleys between the towers, black-and-crimson power surged in thick torrents, erupting from the channels that normally kept it contained and flinging giant surges of demonic essence against the encroaching gold in furious, crashing waves.

The Sin of Wrath was lashing outward, violently hunting down the alien divinity embedded in his world with prejudice.

Huh, for once that damn thing was actually helping him out.

However, Ichigo lifted his hand, palm open and steady, and the raging currents obeyed at once. The black-and-red flood recoiled from the city in a sweeping retreat, tearing itself free of the streets and foundations and raced toward him.

A rising ocean of suffocating fury that boiled upward beneath his feet, rearing as though it meant to swallow the skyline whole, before collapsing inward, compressing again and again until the entire tidal mass reduced itself into a sphere no larger than an apple. It hovered just above his palm and pulsed with a slow, malicious heartbeat.

Zangetsu looked at him in disbelief. “Seriously? The one thing that’s been keeping us relatively safe while you were off having a slumber party with undead Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and you’re calling it off?”

Ichigo rolled his eyes in exasperation. “I’m here now, aren’t I?”

Zangetsu raised both his hands and shook them mocking. “Oh, yay, super Ichigo to the rescue! Fucking Hell, it’s a good thing you’re evil now! If you were still one of the good guys, everyone would have died waiting for you to show up!”

“When the Hell did you become so melodramatic?” Ichigo asked, his irritation spiking.

“Gee, I don’t know! Maybe it has something to do with the FUCKING HOLES IN OUR SOUL!!!”

Ichigo rolled his eyes for what seemed to be umpteenth time. Lucifer, was he ever this annoying? Having Zangetsu as the reflection of his soul was downright embarrassing.

About to insult the Zanpakutō spirit back, the retort died in his throat as something in his soul shifted.

The scattered flecks of gold that still hung in the air where Wrath had withdrawn from began to stir, drawn together as if some distant hand had tightened its grip. Specks became threads; threads became streams; streams wound inward toward a single point at the edge of distant and broken skyscraper, where the pressure of that power settled like a weight on his lungs.

He knew that feeling, how could he not? It was the same one that had burnt him to a satanic crisp.

The gold compressed, light folding over itself until it coalesced into a humanoid shape. Robes of muted radiance, hair of dark onyx and a face of androgynous beauty that reminded him too much of the one true sovereign over all of Japan, mythic and mortal.

Ichigo’s eyes narrowed. “Tsukiyomi.”

The Shinto Moon did not deign to respond, instead, it regarded the destroyed sections of the city with a faint curl of his lip, gaze trailing from the bent towers to the inverted sea above and finally down to Ichigo himself. There was no curiosity in that look, no real interest, only a cold and faint disgust.

“So this is the soul of the little mongrel my sister chose to entangle herself with,” Tsukiyomi said, voice smooth and brittle. “How odious.”

Ichigo’s fingers tightened minutely around the compressed Wrath in his hand, but his tone remained flat. “Odious, huh? And yet, I can’t shake the feeling you’ve been watching me for a long time… the night Kokabiel invaded Japan, I remember there was a full moon out then.”

A faint smile, all ice and no warmth, ghosted across the immortal’s face. “Observant little atrocity, aren’t we?”

“Not just that,” Ichigo’s gaze hardened. “Kokabiel couldn’t have entered the vaults of Heaven unnoticed. But I imagine he had Ophis’ void-touch to slip past through the White City’s protection. And then, you aided him further by dropping the mythic barriers around Japan from Takamagahara. And let me guess, you intended to betray Kokabiel and take Rhongomyniad for yourself at some point?”

Tsukiyomi continued to smile down coldly at him. “Perceptive for a mortal, even an infernal one, aren’t you? No wonder my sister is so besotted with you. But I think it only fair, don’t you? My sister has a monstrous weapon, surely, I deserved one as well?”

Ichigo’s eyes narrowed and he glared at the divine moon. Letting out a snort, “And nearly damned both the living and dead worlds in the process. No wonder she banished you.”

The smile immediately slid off and Tsukiyomi’s expression cracked; not entirely, but enough for a maddened light to shine through. “You know nothing.” And the light bent around him, harsh and cold, a pale radiance that pricked his eyes and brought him pain.

I am the Moonlit Night, the Great!

Blessed Scion of Izanagi!

But then, his divine light flickered, and Tsukiyomi’s frowned in dissatisfaction as he lacked the divine energy to project his Will onto Ichigo’s soul any further.

“Do you not comprehend what it means to be banished to the edges of one’s own pantheon, written out of the tales that define our very existence? I was made a stranger to the very mortals that venerated my name! Mine own family, mine own home!” His voice sharpened, bitter and thin. “And for what? A minor servent of no consequence whose head I sundered? By birth, I am Lord of Takamagahara! To be so ungraciously rent from my birthright; it is like having one's core hollowed out and left to rot.”

Zangetsu raised a middle finger without hesitation. “You wanna talk hollowed? I’ll show you Hollow!”

Tsukiyomi’s eyes snapped to him, lip curling in distaste. “Ah, the abomination. A wretched parody of what a Zanpakutō spirit was meant to be, wrought by the rebellious Shinigami’s twisted machinations. Another miserable failing of my sister’s rule.”

Zangetsu’s grin widened, feral and vicious. Ichigo, however, spoke before he could launch into something worse.

“For once,” he said dryly, “I actually agree with the crazy sword.”

Zangetsu blinked, momentarily thrown. “...Eh?”

Ichigo didn’t bother to elaborate, instead he simply tossed the condensed Wrath toward his soul-sword.

The sphere collided with Zangetsu’s chest and detonated into a rushing tide that swallowed him whole, black-and-crimson mass pouring over his frame like molten tar.

“Not agai-gurggle!” Zangetsu began to bemoan, but was quickly cut off as the Sin of Wrath rushed down his throat and enveloped his entire frame.

Ichigo’s entire soul shook with tremendous force with a wave of malice and rage consuming his inner world as the two aspects of his power were made into one. And slowly, Zangetsu emerged whole.

Twice in his life, Ichigo had been overcome entirely by Zangetsu. The first time had been during his final battle with Ulquiorra atop the impossibly large fortress of Las Noches, deep in the heart of Hueco Mundo. That day, Ichigo was certain he had died, only to be brought back with force of Zangetsu’s rage.

The second time had been when Yuzu had been kidnapped and brought into the depths of Hell, when he thought his sister forever lost to the Fires of the First Flame and despair had entirely overcome him.

And both times, Zangetsu had stool fully Hollowfied.

But now?

As Zangetsu’s true Hollow form reemerged, it came twisted, inverted: reborn and Mantled in Wrath.

Where once gleaming white Hierro shone, now a pitch-dark carapace swallowed all light, its surface smooth and cold like the blackest night. And across that darkness ran deep, incandescent veins of fiery red, pulsing in flowing patterns along his mask and chest. Each line glowed with molten Hellfire, giving the impression of something barely contained: a demon forged in shadow and flame, raging with power that threatened to swallow every star in the sky.

And Ichigo stepped forward and casually thrust his hand into the smoldering Hollow hole without hesitation. Eyes burning crimson, he turned towards the apprehensive Moon and said:

“End All Hope, Zangetsu.”

And every world and every myth and all the slumbering stories now forgotten looked away, for none dared to look as Satan in Full reached for Eternity.

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A/N: This is a shorter chapter, just under 7k words, but there just so much happening and so much lore/info being dumped that I didn't want it getting overwhelming. A lot of dense information, so feel free to ask any question you may have and I'll try my best to answer without spoilers.