Gateway 57

After the fight, things settled back down for me.

For the rest of the 11th, on the other hand, everything changed.

At first, Zaraki was happy to lose. It meant he still had goals to achieve, and he was already planning on how to do so as soon as he woke up.

And then I told him why we had that fight in the first place.

To say that it hit him hard would be an understatement. The knowledge that his subordinates were stunting their growth and weakening themselves on purpose to follow his example left him downtrodden and pissed off at the same time, especially now that he knew just how far one could go with those skills.

His solution was simple: he declared that all seated officers must at least have a means to heal themselves in battle.

The consequences of that was that the only seated officers left were me and Ikkaku, and Ikkaku was on thin ice since the healing salve in his Zanpakuto wasn’t that good.

Of course, that was only the beginning. I didn’t have the time or the patience to teach magic to the entire division. Thankfully, the Captain Commander gave me free rein, and Zaraki more than agreed.

And so, my reign of terror started.

Every Monday morning, I’d assemble the division and cast a spell on them, leaving them to deal with it on their own. The only one spared was Yachiru. She got one-on-one classes with me two times a week. For that, I had set up a library with dozens of copies of my Hogwarts books for them to use.

And yes, I was only teaching them magic from the Wizarding World. I was still learning Kido myself, and there were plenty of other people who could teach it to them instead.

As for the healing requirement Zaraki put on the seated officer positions, well, they could humble themselves and ask for help from someone on the 4th. That’d do them some good.

My methods didn’t go over well with the 11th. The spells I cast on them were the type that kept their effects unless countered, and I didn’t remove them once the week ended, so the ones with less aptitude were forced to study more. Otherwise, the compounding effects would make them unable to train.

That said, everyone else loved it. The first week alone had me casting the Herbifors spell, which made flowers sprout from the target’s head, and the following week’s Leek jix was just as successful. The motivation that having flowers sprouting from your head and leeks sprouting from your ears gave the 11th propelled everyone into taking it seriously, which was good, because I didn’t remain so merciful for long.

___

One of the main things that happened to me during that time came the day after my fight with Zaraki.

I reached my office in the morning to find a few documents with a note on top of them.

Now, that wouldn’t be particularly noteworthy on its own, I hired pencil pushers for a reason, except for the note at the top not being about some random incident, but reading:

“This is your ‘ten percent’ share, don’t spend it all in one place!”

Followed by a drawing of a face looking suspiciously like Isane sticking her tongue out and pulling one of her eyelids down.

“Was that what she was so smug about?” I wondered. And looking at the deposit receipt under the note, I understood why.

Hollows had bounties, that was normal. Hollows who evaded Shinigami for a long enough time had high bounties, that was expected. Hollows who killed Shinigami had very high bounties, that made sense.

But Hollows who made a Captain retreat? They had insane bounties. And what I mean by that is that, with only 10% of it, I managed to straight-up buy my own place in a great location and still have enough left over to pre-pay a year of taxes. I couldn’t even imagine what Isane would do with her part of the money.

The house I bought wasn’t large, since real estate in the Seireitei was always at a premium. But it provided enough space for me to spread my wings a little. My quarters at the 11th were decent, but nothing compared to having a home to return to.

Setting up everything for me to move there was a breeze. I conjured the furniture to match my tastes (mostly Western, with some Japanese in the common areas), and one read through a book of common household spells left me without worries on that front.

More than that, though, it gave me the space to have my own study, and that was all the push I needed to finally sit down and open Severus’ Journal on Dark Magic.

At first, I thought Severus was playing a prank on me, the initial pages of his journal explicitly saying that every Jinx, Hex, and Curse was, by definition, dark magic, was pretty ludicrous when you considered that all three of them were taught to first years at Hogwarts.

As I kept reading, the feeling didn’t abate. Most ‘dark’ spells were just spells that were made to cause some type of harm. Entrail Expelling and Blood Boiling were some of the worst stuff I found in that area of the journal, and while they were pretty gruesome and sadistic, they didn’t really feel dark.

And then, I came upon a page that made my blood turn to ice.

You’d think it’d be about one of the unforgivables or some other equally abhorrent spell, but no, the page detailed a simple comparison between two similar spells, one dark and one not.

The Laceration curse and the Severing charm.

One was made to be used as a knife replacement in wizarding daily life, which I had used to defeat a Shinigami Captain in combat. The other, created by Severus Snape, was made to replicate a sword in combat and cause the maximum amount of irreversible damage possible.

I took a common household charm and made it into a ridiculously powerful weapon. But what if I had used the Laceration curse instead of the Severing charm? How much more powerful would my last attack have been?

From there on, the journal got into what Severus called the true dark magic. Magic that required not only intent, but also an emotional component for someone to cast it.

The Laceration curse, for instance, was specifically made to cause permanent damage to your enemies. If you didn’t see someone as your enemy or if you didn’t want to cause them permanent damage, the curse would fail.

And I understood why Severus told me that dark magic was a corrupting force. It wasn’t because it had inherent properties that’d turn you evil, but because you’d turn yourself evil by continually pulling on your darkest parts.

By the end of it, I was left with a lot to think about, and I’d revisit that journal several times in the following weeks.

___

It was around two months after my fight with Zaraki that the first healing qualifications started coming in the form of Ikkaku and Yumichika bursting through my office door first thing in the morning, certificates in hand, while fighting to see who’d deliver theirs first.

“I got mine first!” Yumichika said, pushing Ikkaku away.

“That was just the order they were giving it! And I got here first anyway!” Ikkaku screamed back, kicking Yumichika away.

Both of them rushed to my table, slamming their certificates on it almost at the same time.

“Yes!” Ikkaku crowed, raising his hands in a victory pose.

I let Ikkaku cheer for a few seconds. Even with his promotion to the third seat, he had seen the writing on the wall and joined Yumichika in the official 4th division healing course. Luckily for them, they were in the good graces of most of the division since I tasked them with preventing the 11th from harassing other divisions. Otherwise, I could see members of the 4th throwing every obstacle they could to delay them.

When I thought Ikkaku’s gloating over a defeated Yumichika was enough, I cleared my throat and looked at them with my most deadpan expression.

“You two do know that healing is just a basic requirement, and that you’ll still need to fight to decide who goes to which position, right?” I asked, watching as they dropped the exaggerated reactions to genuine smirks, and they took hold of the hilt of their Zanpakuto.

“We’re ready for that,” Ikkaku said.

“Indeed,” Yumichika agreed.

“Good, we’ll do that before dinner,” I nodded, giving them permission to leave.

I didn’t have the heart to tell them that Yachiru had gotten her own certificate a month before them, and that she had declined going back to being a seated officer now that she didn’t run the risk of getting harassed everywhere she went.

___

After finishing up whatever paperwork I had for the day, I left the division to have a coffee with a new friend I had made.

We had only met a few times before now, but our discussions on morals and justice were enlightening, especially for someone in my position as King.

Captain Tousen’s conviction of changing a corrupt system through its inner workings was inspiring, although underwhelming. The way I saw it, uniting the Captains to use a show of force to push through political change would have been better.

Arriving at the café, I found Tousen sitting on the patio under the morning sun, tea already in hand.

“Thank you for coming, Alex,” he said before I reached his table, making me pause for a moment before I finished my approach and sat down.

“Of course, Tousen,” I nodded. Tousen may have been blind, but his spiritual sensing was so high that he might as well not be.

From what he’d told me, most Captains had similar skills, as the speed at which high-level Shinigami fights occurred easily surpassed their regular senses. He was just the only one to need it outside of combat.

Unfortunately for me, that was a skill currently beyond me. My natural abilities as a Campione meant my regular senses just adapted to the speed, and I’d probably need to find a way to restrict them to train that.

“So, what’s the theme for today?” I asked after I gave my order.

“Theme?” He wondered, taking a sip of his tea. The Jasmin and Lavender fragrance permeating the area around us.

“Yeah, theme,” I said, leaning back on my seat. “We’ve talked about the different types of justice, morality, and corruption. All using the Soul Society’s current political situation as examples.” I leaned forward. “Now the question is: what’s next?”

He mulled over my answer as the waiter came with my order. The smell of coffee and chocolate filled my nostrils as I took a sip from my mocaccino.

“You aren’t wrong for noticing a pattern in our talks,” Tousen finally said. “But the theme for this meeting isn’t for me to decide.”

As he said so, I felt a familiar spiritual pressure entering the café.

“Because,” Tousen continued. “I wasn’t the one to call this meeting.”

“Tousen, Alex, sorry for my delay,” I turned to the voice, ignoring the soft knock on my mind’s Door to see Captain Aizen approaching us with a smile.

“Aizen?” I asked, raising an eyebrow at him for his activated Shikai.

“Ah, sorry about that,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “But from what Captain Tousen said about your talks, I thought it best to make this a private talk.”

I leaned back in surprise as he took a seat.

“Well, now I’m interested,” I said, looking at both Captains.

“I thought you’d be,” Aizen said with a smile as the waitress approached us. “Your push for direct action in the face of corruption is commendable,” he frowned. “Unfortunately, the rot in Soul Society goes much deeper than what Kaname told you.”

I nodded at him even as I watched the waitress, who was staring at Aizen’s head nodding before signing something in her notepad and leaving. Who knew illusions could be so handy?

Turning back my attention to Aizen, I asked, “How much deeper can it be? Central 46, the noble clams, and even the Gotei 13, to some extent. There’s not much farther than that. Who else? The Soul King?”

I mean it as a joke, but Aizen snorted, and through that, I saw. I saw beyond the gentle and carefree mask he wore to the cynical and desperate man inside.

My eyes widened, but Aizen quickly raised his hand in a stop motion.

“I didn’t expect you to reach directly for the Soul King,” he sighed. “But I should have known you’d go for it. So let me assure you that no, the Soul King isn’t corrupt.”

I sighed in relief. I really didn’t want to think what a corrupt God from a monotheistic universe where his military leaders were as strong as Campione could do.

And then Aizen opened his mouth again.

“It’s much worse than that. The Soul King isn’t anything at all,” he said seriously. “The Soul King is just, a mindless thing, that exists to hold the realms together.”

From the look on my face, he managed to predict my next question: and why is that a problem?

“As you are a Westerner, I take it you know the concept of original sin?” He asked, and at my nod, continued. “Soul Society has its own original sin. In the beginning, there wasn’t a separation between the World of the Living, Soul Society, and Hueco Mundo. In this chaotic world, spiritual and physical particles existed together, and life and death were not distinct, until the Soul King.

The Soul King separated this primordial world into the three realms we have today. But, the founders of the five great noble houses weren’t content with just that, so they did the unthinkable: they attacked the Soul King, separating his limbs and organs from his body, and sealing him up in a crystal with restraints on his powers.”

“The original sin,” I nodded, horrified.

“After that, they used the crystal as the Linchpin to hold the realms in their place. But it isn’t stable. The three realms must be in balance. Otherwise, reality starts fraying. That’s what Shinigami do. We are, first and foremost, the ones who keep the balance.”

“So, what’s the plan?” I asked. Because there was a reason they decided to tell me all of this, and I couldn’t see it being anything but a way to fix things.

“The reason for the instability of reality is the lack of conscious control from the Soul King,” Aizen said. “Logically, the only way to permanently stabilise reality is to kill it and replace it with someone who can consciously control things.”

I couldn’t help it, I laughed.

Aizen’s solution made perfect sense. It was partially how my own universe worked: the gods held the Netherworld together. The only difference was that while here they only had one being on the job, we had thousands.

As my laughter subsided, I saw both Captains looking at me like I was mad. With a final chuckle, I stood up and looked at them.

“I never properly introduced myself, have I?” I said, before giving them a bow. Not a standard Asian bow, but a Western one. “I am Alexander Lupi,” I said, standing up. “Back home, my siblings and I have several titles: Devil King, Demon Lord, Campione…”

As I talked, I returned to my seat. Toused looked shocked, but Aizen? The spark in his eyes and the smile on his face could only mean one thing: glee.

“...But the one title I see you caring about the most?” I leaned forward with a smirk. “Godslayer.”

___

A/N: And that’s that.

A small timeskip over the slice-of-life stuff, and Aizen makes his move!

As always, thank you all for your support! See you again next week.