Author's Note I: Ties in with all my earlier works, as usual. OCs, AU, etc.
Nightfall
Many Decades Ago...
The afternoon sun was high in the sky, just beginning its downward descent in preparation for nightfall, and still the human toiled away on his little farm, determined to make use of every last bit of daylight. It was all rather pointless: he was meant to be a shinigami, a Soul Reaper, but here and now, trapped in this mortal shell, he was but a humble peasant working hard to eek out a meager, miserable human existence. The oblivious young man known as Anrak Ushii may have been ignorant of what he truly was and of the power sleeping deep within him, but Aka-En Hime knew all too well the truth behind her existence and their intertwined fates.
Here in the inner world, the inner world that Ushii currently knew nothing of, Aka-En thought of the future and the day that he would become cognizant of the truth. It was virtually unavoidable that they were destined to fight together, with her serving as his weapon, and the Red Flame Princess did not look forward to it: she had no real desire to dirty her hands in combat and while she would confess a small degree of fondness for the kind soul to which she was tethered, he was, in the end, just a commoner.
Really, she thought she'd have been better served having been born the zanpaktou of a noble.
Red eyes looked up towards the warm blue skies as she laid back, enjoying the bright sunlight. At the topmost edge of her vision was a Sakura tree in full bloom with a few stray petals gently falling and wafting down. She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, content: this perfect, beautiful inner world was her home, and it was the way it was largely because of who Ushii was and the measure of his heart: had she been born to a noble, as would have been more fitting for her status, there was no guarantee her home would be as utterly perfect and peaceful as this.
Above her crimson hair flickered a crown of flame, hovering just a couple of inches above her brow: all Princesses needed a crown, after all, and the Red Flame Princess was no exception. One of the pink Sakura petals drifting downward on a gentle breeze touched said crown, and was immediately incinerated into oblivion.
A pity, but such was the fate of all who challenged the fire.
A cloud, white and puffy, passed by in front of the sun, bringing a scowl to her face: she hated the shadow it cast, hated the darkness...but the clouds were unavoidable for now, having appeared in the wake of Ushii losing his wife to raiders in the area. His grief had created them, his grief sustained them, and until he finally moved on, there would always be clouds.
It was a testament to his fortitude that there weren't more of them, though for two weeks straight following her death, the sky had turned black and there had been nonstop rain, enough that it almost extinguished the crown of fire.
Aka-En pitied her master: she could feel his pain, but she could do little to spare him from it. He was a good man with a kind heart and commoner or no, he did not deserve this hurt. The best she could do was to try and watch over him as he slept and when his dreams took a turn towards darkness, towards nightmares of his wife's death, try and pull him back into the light.
It was not always successful, but it was better than nothing and to have spared him even an ounce of hurt made her feel pleased.
Perhaps that was a sign that when the time came that they had to fight together that they would do well...
Still, she'd prefer to never have to fight: if only every day could be this quiet and peaceful and sunny, she would be perfectly happy.
It was this sense of complacency that led her to put off developing her own powers and designing what her physical blade would eventually look like: Ushii was but twenty and had quite a few decades left before it was time for him to go to the Soul Society, so there was no rush to begin preparations for their lives as shinigami and zanpaktou.
She stretched a hand skyward, a hand clad in elaborate golden full-finger rings encrusted with blazing red jewels that contained the essence of flame within them, and mimed pushing the cloud aside as it finally drifted out of the sun's path and allowed her to bask in the glorious light and warmth once more.
Ah, perfect.
Outside in the real world, the physical world, Ushii toiled away in his field, tending to his crop of sweet potatoes. Farming was dirty work, hard work, and not something the Princess personally cared for, but it was Ushii's profession in this life, and it seemed to bring him some measure of peace, a peace he needed since his wife's death.
The clouds mostly faded into nothing, leaving but two or three small ones left to worry about and once Ushii found someone else, another mate, they should vanish entirely.
Aka-En could not wait for that day.
Inside the inner world, she closed her eyes and relaxed as she soaked in the warmth of the sun, though she was keenly aware of the real world that her master inhabited and what was occurring around him. Eyes closed and yet she could clearly see through his eyes, could see him brushing up the soil around a potato that was too exposed. She saw him dust off his hands on his pants, which brought a scowl to her face as she unconsciously moved her own hands down to her own spotless white dress as if to brush off the dirt.
She also saw something else at the very edge of his vision: a black shadow watching Ushii with hungry yellow eyes.
He could not perceive it himself as his spiritual pressure was nearly non-existent, but Aka-En could see it very clearly. She knew what it was, why it was there...and more importantly, who it was.
It had been little more than a month since Ushii's wife had died and though he could not see the figure, Aka-En had seen the soul of the recently-departed woman wandering around the farm, reaching out to him, calling to him, but to no avail. Aka-En had also noticed that the chain leading to the spirit's chest was getting shorter by the day, and she instinctively knew what would come when it finally reached her heart.
It happened six nights ago; the spirit was absent from the small farm house and Ushii was in the throes of another nightmare wherein he was too late to save her again. Aka-En had interfered in his dream, struggling to pull him back from despair and direct his dreams to to happier memories and just as she finally succeeded in saving him from that darkness, she heard the unmistakable cry of a newborn hollow coming from the woods around the farm.
She'd felt a pang in her own heart at that bloodcurdling sound: the wife he loved so, the person he treasured most in this world, had finally succumbed to her own despair and become a monster.
Ever since then, the shadow lingered around the edges of the farm, watching Ushii intently as he continued on with his daily chores. Aka-En knew he was in no way prepared to fight a hollow and, truth be told, neither was she; no, their only hope was that the beast would retain enough feeling for him to turn away and go hunt elsewhere or that a fully-trained shinigami would happen by and slay the creature.
Six nights, five days, and so far the hollow had not attacked...
There was clearly still a part of her that was still human, still resisting the powerful urge to feed...
Aka-En couldn't help but admire that strength: precious few people could even hold out for longer than a day or two, much less five days. Such a powerful bond between mates...it was to be envied, really.
All the same, she knew it could not last forever: the hunger always won in the end.
And today those eyes looked especially hungry...
Aka-En sat up from her grassy bed, eyes wide open and her gilded fingers tightening into fists, preparing for the worst but hoping desperately that a shinigami would chance upon the scene before anything happened...
The shadow backed into the tree line and the yellow eyes faded from view.
A tense Aka-En got to her feet, backing up against the Sakura tree warily. A minute passed, then two, but the shadow did not reappear.
A relieved sigh passed through her lips as she relaxed her posture: once again, they had avoided certain death.
And outside, in the real world, the material world, the mortal world, Anrak Ushii remained completely oblivious to the peril he had been in.
Well...it was better that way. For now, anyway: best to enjoy the fleeting peace of life while they could because once they crossed over to the Soul Society, they would likely end up as agents of the Seireitei eventually. Tomorrow would be Ushii's birthday, his twenty-second: still plenty of life left for him to live, plenty of time to find another mate and make those pesky clouds disappear forever...
Aka-En sat back down, leaning back against the Sakura tree as a warm, gentle breeze caressed her flawless face, and she smiled. Yes indeed, this peaceful and quiet life was just fine with her, even if her master was but a commoner.
Hell, perhaps they could both be lucky and his next mate be from a wealthy family: wouldn't that be something, to move from this simple farm into a luxurious mansion? Ushii could get a beautiful new wife and Aka-En wouldn't have to look out at the dreary farmland through his eyes ever again...and maybe the sunshine in here would become even brighter.
That would be simply amazing.
A few pink petals lazily floated by on the breeze and Aka-En turned his eyes away from the outside world that Ushii saw to watch them drift by: so graceful and elegant, dancing on the wind to an unheard melody... It was almost enough to make her want to sing, though she didn't think she had the vocal talents for such: Ushii's late wife had, though, and she had positively loved to sing. Aka-En had sometimes wondered what kind of song the woman could have come up with had she seen this beautiful little world.
As it was, Ushii was quietly humming a melody to himself as he went about tilling the soil, a silly, lighthearted little dilly his now-deceased mate had come up with one day while doing their daily chores.
He had considered buying a shamisen and teaching himself to use it as a surprise for her for her next birthday, to give some true music to her beautiful vocals. The simple three-stringed instrument wouldn't be terribly hard to learn, though Aka-En sincerely doubted he had any talent for it: no, she could already sense where his real talents lay, and swinging around farming tools was much closer to the truth than playing some silly little instrument.
He would discover that in time, when they finally crossed over to the Soul Society.
She slipped off her surprisingly-simple sandals, allowing the soft grass to tickle her feet, and she shivered in delight.
And then she heard an inhuman raspy voice singing the lyrics to the song Ushii had been humming.
Red eyes went wide with fear.
"No!" she cried out, hoping Ushii might hear her, hear the urgency, and run...
He heard nothing and continued his work as the black-bodied, white-masked fox-bodied hollow circled around him hungrily, singing in a grotesque voice.
"You don't want to do this..." Aka-En muttered, her face ashen. "You love him...and he loves you!"
The hollow didn't hear her words, either.
Now in front of Ushii, it stood on its hind legs and using its front limbs, limbs with human-like fingers tipped with claws, shot out and seized him tightly by his biceps, lifting him into the air to be eye-level with its death mask. Ushii screamed in fright, unable to see what had grabbed him but most definitely able to feel the claws digging into his flesh, crimson blood pouring down the length of his arms.
"Please..." whispered the zanpaktou spirit to anyone or anything that would listen, "spare him..."
The song continued unabated, the tune a hideous mockery of what it had originally been.
The maw of the beast opened, slavering jaws held wide as it drew Ushii in closer, almost embracing him...and then they slammed shut on his left shoulder, tearing into the skin and fracturing bone.
The hapless human screamed and struggled against a still-unseen assailant and Aka-En could do nothing to help her master but weep: his pain was her pain, and his fear...it was not her fear, but all the same, she could feel it in her heart so powerfully. If she could have traded places with him at that moment, to spare him some of it, she would have. This...this wasn't right: this was a twisted nightmare that no soul should endure!
"Monster..." breathed a wounded Anrak finally as he was at last able to make out the hollow that had hungrily latched onto him. "Monster!"
The word only spurred the beast to bite down harder, transforming Anrak's words into a shrill scream of pain.
He was losing consciousness fast, but through his half-lidded eyes Aka-En saw something emerge from the woods behind the creature, saw someone emerge... The newcomer was clad entirely in white and as he held out an arm like an archer minus the bow, a strangle bangle could be seen hanging from his wrist.
A bangle that erupted into a blazing blue bow of pure reishi.
Aka-En did not know what she was seeing: she had an innate knowledge of the Soul Society, of shinigami, of hollows, and of the natural order of life and death, as all zanpaktou spirits had, but this person was something beyond the scope of said order: this was someone, or something, that defied the plans laid out by the Soul King so many eons ago.
Still, if this person could be of any help...
"Save him!" she cried out to the stranger, knowing full well he could not hear her voice.
A blazing arrow ripped through the afternoon air, tearing a hole straight through both the hollow and its victim.
"No..." muttered Aka-En as the hollow roared in pain and dissipated into nothingness, dropping Anrak even as his soul began to leave his broken shell. It wasn't supposed to end like this...not like this...the strange man in white was supposed to save him, not kill him! Aka-En was furious, but the stranger showed no concern for the human victim: the reishi bow disappeared and he turned to head back into the forest without so much as a glance back towards the slain man.
Once again, she felt powerless to do anything.
And that was when she noticed an inky darkness desperately clinging to Anrak's soul as it ascended towards Soul Society, a black impurity, the last remnants of the hollow, still seeking to devour him...
This time, though, Aka-En vowed that she would not be useless.
"Here!" she bellowed out, as loud as she could, her crown blazing brightly and shining as a beacon for the hungering darkness. "Come and get me!"
The gambit worked and the darkness began to slither towards her instead of the rest of Anrak's soul.
Still, she had not the power to destroy the taint: at best, she could fight it and hold it at bay and hope that when they finished crossing over that the darkness would not survive the journey, but if that was all she was capable of, then so be it: she would not abandon her master in his hour of need!
The shadows encircled her as she pressed her back against the Sakura tree, hungry tendrils reaching out for her greedily.
Closer...closer...
They were so close now that she could feel them licking her warm, tan skin...
She had but one chance to weaken them enough to seize some semblance of control, and it was now or never: she would have to give herself the command her master could not.
"Sear, Aka-En Hime!"
Laying face-down in the grass, she awoke with a start, gasping as if waking from a terrible nightmare, because the fuzzy memories clouding her head could be nothing but a nightmare, but she could not recall having fallen asleep...or having ever actually slept before... Wearily, she pushed herself up to her knees, shivering as an unusually cool breeze brushed against her bare arm and made her bristle. Why was it so damn cold in here all of a sudden?
She blinked her eyes, still damp and bleary with tears of fear, of pain, of rage, of helplessness, of loss, and noticed another new and unwelcome development: her inner world had gone dark. Aka-En turned her head to where the sun should have been, but in its stead found only a full moon, fat and round with a cool white hue shining in the night sky, a few small clouds idly hanging nearby.
So...not a nightmare: it had been real, all of it, and this was the price she had to pay for defeating the shadow: her perfect, beautiful inner world had been plunged into eternal darkness for her defiance.
Still, if she lived, that meant Ushii lived, or rather, that his soul still existed, and that alone made it all worth it.
He was just now waking up, too.
In the Soul Society, somewhere in the Rukon districts, laying on the the bare dirt ground in some sort of small open-air market.
"Where am I?" he muttered, looking around at the dirty, rag-wearing people who walked past him with no regard. Aka-En could feel his confusion and the hazy fog clouding his mind, and the rising fear that came with it: he remembered nothing of his old life other than his name, as was fairly common when crossing over, but while she innately recognized it to be a common occurrence or not, he did not know and it was terrifying him.
"Breathe," she hissed through clenched teeth as she tried to stand up. He couldn't hear her, that much remained unchanged, but she had to try.
"Someone help me, please..." he begged, chest heaving as he frantically looked for a friendly face willing to provide answers. "I don't know what's going on!"
"Calm down," Aka-En ordered firmly, leaning heavily against her tree. "Calm down and just breathe."
No one stopped to help the confused man and Aka-En found herself repeating her order three more times before Ushii began to calm himself down and just breathe, as she had been instructing him all along. He still had not heard her, she knew that, but it was a start.
Now that his mild panic attack was subsiding, she had to assess their situation and figure out how best to proceed. She turned to look at her beautiful Sakura tree, to draw strength from its magnificence, but she recoiled in horror and fell backwards onto the grass when she saw how barren and dead it was now.
"No..." she whispered, scrambling around and crawling over towards the base of the tree. "They're gone, all of them..."
She put a hand on the dead husk and noticed that her gilded finger-length rings were gone, replaced with only a couple of small silver rings, and that her skin had become quite pale. She ignored her skin in favor of focusing on her treasured rings of gold: if they were gone, then what about...
She reached up over her head, searching, feeling...
Nothing.
Her crown of flame was gone, finally extinguished.
All her efforts did was knock a few errant strands of shoulder-length ebony hair loose to come dangle down in front of her face. She looked down, taking in her new appearance as best she could: her spotless white gown, the only garment appropriate for a Princess, was gone, being replaced with loose-fitting black hakama pants and a sleeveless blue top, a dark silver pendant now hanging around her neck rather than the brilliant gold necklace that had been there previously, and the full weight of her situation came crashing down around her.
Aka-En was no more.
Aka-En was dead.
The now-nameless zanpaktou began to choke up, feeling sick from the overwhelming sense of loss that permeated her very core.
"I've lost everything... My sun, my tree, my rings, my crown, my color, my life, my home..."
At least Ushii was safe...even if he was dead...and it was all her fault.
"I couldn't protect him... I wasn't strong enough...and...in the end...I killed him..."
No, that wasn't right: she hadn't killed him, that had been...
The hollow.
The hollow that had once been his wife.
The hollow that she had fought to destroy or at least contain...
Aka-En, the last remnants of Ushii's wife, and the damnedable hollow were now one being, an unholy amalgamation existing within the depths of Ushii's soul.
All three were dead, but not dead, mere shadows of their former selves.
It was hard to process, and one thought kept drowning out everything else with thunderous claps inside her skull.
"I killed him...it's my fault...it's all my fault...I killed him..."
Her chest hurt.
"I failed him by being too weak, and now he's dead...lost and alone, scared...because of me..."
The guilt was maddening.
The pain in her chest was unbearable.
The spirit threw her head back and screamed, a screeching inhuman cry that sounded ominously hungry, and white spittle flew from her mouth and began to cover her face, rapidly hardening. Eyes that once were red but now a cool blue widened as she realized this was hollowfication and that if she lost to the beast within her now, she would do much, much worse to Ushii than simply kill him.
"NO!" she cried even as her chest continued to spasm and more white spittle seeped from the pores of her face, trying to complete a death's head mask for her.
And already she could feel the sickening hunger in her gut...
"No..." she grunted, forcing herself to stand. "I've failed him too many times already...not again...never again!"
She jerked her head forward, slamming her face into the dead tree with all the power she could muster, but the partial mask remained firmly in place and steadily continued to grow.
Her failure cause a rage to swirl about inside her, bringing with it a familiar and comforting warmth she'd feared lost forever. She embraced that warmth, drawing strength from it to continue her fight against the darkness.
She slammed her face against the tree again, "I." And again, "Will." Again, "Not." And again. "FAIL!"
With the final impact, large sections of the white mask finally broke off and began to fall towards the grass, disintegrating into wispy black shadows before finishing their descent. Shaky hands reached up to grip the remains of the mask around its edges, pulling with every last ounce of her might.
"LEAVE US ALONE!"
With that last defiant cry, the mask finally tore free from her face and she slammed it against the tree, shattering it into a thousand tiny black shadows.
She stumbled backwards, falling onto her behind beneath the full moon and the shadow of the dead tree, panting from the exertion. This was her lot now, their lot... Her flames were gone, leaving her in darkness, and her darkness was naught but a mere shadow when compared to the demon trapped inside her.
And it wasn't just the hollow she had to contend with: the feelings of Ushii's wife were now a part of her, leaving her with an affection for her master that would have been unthinkable before.
Master...
No. She could not think of him as that anymore. To have a master was to be a slave, and to be a slave was to be weak and she would never be weak again, both for her sake and for his.
...especially his.
She knew now that she had to do whatever it took to get stronger and a vow was made: she would become strong, powerful, and in turn, so would he. Never again would death claim them so easily. She also knew that such a journey would take time, a lot of time, given their current level, but if that was to be the case...so be it.
She may have been a shadow of her former self, but in order to achieve her goals she had to be unrelenting in her pursuit of power.
An unrelenting shadow...
And just like that, the nameless zanpaktou found herself a new name, a new identity which would make her ambitions clear to all.
Kage Shitsukoi.
A wicked smile crossed her face. Oh yes, she rather liked the sound of that.
Outside in the Rukon, Ushii was already moving on as well, walking down the unfamiliar streets and learning about his new home and coming to grips with the idea that this was the afterlife. He would undoubtedly go into work as a farmer again because of the muscle memory ingrained into him: while his mind may have forgotten his mortal life, his body had not and he would instinctively seek out the comfort of that familiarity.
That was fine for now: he could keep his strength and stamina up that way while Kage Shitsukoi, no...while Kagi...began to explore what her new powers and abilities were and determine how best to develop them. She would spend time designing herself a physical blade form, both the base and the shikai he would inevitably need to survive in this new landscape, and she would work on finding a way to make her voice reach him so that she might steer him in the desired direction of the Seireitei itself.
The Seireitei was the center of power in the afterlife, and the power to protect that which she loved most and defeat all who would be her enemies was something Kagi desperately needed.
Ushii could not know the truth about everything, about who she was, what she was, what she had been, what had really happened to them, of why she cared so much for him... He could not know, not now, not ever: his was a kind heart, too kind and soft to handle these truths and while she fully intended to steel his heart and mind and forge him into a warrior rather than the pacifistic love-sick farm boy he had been, she doubted he would ever be strong enough to handle the soul-destroying weight of the truth.
In order to protect him, she would have to keep secrets. She would have to lie. She might even need to manipulate him in order to get him to follow the new path she had in mind for him, a path that differed so very much from anything he had ever known...
She would become his inner demon, his inner strength, and even as a shadow, his guiding light.
He might resent her for what was to come over the next few years. He might even skip resentment and go straight to raw hatred when she considered all the varied sins she might have to commit to accomplish her goals... But so long as he survived, and not just survived, but thrived in this new world...she could bear that weight. She could live with being reviled if she had to, but he would become strong under her guidance, powerful...
And with that newfound power, they would punish all hollows for the crime of his death and for turning her into this...creature of darkness. She would utterly destroy anything, and anyone, who got in the way of their vengeance, her vengeance...
Kagi reached back, straightening her disheveled ebony hair and tying it back into a small ponytail as she looked up at the moon. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, a calming breath, pushing out all of her earlier fears and worries as she exhaled. And then, inexplicably, she felt the need to...sing...to sing like Ushii's wife had done, but the dark tune in her heart was nothing like the merry little jaunts of that pathetic mortal woman.
Blinded by hate brought by the fall,
As I swear death to all,
You will feel my vengeance
As I claim your soul!
I will punish and destroy
Those responsible for this ploy!
I will seek a thousand deaths,
I will bring a thousand years of war!
All that I had taken away!
My home is gone, and my love ones slain!
For every sleep claims a piece of me,
Every waking moment, every single dream...
As the masses came,
Like a shadow through this land,
They laid siege to all we ever had!
I stood strong, I was honor bound!
I stand defiant, I stand ever proud!
I am the chosen,
I am the guardian, his guardian!
Now I seek the blood of those
Who claimed the innocent!
I will hunt the enemy to the last!
I will banish and rejoice
The final breath of foes!
You will see what you have made!
For a split second, those sapphire-blue eyes flashed an inhuman amber, menacing and hungry, though Kagi remained oblivious to the oh-so-brief change.
You will see what I have finally become!
...
..
.
Author's Note II: It's been a while since I've posted anything, I know: much of what I write now I keep for myself as I feel general interest in Bleach has waned. Mine has, certainly, but I can't abandon the little universe I've created and the characters that call it home. This piece was unplanned, spurred into existence following an email exchange with ziggy. The song at the end is Mortal Reminder by Pentakill, with the lyrics modified some to better fit. ziggy recommended Pentakill's Infinity Edge, but I felt MR was a better fit: feel free to look up Infinity Edge on youtube and let me know if you agree or not.
Either way, now we see a bit more of why Kagi is the way she is, and I hope it didn't disappoint.