Chapter Nineteen - Frozen Justice

He was by the sea again.


As he walked slowly along the damp sands that flanked the receding tide, Juushirou glanced around him, but there was no one else for miles. Today the sky was clear, however, and the sound of birdsong over the gentle hush of the waves made him feel reassured rather than lonely.

The storm had passed, then – for now at least.

"Juushirou."

The word was a whisper on the wind, but even so, Juushirou knew that someone, somehow had called his name. He gazed at the sand, his eyes widening as he saw, pace by pace with his own, a row of more delicate footprints beginning to form alongside him in the sand. It was as though someone was walking with him, and instinctively he held out his fingers, hoping to discover whether or not his mind was teasing him. As he did so, something as light as a feather brushed across his palm, and he stopped dead, staring at his hand as, little by little fragments of light began to gather around it, forming first a haze, then, piece by piece he saw fingers…a wrist…a ghostly, ethereal arm. As he raised his eyes, he met the storm grey ones of a spectral woman standing beside him, her fingers intertwined in his outstretched ones.

She was translucent and faint, yet even so he was not afraid.


"Hahaue." He murmured.

There was silence, then the woman nodded.

"I am." She agreed quietly. "And I am not."

"This is a dream." Juushirou whispered, reaching up to touch his face, then, slowly and gingerly stretching his fingers out to brush against her shoulder. "You...aren't really there – I can see the sea right through your body even now. You don't...really look like that. I never saw you - this is my...my imagination..."

"This is a dream." Raiko agreed. "But this is not your imagination. You see me as I am, Juushirou. As I was, the day I held you and wished for all my strength to keep you safe from harm. The day we met, and the day we said goodbye. This is the woman I was then. This is how you see me now."

"But...are you...a ghost? Haunting me?" Juushirou took a step back, his hand dropping to his side as he tried to process this information coherently. "Possessing me? Can you do that? After all this time...can you...?"

"I am not a ghost. Raiko is dead, and her spirit is gone." The woman shook her head. "I am all that remains of her. The mother's love that stirred inside of her, and which gave you life. The remaining, lingering flicker of spirit power that willed you to take your first breaths. The soul named Raiko no longer exists. I am her, and yet I am not."

Juushirou bit his lip.

"Then…are you....In?" He whispered, and the woman smiled.

"No. I am Raiko, not In." She said, shaking her head. "In is a part of your soul where I and my love for you are reflected. But she is a part of you, and I am something else. Something deeper. Something that has always been here, watching over you and waiting for the time when we'll speak."

Juushirou did not answer at first, then he frowned.

"You gave me your strength, in order that I lived." He murmured. "Father said it, and so have other people. That's what you are, isn't it? The little piece of Hahaue that still exists - the part that gave me life. You're not her, because Hahaue died. But you still are inside of me...because I'm alive thanks to you. My strength - my reiatsu - is that all because of you? Because in the end Hahaue gave me her power - and now I have it too?"

"All your power was born into you." Raiko responded quietly, shaking her head. "It is all your own. In and You are yours, too. You must learn to use them and let them guide you, too. Little by little, I think, you are starting to realise –just how important they are to you."

"In'you...?"

"Yes." Raiko moved forward, placing her hand against Juushirou's cheek, and with a jolt he realised that her form was already becoming translucent.

"I am simply the part of Raiko that wanted to see her son live." She murmured, spectral tears glittering on her lashes. "The part of Raiko who wanted Juushirou to grow...and to see him become a man of whom she would be proud."

"Hahaue had a lot of reiryoku." Juushirou murmured. "And because...because she did..."

"All of it went into saving you." Raiko smiled, a bittersweet expression on her face. "And she gave that power freely. I am her last regret, that's all. The one who sealed your storm that winter night – but did it knowing she would never see her son as a grown man."

She took a step back.

"Now you're so strong, Juushirou." She added, her voice becoming blurry and indistinct. "You can now perceive the things that before you could not – and because of that, for the first time, you see me clearly and know what I am. But because of that, Raiko has no more reason to regret. And because of it, I have no reason to stay."

She sighed, reaching a tentative, regretful finger across to brush his hand again, then lowering it as the tip of the digit began to fray and scatter once more into particles of light.

"Now In'you have reached out to you, I have nothing left to worry about. Trust them, Juushirou, and go where they lead. Understand the power that you have, because it surpasses Raiko's own. With In'you's help, you can protect the family you love so much - and many more besides."

"Wait!" Juushirou let out an exclamation, reaching out desperately to grab at the figure. "Wait! Don't go yet...I have questions! Things I want to know about Hahaue - her family, her past...how she was connected to the Kuchiki-ke! What kind of power she had...Wait! Please!"

"You are not her, and your power shouldn't be guided by what she was." As the woman faded into nothing, the words were a simple breath on the wind. "You are you, Juushirou. Follow your heart. Trust in your instincts. Let In'you be your guide and your support."

With that she was gone, and Juushirou realised he was alone on the beach once more.

"Hahaue." Despite himself he swallowed hard. "Even if this is a dream...I...I want to believe...that was some part of Hahaue. Even if it wasn't...to even know what she looked like...even if that bit alone is true."

He closed his eyes, re-ordering his thoughts.

"In'you?" He whispered, and the landscape shifted and changed until he was surrounded by swirling waves.

"Juushirou." The woman's voice was quiet now, and Juushirou nodded.

"Your voice and hers are the same." He murmured. "In...was that really...my mother who spoke to me? Or just a fancy of imagination?"

"Your mother is dead." In said gently, her white eyes soft with understanding. "But even the dead have last regrets. She left that one with you, Juushirou. Only now are you strong enough for her to reach you without hurting you. She used her power to suppress yours - now, for the first time, you're beginning to unseal those things and see for yourself the love with which she's protected you all these years."

"Then I...can speak to her again?"

"The regret is fulfilled. The piece of Raiko left behind is at rest." You said quietly. "I'm sorry, Juushirou. Your mother is long gone, and you cannot speak to the dead."

"Then that...really was…just…"

"Spirit particles left behind from when she saved your life." In agreed.

"And now I'm strong enough to hear her message?" Juushirou bit his lip. "Even when she was dying, she reached out like that to me?"

"Your mother loved you more than her own life." You said evenly. "And you should follow her advice. Value your life. Focus your attention and resolve and work hard. Look to your own power - the past is the past, after all."

"My own power." Juushirou repeated. "Which is…the two of you. In'you. That's what she said - to trust in you. But I already made up my mind to do that, anyhow. She died to save my life – even if I wasn't resolved to fight to keep it before, now I would have no doubts at all."


"Then do as she says." You told him firmly. "Even if the path is hard, Juushirou...from here on in, walk it with us. In time you'll come to understand everything that we have to teach you - everything that you need to know."

Juushirou's eyes opened, and for a moment he lay there in the darkened dormitory, gazing up pensively at the old, plaster ceiling. All around him his companions were still fast asleep, and only the faint flickers of moonlight dancing in at the window gave the chamber any life at all.

Yet for some reason, Juushirou felt at peace.

I still want to know about you, Hahaue. More than I did before, but it can keep. For now, my focus has to be on me. On my training. On everything Sensei said and on what Nagoya-senpai will hopefully teach me. To unlock In'you's true power and secrets – that is the thing most important to me. To repay Hahaue for her belief in me – that's the only thing I can do now.

He smiled, feeling the dampness of tears on his lashes at this bittersweet thought.

Even if she never really knows, I'll still get there. And not just for her, but for everyone who's supported me. For Otousama and Okaasama and everyone at home. For Kamikura-sensei who taught me so many things. For my friends, here at the Academy…

His gaze flitted across the room to the slumbering shadows of his classmates.

For Genryuusai-sensei, because he believes in me. And for myself…because I know, now. More than anything else, I know. I don't want to die. I don't want to be one of those Ukitake who let haibyou beat them and take away their lives and their futures. Maybe I'll always have it – but that's fine, since I always have had anyway. But I'm going to follow what Unohana-sensei told me last summer. I'm not going to see it as a curse. I'm going to somehow break that hex by proving that even like this, I can make a difference.

I will summon my sword.

I will be a Shinigami.


And most of all…I will live.

All around this place was the lingering scent of death.

Keitarou pressed close to the wall of the underground sewer, his keen senses picking out how many individuals were moving back and forth in the tunnels above him. They were weak signals, all of them, for none of Shouichi's guardsfolk were possessed with more than the barest flicker of reiatsu, yet still Keitarou could distinguish them one from each other.

He wrinkled his nose at the different, unsavoury sensations.

Unwashed. Uneducated. Unimportant – and many more 'un' words besides. Shouichi's crack forces – each one of them dead as can be to the world of spiritual capacity.

Trained with swords you might be, but Shikiki is superior to all of you put together. You are bested by an eight year old girl…and yet don't even realise the shame of your own existences.

Disdain glittered in his pale eyes.

Worthless creatures. If you were mine to deal with, I would bind you and set those with spirit power to claw you to shreds instead. At least the gifted provide significant scientific potential, even if they have no greater purpose. I do dislike this District. As ever, it is full of slime.

But then, he wasn't here to belittle or kill ordinary men. He had come to find his friend.

It had, in the end, been a difficult decision. He knew that to reveal himself in the heart of Shouichi's lair may put both him and Shikiki in danger, and the success of his overall project depended on him retaining a certain amount of freedom. If his actions frightened Seimaru into giving him up, everything would be much more complicated to achieve – yet even so, out of all the people he had seen sacrificed, Daisuke was the one who he was most loath to abandon.

He did not form emotional bonds with anyone and had not done so since his father's execution – he had not even cried when his mother had passed away some ten years before. But Daisuke was like him enough to have forged a bond – a companionship and understanding that, without being spoken, told Keitarou they were operating on the same frequency.

They were united by hate, and had both pledged their loyalty and blood to that end. Daisuke would not betray him – he knew that. But he would equally not betray Daisuke, and forsake him in the stench of rotting corpses that pervaded every inch of this underground hell. Worse even than the cells he had used for his experiments had ever been, Keitarou's sensitive spiritual senses had to work hard not to be overwhelmed by the grotesqueness of the atmosphere surrounding him.

Death did not usually bother him, but this was death coloured by the familiar traits of Urahara kinsfolk, and that was different.

Daisuke's blood was among the morass of sensations, but Keitarou knew that his friend was still alive.

And it's probably a trap, but even so, I can't ignore him. So I'll try, at the very least. I'll take the risk and hope that the luck of the devil that guides me is on my side tonight as well.

A wry, humourless smile touched his lips at this. It was Daisuke, after all, who had always claimed that Keitarou had the luck of the devil about him.

And now it was for Daisuke's sake that Keitarou was calling on that luck to help protect him again.

Or perhaps he was the devil, after all.

At last, the movement above seemed to fade to a bare minimum, and Keitarou knew that it he either acted now or not at all. The Endou patrols were so much like clockwise that it had been easy for one like him to work out the time when the least officials would be marching along the cold dungeon floors. There was only a gap of maybe six or seven minutes at most between the end of one patrol and the beginning of the next.

Keitarou hoped it would be enough.

Daisuke was hurt, after all. He knew that even without seeing his friend. Pain radiated from the prisoner's distinctive reiatsu, and Keitarou knew that his comrade had been tortured and beaten in an attempt to pry from him the information about his own whereabouts.

Well, they chose the wrong man. Daisuke will sooner die…than betray anyone he has a bond to.

With the agility of a cat, Keitarou pushed back the wooden grille that divided the dungeon from the cramped, half-completed sewer tunnels that ran immediately beneath them, using broken bits of stone and other, unidentifiable matter as a lift to claw his way up through the tiny waste hole and into the floor above. Immediately the smell of decomposition hit him and he paused for a moment, getting his instincts under control.

Death and disease were rife here, but prisoners were only removed to make room for another – or to be burnt in the way the Urahara dead had been treated - in a blatant, defiant contradiction of Third District's own burial tradition. To actively destroy a body was to destroy its soul…so his mother had taught him, and so he had come to believe of his own free will. And Shouichi had also obviously learnt this tradition from his years involved in the persecuting Council, for as Keitsune and his fellows had been burnt all those years ago, the Urahara were still being burnt here today.

And Daisuke would be the next one, if Keitarou did not intervene.

There were no guards immediately in view, yet Keitarou did not take any chances. Pulling his hooded cloak up so that it more or less hid his face, he inched his way along the narrow passage that separated the cells on two sides, reaching out with his spiritual wits for his friend's reiatsu as he went. In the fourth cell along he found what he was looking for and he paused, resting his hands against the bars as he gazed into the dark, dank hollow beyond.

What he saw brought both anger and relief flaring through his twisted heart.

Daisuke was hunched up against the corner of the cell wall, a plate of untouched scraps beside him. He was dressed in blood-spattered prison hakama, already brown and stiff with the dried stains from earlier that day. A worn, motheaten blanket was thrown around his shoulders, this too seeped in drying blood which, Keitarou knew, had made it cling to the wounds on his back as a sort of second skin. His eyes were closed, but as Keitarou approached they opened, as the two men met gazes through the thick iron bars.

For a moment, Daisuke did not seem to register who he was seeing, and from the faint flush to his cheeks, Keitarou realised that his friend was already beginning a fever. Perhaps it was the strain of his ordeal, or perhaps an infection in his multiple wounds…which, Keitarou was not sure, yet even so he found his resolve doubling.

If I can get him out of here alive, it doesn't matter how broken his body is. What better time to test Shikiki's ability…than to see if she can work her magic on a living creature such as this.

Then, as if hit by a sudden flash of clarity, Daisuke's pale eyes widened.

"Why did you come here?" He hissed, forcing himself painfully into a crawling position as he hauled his damaged body to the barred wall of the cell. He was dragging his left arm, Keitarou realised, and a quick glance over the joint told him that it had been pulled right from its socket. The ligaments were probably ripped right in two – yet even so, Daisuke was determined to move.

"Because I don't betray my kind." He replied now, and Daisuke's expression became frustrated as he hurriedly shook his head.

"Shouichi will find you! I am only alive to draw you here – really, Keitarou, you should have stayed away!"

"Perhaps I should, but I didn't. This is my decision, Daisuke. Don't fight against me, else we'll take too much time."

"But it's a trap! Shouichi will…"

"I don't care about that fool of an old man." Keitarou pulled his tantou knife from his pocket, sliding the blade into the lock and as the weapon glittered with a silver light, there was the sound of a heavy, reluctant click as the old bolt gave way. "So don't you start to, either. We don't have the time for it, in any case. If I'm going to get you out of here…"

"I can't walk. I'll slow you down. He's done a number on me – I'm no use to you now." Daisuke shook his head again. "He knows me – and that I work with you, even now. He's come to me to find you – you can't let him have that victory."

"What victory?" Keitarou snorted. "I'm not afraid of him and nor should you be. I'm not going to be caught, and you should save your strength. I still have use for you – and so does Shikiki."

"Shikiki is…alive?"

"Yes. She survived the fire, thanks to the magic we've been cultivating inside of her."

"Then…her barriers…are…?"

"Starting to mature. If I take you with me, maybe we'll see how far they've come – so stop arguing with me. It won't take a moment to leave here…let me support you and let us go. There is somewhere, after all, which is safe."

"There is nowhere that is safe, Aizen Keitarou."

The voice came out of the darkness, seemingly from nowhere, and even as Keitarou's fingers touched his cousin's bloodsoaked body, he was aware suddenly of the dark predatorial reiatsu of the Endou-ke hunter. He sighed, turning around to see Shouichi watching him, sword half drawn from his scabbard and two or three lesser officers on his right and left hand sides. Though they were dressed informally, Keitarou could tell they were more distant Endou kinsmen and also members of Shouichi's recently founded Seventh Squad…and his eyes narrowed.

Four of them, plus the old man. Daisuke was right. A trap with honey to lure me in. Well, they'll soon see that I can sting, too.

"I knew that you would come, Aizen." Shouichi spoke quietly, satisfaction crossing his battle-hardened features. "Those who rebel always make mistakes. They never fully forsake one another when they've sealed their bond in blood. I knew, if I took Kotetsu Daisuke, I'd flush out Aizen Keitarou. And I was right. Here you are."

He raised his hand.

"Arrest him."

As he spoke, he gestured towards Keitarou and immediately his companions pulled swords from their sheaths, launching forward to grab him. Daisuke flinched back at the sudden gust of chill air that blew around the chamber, and Keitarou grimaced, his grip tightening on his silver-hazed knife as he pulled it further out of sight beneath the long sleeves of his cloak.

"Ore, Chudokuga." He murmured, and from the blackened hiding place thin strands of silver shot out across the floor, piercing each shinigami officer through the chest and causing them to fall to the ground. Blood pooled around them as they squirmed and struggled, and a faint smile touched Keitarou's face as he twitched his fingers, recalling the threads back into the hilt of the blade.

I won't waste my reiryoku on killing ants. That should at least keep them busy, while I deal with their leader's ego.

Even as his men writhed in pain on the hard floor around him, Shouichi did not show any distress or shock. Instead he nodded, pulling his own weapon fully free.

"I had my suspicions that you possessed such a skill." He said quietly. "When guardsmen charged with carrying out legitimately sanctioned executions should suddenly turn up dead with no reasonable explanation – I suspected you. Your knife has a cursed spell over it, Aizen – or should I dare to call it a 'zanpakutou'?"

"I'm not a soldier and I do not fight with swords." Keitarou shook his head calmly, moving to stand so that he was blocking the injured Daisuke from Shouichi's line of sight. "And no Council of Elders has ratified its power. Therefore it is nothing more than a cursed spell, Shouichi-dono. I am not, after all, blessed with the education or training that your noble family are when it comes to such elevated matters."

His voice was edged with cold sarcasm, and Shouichi offered him an empty smile.

"Then let me see how your cursed spell works against mine, shall we?" He challenged, and once more Keitarou felt the chill wind whip around the chamber as the edges of Shouichi's weapon glowed with a frosty white light. "You've evaded my attention for far too long, and if I have to, I'll take you myself. I have questions for you, Aizen. Questions that I want answered."

His smile became more unpleasant.

"If you answer them, I may even spare the life of your pitiful friend. Providing he doesn't die of his own free will in the meantime."

"Keitarou, do not give yourself up to that man!" Daisuke exclaimed, another shiver wracking his wrenched form as he did so. "He will not keep that promise, so don't be fooled! My life is not important. You know the things that are!"

"I have no intention of making further deals with a man who has already betrayed our trust." Keitarou shook his head. "Don't you worry about me, Daisuke. I came to get you. I didn't come to treat with him. I have no interest in fighting you, Shouichi-dono. Therefore I will take my friend and I will go."

"Rei ga ubatta emono o shimi."

As the old man spoke the words of his zanpakutou's release incantation, the blade shimmered and rippled with light, becoming crystalised from the hilt to the tip as the edges sharpened until the tip resembled a sheer, smoothed icicle. The guard extended and curled up into talon-like claws, sharp enough to provide additional skewer injuries in close armed combat, and already Keitarou was sure he could see the swirl of frozen reiatsu trapped inside the icy metal.

"Tsume o toge, Hijirobaya! Hyouzansen!"

Shouichi swept his blade down sharply from right to left, cutting a diagonal line through the air that seemed to divide the heavy atmosphere firmly into two spheres. As he brought the weapon from left to right, a haze of energy engulfed the place where the slashes intersected, growing brighter and more powerful before shooting forward a thick beam of heavy, freezing spirit power that surged towards where Keitarou was standing. It was a high level attack, fuelled by years of experience and training, and for a moment the concentration of reiryoku took Keitarou off-guard. He hesitated for the briefest of moments, and the attack was almost upon him when something burst forth from behind his body, throwing itself into the icy flare with a cry of,

"Go! Now! Before it's too late!"

Daisuke.

Keitarou's heart clenched as Shouichi's frozen beam engulfed his cousin's battered body, stifling the life from it in a moment as it surrounded it in ice. Shouichi cursed, shaking his sword from left to right as if to break the contact, and as Daisuke's body fell heavily to the ground, Keitarou caught sight of the fear and desperation in the other man's eyes.

They were dead eyes, glassy and staring, yet in them Keitarou saw the message.

For the sake of their work, he had to leave.

Before Shouichi could use his weapon a second time, Keitarou slipped into shunpo, racing as fast as he could through the tracks and pathways of the intricate prison system and out into the heavy night air. As he fled, he felt anger and indignation creep once more through his soul, as well as another sensation – true and honest grief.

In the end he had gone to save his friend, but in the end his friend had once more saved him.

As you have many times before, and now I will never thank you for it.

Hate flared in Keitarou's heart, and he gritted his teeth, hardening his resolve.

Irie will raise children like us, in the end. Boys whose fathers were martyrs to a cause that will taint their lives forever.

He sighed, forcing himself to think more rationally.

A body frozen by ice-based spirit energy will take time to thaw. They won't be able to burn his corpse till morning. I will not let them treat you like that, Daisuke. I will test Shikiki's spirit power, yet. Tomorrow, I will return for you. Tomorrow, I will try again. Tomorrow…I will see how far that child has come. And you will work with me again to test it – just as you always have.

He stopped in the middle of the charred village, clenching his fists as he brought his scattered reiatsu under control.

Shouichi is not a match for me but he took me off guard with his sword's release. Next time, I will be better prepared. Next time he won't get the better of me. I should have killed his men, not just grounded them. At least then I would have wounded him somehow…the way he has now wounded me.

Damn.

Shouichi flicked the stray chips of ice from the end of his weapon, his eyes narrowing as he walked over to the fallen, frozen form of his unfortunate victim. Raising a heavily booted foot, he gave it a nudge, but there was no response, and already Shouichi could feel the dying flickers of the man's reiatsu dissipating into the ether.

Another door shut.

Around him, the groans of his subordinates alerted him to the fact they were still alive, and he swung around, only just resisting the urge to fire his weapon a second time in his frustration.

These were Endou on the fringes of the family's accepted society, but they still were kin, and kin who he needed in order to continue his war against the Urahara exiles. He sighed, closing his eyes briefly to compose himself as he sealed his blade, returning it once more to its usual resting place.

"Shou...ichi-sama?" The nearest fallen officer pulled himself up into a sitting position, clutching a hand to his chest and Shouichi could tell by the amount of blood that though the wound was a painful one, it had never been intended as a fatal blow. Somehow this made the old man even angrier, as he realised that Keitarou had only used his weapon to toy with his men.

Not his true power, then. He fled, rather than fight me. A coward...but a sensible one. He would not have stood a chance against Hijirobaya's other attacks if he could not find a way to defeat Hyouzansen.

"Get up, the lot of you." he barked out now, seeing that the other men were starting to steady themselves after the shock of the attack. "None of you are dead and death is the only excuse I'll accept for you to be on the ground! You're still on duty - don't tell me that you were seriously thrown back by the feeble attack of a man not even worthy of the term of 'shinigami'?"

"Our abject apologies, Shouichi-sama." The man scrambled into a standing position, his companions following suit although two of them were pale-faced and one was somewhat unsteady on his feet.

Shouichi sighed, then gestured with an armoured fist towards the frozen lump of soul and flesh that lay motionless on the ground.

"My ice will hold him thus for some hours yet. The blow killed him on impact, yet my zanpakutou's thrust is a powerful one." He said quietly. "It seems that Aizen Keitarou cares greatly for this one, however. Our options are not yet exhausted."

He reached down to poke Daisuke's blood-caked corpse with a finger, then nodded.

"Take him to the usual place and leave him to thaw." He said at length. "The Urahara have a particular code against cremation, and if I am right, even in death I still hold Aizen's weakness in my hands. He may yet come back for his kinsman's remains in order to prevent him from such a humiliating traitor's immolation. Take him and leave him - but ensure a guard is posted night and day. Go to whatever lengths needed to ensnare our target - remove limbs and destroy body parts if you must but ensure that, at the very least, Aizen remains alive."

His eyes glittered angrily.

"I still have, after all, a score to settle with him."

Author's Note:

Hijirobaya
Shouichi's sword spirit, in keeping with the swords of the Endou-ke, is a gyrfalcon. I actually saw a stuffed one (and I'm not a fan of stuffed animals and birds, personally, but it was in a museum I visited) in London this summer just gone, and when I saw it, I realised I'd picked exactly the right bird to represent Shouichi's sword. A gyrfalcon is shirohayabusa in Japanese, so I mangled the kanji a little and just used the character for 'falcon' as 'baya' instead of 'haya'. Hi is ice. So Ice White Falcon, or Ice Gyrfalcon is his zanpakutou's name.

Kotetsu Daisuke.
A couple of people have flagged this up and have wondered whether this is on purpose or accidental.
It's entirely on purpose. Since Isane and Kiyone are sisters, and relatives don't often come out of Rukongai, I assume they are Seireitei born. Daisuke and his family are their ancestors. His wife and children have fled District Seven, and it is through them that the line will continue.

Originally I had a slightly different intention for these characters - at least, Daisuke's wife in particular, since she got created first. But Daisuke wound up being more significant so he took centre stage...

I don't know how many folk have noticed but there are quite a few 'ancestor' characters floating around my fic. Everyone picked up on Saku's connection to Soi Fon already, I think, and obviously Keitarou is connected to Aizen...but they're not the only ones xD. I won't spoil it by pointing the others out.... though anyone who wants to guess is welcome to!!

And finally:

I wrote this chapter a couple of months ago, although I write these notes usually just before I upload the story. This is entirely coincidental, therefore, but I just finished watching the Japanese drama series 'Maou' this week, with Ikita Toma and Oono Satoshi. If you haven't seen it, this may be lost on you (gomen) - but Maou means 'The Devil' in Japanese and...given this scene with Keitarou...I was just struck at the comparison between Keitarou and Naruse. Odd parallel ne. (Good drama, btw, but not for the faint of heart xD)