Chapter 6: Demon Within
Yoshiaki rested quietly in his bed with Tetsuya's deeply sleeping form curled up warmly against his side. While he was certainly comforted by the retreat of the maddened spirit that dwelled beneath the surface of his own, he hadn't been expecting the way it would feel to have the young Kuchiki's hands clasp at him, to hear the soft sounds of distress that only his touch seemed to ease.
While I did examine Tetsuya's path in the book of life and I learned all about him for the purpose of setting him at ease with me, I didn't realize what it would be like to have someone kind and gentle as he is…truly care about me.
Tetsuya barely knows me, and yet, he is respectful of our places, he is accepting of the boundaries I've set for him and even though my proposal to him was really just a veiled order for him to marry me, he is trying sincerely to make a connection with me. I felt it in our lovemaking…well, before the demon took over and began to feed. Tetsuya's heart was fearful of what was happening, but it was also attuned to what was happening in my heart. I felt guilty about what was going to happen and even though he had no idea about the demon, he sensed my discomfort and his reiatsu soothed mine.
I have…never been treated with love like this before.
Much like Tetsuya, I was treated from the beginning like some terrible mistake. To my parents, I was a broken piece that needed fixing. I was something that needed to be put back together. No one ever seemed to even try to understand me.
But Tetsuya is trying.
He gazed down at the younger man's too pale face, fresh waves of guilt roaring through him. His hands caressed the lightly sweating flesh and he pressed a tender kiss to lips unable to return the small sign of affection.
I hate this.
I hate the demon.
I want to destroy anything that hurts him.
He felt the heated flutter inside his core that he was sure was the demon spirit laughing at him.
I know.
I can't kill you or even hurt you, not now. But you can't kill Tetsuya or me. We are locked in an unending standoff. But…maybe there is something I can do, some token action that I can take that will begin to honor what I feel for my consort.
Yoshiaki's fingers ran slowly through Tetsuya's hair and the consort, shivered and curled closer to him, whimpering softly.
I'm sorry. I truly am. You deserve better than me. Your kind heart is wasted on someone who is part god and part monster. But, now that the demon has been fed, he will be calm for awhile and easier for me to control. And while I cannot relieve you of the difficult duty of keeping him in check, I can do other things to honor you.
The king slipped carefully out of Tetsuya's arms and climbed out of the bed. He leaned over the unconscious consort, carefully reading the level and intensity of his reiatsu, then he extended and palm and loosed a flicker of pale white healing power. At its touch, Tetsuya's face relaxed, losing the troubled look it had worn, and he settled into a more comfortable sleep. Yoshiaki bent and kissed his lips and then his forehead. His fingertips traced the back of one slender hand, then he retreated out of the chamber and into the hallway, where a pair of guards stood by.
"Your majesty," the two said together.
A flash step sounded and two attendants appeared in front of him. The king nodded briefly in greeting.
"Jun, will you please watch over Tetsuya? He is comfortable now, but you need to inform me immediately if he is in any kind of distress, physical or emotional, when he wakes."
"Of course, my lord."
"Kenji, if you will please see that a large meal is prepared for him and brought to my chamber as soon as he wakes."
"Yes, my lord!"
"Very well."
The king watched silently as the two attendants left, then he headed down the hallway and out to a large courtyard, passing more guards at the building's doorway and patrolling the gardens. He continued to the far side of the palace grounds and entered another building, one of several towers that held military barracks on the upper floors and prison cells below the ground level. He paused and caught the eye of the watch captain.
"Your majesty!"
Yoshiaki nodded.
"Where is he?"
The guard captain's face registered calm understanding.
"As per your order, he is in the lowest level, in a heavily protected room."
"Thank you, Satoshi."
"Sir."
The guard captain moved out in front of the monarch, opening the locks on one of the doors to a spiral staircase that led downward. The king left the guard captain standing watch and headed down the staircase alone. A chill mist formed around him as he moved deeper and deeper into the depths of the tower, his feet making echoing tapping sounds on the stairs. Before long, he began to feel the presence of another dark spirit…dangerous and hateful as the one inside him.
But not nearly as powerful.
He stopped outside a locked and barricaded door, his reiatsu quickly extending to open the way. Slowly, the heavy protections faded and one by one, the locks clicked open. Yoshiaki pushed the door open and stepped into the room, swinging the heavy wooden door shut and resealing the barrier. He crossed the room to where a man sat, heavily bound in a reiatsu suppressing chair. The man stirred as he approached, and his eyes rose to meet the king's.
"Kuchiki Orochi."
"M-my lord," the noble answered warily.
He looked to Yoshiaki as though he wanted to say more, but held back carefully as the king's eyes glared warningly down into his.
"Do you know why you have been brought to me? Why you have been confined here?" the king asked solemnly.
"No, my lord."
Yoshiaki's smile lacked any level of warmth and made even the extremely strong noble shudder.
"We have something in common, Orochi," the king informed him.
"Something in common?" Orochi mused, his frown deepening and his reiatsu flickering with heightened alertness.
Yoshiaki extended cold fingertips and touched the bound man's face.
"Do you need to be reminded?" he asked, smirking.
"I don't…" Orochi began.
His words ended in a terrified gasp as a shadowed vision rose up in his mind.
XXXXXXXXXX
Byakuya poured out two cups of hot green tea, then he set down the teapot and joined his husband at the table set within an alcove room in the Kuchiki family archive. The noble's dark, solemn eyes met Aizen's depthless brown ones through the steam that wafted up from their cups. Flickering candlelight illuminated the elder man's brooding expression as he carefully considered his words. Sensing his discomfort, Byakuya waited silently.
"I am…pleased that you have opted to give me the opportunity to explain," Aizen said finally, "Again, I will apologize for my behavior before. I assure you, Byakuya, I took no pleasure in hurting you and Senbonzakura."
"That much, I could see," the Kuchiki leader answered quietly, "It is probably best to move forward. It seems we have a very basic level of trust, at least enough that we should be able to speak and listen to each other in a more normal fashion now. I will say that the power you demonstrated is certainly well beyond the power of any shinigami. The question is, what does the existence of that power within you mean? If you are not any kind of shinigami, Sousuke, then what are you? Who are you really?"
Aizen sighed wearily, looking down into his teacup.
"I suppose those questions are a good place to begin. As we do, you need to realize that reality is, for most beings, a construct meant to provide stability to life. Lines of reality are the domain of the soul king, who reigns over the three worlds. In that domain, the king is the center of what represents reality for everything else. One of the great dangers our worlds face is that the keystone of reality, the soul king, could become corrupted and misuse reality."
The troubled look on Byakuya's face deepened and the hand that held his teacup trembled slightly.
"Is this what you want me to believe is going on with King Yoshiaki?" he asked solemnly, "That he has been corrupted and that is why there is so much discontent between you? Is this why the reality around you has shifted? Is this why you were expelled from the royal realm? That is what happened, at some point, isn't it?"
"I left the royal realm, yes," Aizen affirmed.
"I also noticed the wording you used. You spoke of how reality was shifted around you. I have already had confirmed for me that you must be a member of the royal family, albeit a banished one?"
"Hmm, in a manner of speaking, I am. However, the situation is complicated, and it has occurred across shifting realities, so it will take some time to relay. But the event that triggered all of what is happening took place within the palace while the last incarnation of the soul king sat on the throne. The king and consort were awaiting the birth of their child."
Byakuya's head tilted slightly and his dark eyes met Aizen's curiously.
"You?"
"Yes. But my soul was different than it is now. While still in the consort's body, I was affected by an attack by a parasitic demon. The queen was attacked in the gardens, but the demon that did the attacking was cunning. Instead of just killing her or assaulting her, it invaded her body and infected the soul of the heir. King and consort could not sense what had happened and the queen's memory of the event was stolen, so…when they were surprised with twin princes, the two had no reason to suspect that the presence of twins, in this situation was…unnatural."
Byakuya's breath caught softly and his eyes widened.
"The demon caused your soul to split?" he reasoned, "So, you and Yoshiaki are not really brothers? Is one of you a demon? He is a demon?"
Aizen bit his lip gently, considering his words carefully.
"What do you know of the demons?" he asked.
Byakuya's dark eyes closed for a moment and he turned his right hand, palm upward. After a moment, a dark colored, leatherbound book appeared. He opened the book and turned it so that the other man could see.
"The soul king is responsible for the continuous creation of souls," Byakuya recalled, "The original Reio started this process with the creation of a Soul Well in which he placed the souls that were then born into our worlds. Within the worlds that the king created, a balance of different kinds of souls had to be maintained, thus we maintain that balance between wholes or plusses and hollows, between the living world and Soul Society."
"Yes, exactly," Aizen agreed.
"But, the demons," Byakuya continued, "were imperfect souls. All souls are elemental, balancing factors of air, water, earth and fire."
"Correct."
"But sometimes, during the process of creation, those forces would not balance correctly, for some reason. The resulting soul suffered inner chaos and quickly lost stability. It was for this reason that Hajime, our progenitor and the first king's consort, was granted Shi no Tsuriai, a zanpakuto called Balance of Four. While the king created souls, it was the consort who healed the imperfect souls. One of the side effects of my mother's being infected by the demon was that she lost the ability to wield Shi no Tsuriai. With a demon infecting her body and dwelling in the heir, the healing blade was made useless. The imperfect soul could no longer be healed," Byakuya whispered.
"Yes. The king and consort had no idea why, as the demon was in a cocoon form and was not able to be detected. So, when the blade stopped answering to the queen's directive, the king created a pocket dimension and began to send the affected souls into it. He could not destroy them because of the imbalance that was a part of them…"
"So, he imprisoned them," Byakuya concluded.
"Correct. Later, when the heirs were born, both were assessed to see if one had inherited the ability to create souls. But while only one of us should have manifested the power, the ability was present in both of us. I must stress to you that this should not have happened. The king and consort realized this, and it was then that my brother and I were fully assessed and the conclusion was made that Yoshiaki and I were not two separate beings, but one soul that had somehow been split."
"A broken soul," Byakuya breathed, his voice shaking.
"They did not know of the presence of the demon spawn, nor that it dwelled in both parts of the prince's broken soul."
Byakuya's eyes closed and he drew in a steadying breath.
"Are you still infected with the demon spawn?" he asked anxiously, "Sousuke…"
"This is where the story becomes complicated, as it takes place within shifting realities. The demon spawn within our souls caused internal chaos. The king and consort eventually learned about the demon spawn, but they didn't know how to eradicate it. Instead, Yoshiaki and I were instructed in how to control it, and a search began for someone who could wield Shi no Tsuriai…the one blade that could restore us. Unfortunately, it was during that search that…something happened to the king and queen. As you know, all of the records indicate that they fell ill and died, but the contaminant or disease could not be identified."
Byakuya's face paled.
"Yoshiaki?"
Aizen drew in a long breath and released it slowly.
"I believe this to be the case, though proving it would be nearly impossible at this point. I believe that the demon spawn had a stronger hold in Yoshiaki. I was able to maintain control over the part that resided in me. What I did not expect…is that Yoshiaki would lose control and that he would kill them…then try to kill me."
"He tried to kill you?"
"Yes, but he realized upon attacking me that he was trying to destroy a part of himself. If he destroyed me, the demon spawn would be able to gain full control and mature into a full fledged demon."
"My god…" the Kuchiki leader whispered.
"Yoshiaki attacked me in the room of the Soul Well, and he was able to push me into it. Because of this, I was born into Soul Society as a shinigami soul. Yoshiaki reported that I had gone missing and he was swiftly named king."
"What happened to you? How did your birth here affect you?" the noble asked urgently.
"Entering the soul well caused me to lose my foresight and at first, I lost my memories. But as my shinigami form matured, I began to recover those memories, and by the time I was a young adult, I had remembered everything, and I was consumed with the need to find the way to return to the royal realm. It was during this time that I turned to Urahara Kisuke, who somehow believed what I told him, and he helped me to create the hogyoku."
"Wait," Byakuya mused, shaking his head in confusion, "You are saying that Urahara…was your partner?"
Aizen nodded affirmatively.
"I know that is not what you remember, and the reason you don't remember that, the reason Kisuke does not remember…is that Yoshiaki used the book of life to read our path, and he shifted reality around us to create the new reality…that I was a traitor who wanted to overthrow the soul king. Thus, the evil Aizen who you know was created. I will delve more deeply into that, but the important thing you need to know is that it wasn't the king's power that shifted reality, it was the chaotic force of the demon spawn inside Yoshiaki!"
"Unbelievable," Byakuya whispered, his brow furrowing, "I see now why you warned me of the complication."
"The reality shift did stop my plans for awhile, but given that I was left in a new reality, I had to work within its confines to recover the information needed to stop Yoshiaki. So, in the new reality, Kisuke created the hogyoku and I stole his design. Yoshiaki sought to alter reality again, but it was then that he realized that the prior shift had destabilized the very core of the worlds. This is what forced him to seek me. You see, the hogyoku was not at all what it was said to be. The power of that item was to stabilize whatever it was fused with. For me, it stabilized the demon spawn within me, neutralizing its effect. Cured of the chaos within it, the healed soul fiber simply joined with mine and became a part of me."
Byakuya frowned.
"If that was true, then couldn't you have just used it to heal Yoshiaki?"
Aizen smiled wearily.
"I could have, however, the demon spawn within my brother would not be thwarted so easily. It caused him to make the reality shift, which destabilized the worlds. The hogyoku could balance the worlds again, but all of its power was needed, and the process to put things into balance also destroyed the hogyoku's existence. Now, it cannot be recreated."
"But if the hogyoku cannot be recreated and the king is still infected with the demon spawn, then…"
"Then the spawn in his body will grow stronger and it will begin to mature," Aizen projected, "Yoshiaki refuses to believe this. He claims to have the demon spawn under his control, but what he calls control is nothing like it. He…"
Aizen paused as Byakuya's face reflected a bolt of intense discomfort, then a few words escaped him.
"He…devours souls."
"Yes. I see that you are beginning to remember."
"I am…remembering?" Byakuya asked, his mind working to process the words, "Sousuke, are you saying that…before the reality shift…we were…we knew each other?"
"We were lovers."