The air felt dry and hot, an uncomfortable feeling that left him feeling drowsy, not to mention drained of Spirit Energy. His arms felt sore and seemed to be held up by something, alerting him that things were more than just uncomfortable.

Toshiro's eyes finally snapped open and his body tensed. The room he was in was dark, everything made of black stone and harsh on his knees as he was forced to kneel. The only light came from the runes etched into the wall on each side of him and the glowing red chains that bound his arms up, just like what had happened to Kadin. And just like Kadin, the chains were continually draining his Spirit Energy, leaving him drowsy and weak. Due to the fact the Soul King had more energy to take, the chains burned brighter than they did for Kadin, making the room as uncomfortably hot as it was, his skin that was in contact with the chains looking a bit redder than was normal for just the glow from the magic.

His head snapped up as shadows in the wall shifted. There was no door, but that didn't seem to matter when one could control the shadows and step inside. Toshiro was trapped in an inescapable box and only Kamai could step inside, doing so now and staring calmly down at his prisoner.

"Ah, now that you're awake, we can begin our discussion." Kamai gave a polite grin to the Soul King as he spoke first.

"Go to Hell and stay there." Toshiro growled back.

"First off, that's hardly something a royal of your status should say. I understand you were raised in poverty around other rowdy peasants but you shouldn't act like one." Kamai lectured, frowning. Toshiro just rolled his eyes, clearly not caring since he was bound in magic not in a meeting with nobles. "Secondly, I have been there and I don't fancy going back. Convincing the demons to join me was a difficult task on its own, I'd rather not have Lord Satan breathing down my neck again."

"It's what you deserve."

"For what reason?" Kamai asked honestly. "Because I've killed Soul Reapers? You've done that yourself, haven't you?"

The glare Toshiro had been stubbornly holding on Kamai suddenly faltered and looked away.

"Is it because I stole citizens of Hell from their home? Fairly certain the man that YOU appointed a Royal Guard did the same."

"His sisters weren't supposed to be there."

"The doesn't change the fact he nearly decimated the seven layers and broke the gate, nearly killing hundreds of innocent living humans."

Toshiro scowled but did not argue.

"Perhaps it's because I led a coup against your father?" Kamai continued. "But such things happen all throughout history. And again, your dear friend Kurosaki fought against all of you in the Soul Society, breaking nearly every rule that's been in place for thousands of years. And now he's a hero."

Kamai waited for a rebuttal but there wasn't one, only a scathing teal glare.

"Well? What have I done that would reserve me a place in Hell that you or your precious warriors haven't also done?"

"You've put the entire world in danger and kill as you please."

Kamai let out a hearty laugh.

"If you had given me the throne this world would be born anew and would never know danger again, and I do not take pleasure in this bloodshed… not like your soldiers do, especially that new Kenpachi. Besides, your army has taken away three of my precious girls, and you have stolen another from me as well. I am not the only murderer here." The Dark Master lowered himself to kneeling to be at eye level with Toshiro, an action that would have made the Demon Lords faint in shock. "So, if the only reason I deserve a place in Hell is because I offended His Royal Majesty, then this world is in desperate need of a new leader, one that is far less… childish."

A furious look in his eyes, Toshiro lunged forward with his head, the only part of him that he could move freely. Kamai reeled back in surprise and put a hand to his nose, flinching a bit as it stung.

"Such behavior really does not suit a king…" He had a low growl to his tone as he glared down at Toshiro. "I suppose you get that stubbornness from your mother, though. I should have expected this."

The chains creaked as they retreated a few links back into the runes, pulling harder at Toshiro's arms. He bit his lip to stifle a cry of pain as his joints stretched painfully.

"Now then…" Kamai's tone darkened as he lifted a hand with more of the heavy shadows writhing in his palm. "The sooner you agree to make me your successor and pass on your power, the sooner everything will stop hurting."

Toshiro did his best to keep the glare in his eyes, but there was a wariness in them as the shadows hungrily approached him.

Up in the palace, Kazara and Korla both looked up from mending their wounds as a scream echoed through the walls.

"It has begun." Kazara noted. Korla grinned menacingly.

In the World of the Living, the sky rumbled loudly and spirits became restless. By now, the majority of the army had returned to the Soul Society, taking the injured with them as the healers of every faction worked overtime. A select few stayed with the Royal Guards by the sealed hill as they tried to figure out how they were supposed to get back into the Precipice World. The sky gave a loud crack as black clouds rolled in.

"It's getting worse." Ichibe warned, tone deadly serious. "If he's still fighting, he's losing."

"Losing? Is that what that means?" Karin turned to the guardian in panic.

"Afraid so. The closer to death he gets, the more this world will start to fall apart. He is the linchpin, the anchor, and if he is too heavily injured, that bleeds into the realms as well. The World of the Living will be the most susceptible as the fluctuating Spirit Energy around the world breaks through to the other realms."

"As the boundaries between realms begin to break, they will start to blend together, causing chaos and misery for all souls." Senjumaru added on, her brow furrowed with worry. "When the realms have bled together and spirits roam free, the cycle will begin to fall apart as the frail humans become overwhelmed by the powers of Hollows and Soul Reapers no longer invisible to them, and the miasma of Hell will seep into everything."

"Sounds like a straight up apocalypse." Ichigo grimaced.

"That is indeed what it would be. But while there may be cracks between the realms, the barriers should remain in place until the Soul King himself is dead. Once those barriers are erased, this world will end."

"I've sent orders to the Royal Families and their commanders to send word to all the afterlives about possible breaches between the realms. They will need to be prepared for increased Hollow activity as well as any leaks of miasma from Hell." Ichibe reported to his comrades. "This does mean that our army will have to shrink. These soldiers must return home to deal with any such anomalies that could appear."

"But what happens when we get this open? We have to save Toshiro." Karin argued.

"And we will, but we may have to finish this fight on our own." Oetsu placed a hand on her shoulder in support. "The armies have helped us this far, there's only the two Demon Lords and the Dark Master himself left with maybe a few demons left stalking around. We've got them cornered."

"But they have our King." Senjumaru glared at her fellow guard. "We're in checkmate."

"But we still have plays to make, so it's only a check for now." Oetsu countered. "Now is the time to step back and think of our next move."

"If that is the case, may I ask some questions?" Miyuki stepped forward, watched closely by the Kuchiki siblings. She still had the seal on her arm, rendering her unable to cause harm, but as far as they knew she was still loyal to Kamai and was only on their side out of a curiosity for the truth.

"Ah, yes, I'm sure there is a lot we all want to know, princess." Ichibe gave the girl a respectful bow of his head despite the others casting glares of distrust at the witch.

"I have grown up with the Demon Lords as older sisters and Lord Kamai as a father, and I was told this was because my real father abandoned me, that he wanted a king and not a queen, a son to carry his name."

"Which parts of this did you hear from Dethmaiyn?" Senjumaru demanded, clearly irritated by the accusation.

Miyuki hesitated in answering.

"The only thing he ever told me about my father was that he had moved on and had a son, that I had a little brother. He told me my father did not tell him my name, so he could not give me one. He told me I took after my mother and he was proud of me becoming so strong despite my handicap."

"Your mother…" Realization seemed to dawn in Kirio's expression as she finally joined her fellow Royal Guards, the injured all safely moved away. "Well then, things make a little more sense now."

"I'm afraid we're a bit out of the loop." Ichibe huffed. "You were definitely closest with the late Lady Anya, Kirio, is there something you know that we don't?"

"Well for starters, Lady Anya was the one who gave Kamai his curse." Kirio explained calmly.

There was a beat of silence after her words.

"Toshiro's mom… is the one who cursed this guy?" Ichigo said, baffled. Even Miyuki looked confused.

"Yes. He had quite the silver tongue even before his curse, you know, and he had a bad habit of abusing it. He ended up taking quite a fancy to Lady Anya, and for a while she seemed to fancy him back… until he broke her heart."

"Jeez, this creep was almost Toshiro's dad." Karin grimaced, glad that it had not turned out that way.

"Indeed." Kirio nodded gravely. "But his deceitful youth led him to be a deceitful man, and even though he cared very much for Anya, he did the one thing he promised her he wouldn't do. He used his power on her."

"Why would he do such a thing?" Miyuki questioned, shocked to hear her mentor would be so cruel.

"A classic love triangle, my dear." Kirio gently patted the girl's head. "A young Soul Prince, the late Satoru, took a great interest in Anya, and she had known him longer than she had known Kamai. As you can probably predict, Kamai didn't like their relationship. At first it was just petty arguments as young couples do, but Anya began to realize her view of the world differed greatly from Kamai's. Even young, the man had lofty goals for cleansing the world of Hollows and sin, goals with methods she did not like… so he tried to make her agree."

"What even is his power?" Ichigo questioned, realizing they knew little about the darkness their enemy possessed.

"His darkness delves deep into one's heart and turns it against them." Senjumaru answered this time, having studied Dethmaiyn's skills during the beginning of the war before Toshiro was even thought about. "He thought he could use this to prevent people sinning, by making them afraid to do so. I'm sure he has honed this technique using Theda's own ability over Fear, but he had a nasty habit of making people see things his way by forcing them to relive their nightmares until they agreed to his 'enlightenment' and followed him."

"So he had a god complex even before he got rejected." Karin crossed her arms and scowled. "When he was interrogating Captain Thane he kept mentioning all this stuff about a world free of greed and hate, where the Soul King got to say who was punished or not and he used fear to keep people from doing anything bad by making them afraid to do it in the first place."

"That's…not at all the world I pictured him making." Miyuki's unseeing gaze shifted towards the ground as her head fell. "I didn't think he meant using his powers like THAT… he made it seem like everything would be far more peaceful once he had a chance to start it over."

"I'm sure that's what he believes will happen, but nothing is truth until it is in the past, so his plans for the future are not set in stone. There is still plenty that can go wrong."

"I guess that's one loophole to his curse." Ichigo mused aloud.

"That and his opinions." Karin agreed. "It might be truth for him but not for us. Just because he thinks he'd be a better king than Toshiro doesn't mean he will be."

"He's learned how to mix fact and opinion together to make it harder to know if he is stating a truth of the world or of his own mind." Senjumaru nodded to the siblings.

"It's a skill he had even before his curse." Kirio commented. "The curse was meant to prevent him from using his silver tongue alongside his powers to manipulate someone's heart like he did to Lady Anya. As soon as she realized what he had done, she used the first and only dark magic she would ever use to ensure he couldn't do it to anyone else. Then, with the help of the Soul Prince at the time, she had him stripped of his family status and never spoke to him again. He was eventually allowed to be a teacher, though he was closely monitored, and Lady Anya married the late Satoru after he became Soul King."

"So that's how Captain Thane became his apprentice." Karin realized.

"Yes. Upon realizing her nephew had similar powers of darkness, Lady Anya finally spoke to Kamai once more, promising him a second chance to get his status back if he trained young Kadin well. Due to his curse, and the presence of Ruala in the Greenleaf family, Kamai could not make the boy submit to his will. So, when he finally made his strike at the Hitsugaya family, Kadin did not follow."

"And what about me?" Miyuki stepped forward in anticipation. "How did I end up under his care if my mother hated him so?"

"The details are unclear…" Kirio sighed sadly. "From what we Royal Guard knew, you were born very, very sick. Your mother and her sister both used what magic they could but it apparently wasn't working, and the late Lady Ruala was still in training and could not help. Desperate, your mother went to Kamai for help, unaware he was already planning a coup against her family. At this point we thought he had changed his ways, and he promised to do his best for you… but then, you were gone. Kamai himself told us so."

"But… I wasn't dead… and he couldn't lie."

"No, he couldn't, but he never explicitly said you were dead." Kirio put a gentle hand on the girl's shoulder. "It seems so clear now that he had twisted his words to make us think the worst without actually giving us the truth. He said he had lost you and we assumed you had perished. Your parents were distraught."

"If he meant literally, however, it's likely he had a subordinate take you away to a place he had no knowledge of until after your family had been told of your passing. He made sure he was the one to tell them so they had no reason to doubt him due to his curse." Senjumaru put the rest of the theory together.

"That bastard let them think you were dead and let you believe you were abandoned." Karin felt furious in Miyuki's place even as the witch just stood there in stunned silence. "All for what?"

"I can't know his true motivations." Kirio shook her head. "If it was just for the throne, he would have had the princess killed, just like he tried to do for both Kadin and the Soul Prince to ensure the previous king had no one else to turn to. It was after he lost Miyuki that the late king promised the throne to Kamai if there was no other heir, as he thought Kamai had redeemed himself. When young Toshiro was born, however, well… that's when Kamai finally snapped and showed his true colors."

"All this just so he could create some kind of twisted utopia of fear." Rukia chimed in after remaining silent thus far. "He's patient… very patient…"

"The worst villains are." Her brother agreed, Byakuya turning to the Kurosakis. "Aizen had been patient as well."

"For sure, and he's still patient even chained away in his dungeon." Ichigo agreed with the noble.

"Hey, wait, do you think Aizen would help us?" Karin piped up.

"Help? Karin, are you nuts, he'd go after Toshiro in a heartbeat." Ichigo gawked.

"Aizen and Dethmaiyn have the same goal, which makes them immediate rivals."

"Yeah and ours too."

"It's a fair plan, little Kurosaki, but even we wouldn't risk asking that man for help if there was a possibility he would go after the Soul King next." Oetsu countered Karin's argument. "Unlike our current villain, your old foe Aizen is immortal now. If he decided to go after the throne, even those of us here may not be able to stop him."

"True…" Karin realized her idea had too many cons and gave up on it.

There was a heavy silence as they realized they weren't really sure how to move forward now. They knew more of Kamai's motivation now, but that didn't help them break the seal and rescue their king.

"How long will Sir Thane take to recover?" Miyuki tilted her head towards Kirio as she asked her question.

"He lost quite a bit of Spirit Energy due to the bindings he was in, but his injuries are fairly minor, just some bruises and scrapes from their 'interrogation'." She answered, confused. "I give him a few days to fully recover his Spirit Energy."

"Is there any way to recover it faster?"

"I believe his mother's family possess a skill to recover Spirit Energy with their music." Senjumaru answered. "What are you planning, princess?"

"I know the back route the demons used to get in and out of the labyrinth into the World of the Living." Miyuki explained and everyone perked up. "I would use it sometimes to get out of my room without Lord Kamai noticing."

"A rebellious teen at their finest." Oetsu chuckled.

"But if I know Lords Kamai, he will have placed my brother in a very special cell, one only he and Korla can get into. However, Sir Thane can also move through the shadows, correct?"

"That's how he got my group out after we rescued him." Karin nodded, hope making her heart race excitedly.

"Once he has recovered, he may be our way into that cell." Miyuki stated confidently.

"And how do we know you won't send him straight into a trap?" Ichigo had his doubts, crossing his arms with a suspicious look in his eyes.

"I have no magic, Sir Kurosaki." Miyuki held out her arm bearing the seal once more. "I can be a guide and that's it. Even if I took him straight to Lord Kamai, I would be an easy target to make a hostage. Besides… if Lord Kamai really did let the Demon Lords lie to me… if he really stood aside and let me think I was unwanted when he stole me from my home for his games… I can't stand by and let him take the last of my family from me."

Though her gaze was unfocused, there was a determination set within them that they couldn't help but believe.

This was actually supposed to be the previous chapter, but someone mentioned being excited to see Toshiro's fight so I figured I probably shouldn't skip it. So, this stuff got moved forward a chapter and I rewrote the previous one to have the fight.