The rain fell like judgment.
Each drop hammered against cobblestone with the weight of accusation, turning the narrow streets of Karakura Town into rivers of shadow and reflected neon. The world blurred—colors bleeding together, streetlights smearing into watercolor halos that did nothing to push back the dark.
A man stumbled through it all, clutching something small against his chest.
His name was Daichi Susami, though the name would mean nothing soon. Blood soaked through his white shirt, mixing with rainwater until pink rivulets traced the curves of his arms. Deep gashes marked his back—four parallel lines torn through fabric and flesh alike, the signature of claws that had no business existing in the world of the living.
But they did exist. And they had found him.
Just a little further, he thought, teeth gritted against the pain lancing through his chest with every labored breath. Just a little—
The bundle in his arms shifted. A child's face emerged from the folds of a rain-soaked blanket—six years old, with dark skin and darker eyes that reflected nothing of the chaos surrounding them. No tears. No trembling. Just that unsettling, empty calm that had been present since the moment he'd been born.
"Iki," Daichi whispered, his voice barely audible over the storm. "Stay quiet. We're almost there."
The boy said nothing. He only watched his father with those hollow eyes, as if observing something infinitely distant rather than the man dying to protect him.
Daichi's foot caught on uneven pavement. He stumbled, nearly dropping his son, and pain exploded through his midsection. The wounds on his back weren't the worst of it—the real damage was internal, where claws had pierced through to vital organs. He could feel it with every heartbeat: the wrongness, the tearing, the way his body was slowly coming undone.
Not yet. Not yet. Please, not yet.
The memory clawed at him with fangs sharper than any Hollow's.
Six years ago.
A hospital room, sterile and white, filled with the sound of machines and labored breathing.
His wife—Amaya—lay in the bed, face slick with sweat, her hand crushing his with strength born of desperation. The pregnancy had been difficult from the start. Something about their child's spiritual pressure, the doctors had said. Something wrong with how much reiryoku the unborn infant radiated.
Fullbringers knew the danger. Hollows hunted them by instinct, drawn to the taste of their souls like sharks to blood in water. And a child with that much spiritual energy, still in the womb?
It was a beacon.
The wall exploded inward.
Daichi remembered turning, remembered seeing the thing that had torn through concrete and steel like tissue paper—a Hollow, its mask bone-white and split by a massive grin, red eyes gleaming with hunger. It was already lunging, claws extended, aimed directly at Amaya's swollen belly.
She moved faster.
Her Fullbring activated in a burst of golden light—a simple ability, really, born from the wedding ring she wore. Protection. Defense. A mother's desperate need to shield her child from harm.
The Hollow's claws met the barrier and stopped dead. For a heartbeat, the creature seemed confused. Then Amaya pushed, and the backlash sent the Hollow crashing through the opposite wall in a spray of plaster and rebar.
"Daichi," she gasped, and her voice carried all the weight of finality. "The baby. Now."
The next minutes blurred into nightmare. Doctors rushing in. Amaya's screams. The Hollow returning, more cautious now, circling like a predator that had learned its prey could bite.
And then—a cry.
Iki entered the world with lungs that drew breath like the tide pulling at the ocean. The pressure in the room changed. Spiritual particles in the air seemed to move, flowing toward the infant as if magnetized. The Hollow froze, its mask turning toward the newborn with something that might have been recognition.
"Run," Amaya whispered. She was pale, so pale, and there was too much blood. "Take him. Run."
Daichi had grabbed his son, still wet from birth, and fled into the corridor. Behind him, he heard the Hollow's roar. Heard Amaya's defiant scream. Heard the sound of her Fullbring shattering, and then—
Nothing.
Daichi's vision swam. He blinked hard, forcing himself back to the present.
The Susami estate. He could see it now, barely visible through the rain—traditional Japanese architecture emerging from dense forest like something from an older world. Paper screens glowed with warm lantern light behind wooden frames. Weathered beams and curved roof tiles spoke of generations, though most of those generations were gone now.
The gates stood before him, and beyond them, a figure.
"Yaho," Daichi croaked.
His twin brother stood in the doorway, frozen in shock. They were identical in nearly every way—same height, same build, same dark skin and sharp features. But where Daichi was dying, Yaho radiated life. He wore simple black clothing, an acoustic guitar slung across his back, and his expression cycled rapidly through disbelief, horror, and grief.
"Daichi—" Yaho's voice cracked. "What—"
"Take him." Daichi stumbled forward, crossing the threshold of the spiritual barrier that surrounded the estate. He felt it pass over him like a curtain of static, but the protection meant nothing now. The damage was already done. "Please, Yaho. Take him. Protect him."
Yaho's hands were already reaching out, accepting the bundle that was Iki Susami. The boy weighed almost nothing, and still he remained silent, those dark eyes shifting from father to uncle without apparent emotion.
Daichi collapsed.
He hit the ground hard, rain immediately pooling around him. His vision darkened at the edges. Somewhere distant, he heard Yaho shouting—calling for help, calling his name—but it sounded like it was coming from underwater.
"I'm sorry," Daichi whispered, though he wasn't sure if he was apologizing to his brother, his son, or his wife's memory. "I couldn't... I couldn't protect them. Either of them."
Yaho knelt beside him, one hand supporting Iki, the other gripping Daichi's shoulder. "Don't. Don't you dare—"
"His mother died the day he was born." Daichi's words came in gasps now. "Hollow attack. She... she sacrificed everything. And I couldn't even... couldn't even keep him safe for six years."
Tears mixed with rain on Yaho's face. "You brought him here. You did keep him safe."
"He's special, Yaho. I don't understand it, but he's—" Daichi coughed, and blood flecked his lips. "There's something inside him. Something that draws Hollows like moths to flame. You have to... you have to teach him to control it. Teach him to survive. Because I—"
He didn't finish.
Daichi Susami's eyes glazed over, his final breath leaving him with the rain still falling on his face. The wounds on his back stopped bleeding. The desperate tension in his muscles released all at once.
And Iki, held in Yaho's trembling arms, simply watched.
Inside the estate, Yaho moved through familiar halls like a ghost.
He'd laid his brother's body in the memorial room, covering it with a white cloth until proper arrangements could be made. His hands had shaken the entire time. His throat had burned with words he couldn't speak, grief he couldn't release, because there was a child watching him—a child who'd just lost his father and showed no reaction whatsoever.
It wasn't natural.
Yaho had seen trauma before. He'd rescued Fullbringer children from Hollow attacks, witnessed the aftermath of spiritual violence that left scars no hospital could heal. But this? This absolute absence of emotion, this void where a six-year-old's tears should be?
It terrified him.
"Iki," Yaho said gently, kneeling to meet the boy's eye level. They were in the main room now, surrounded by paper screens and the soft glow of lanterns. The rain continued outside, a constant drumming against the roof. "Do you understand what happened?"
Iki nodded once.
"Your father... he's gone. He's not coming back."
Another nod.
"Are you—" Yaho swallowed hard. "Are you okay?"
For the first time, something flickered behind Iki's eyes. Not grief. Not fear. Something else entirely—something ancient and incomprehensible, like staring into deep water and seeing shapes move in the darkness below.
"I can hear him," Iki said.
His voice was soft, almost melodic, and utterly devoid of inflection.
Yaho's blood ran cold. "Your father?"
"No." Iki tilted his head slightly. "Someone else. He's very far away. And he's... he's hurting."
Before Yaho could respond, footsteps pattered against wooden floor.
A girl emerged from the corridor—six years old, with long black hair tied into twin braids and warm brown eyes that went wide at the sight of the newcomer. She wore a simple dress that looked like something from a storybook, complete with frills and ribbons. This was Yukina Aoki, the orphaned Fullbringer child Yaho had taken in three months prior after rescuing her from a Hollow attack.
"Yaho-san," Yukina said, her voice small and uncertain. "Who is—"
She stopped.
Her eyes locked onto Iki, and something changed.
Yaho saw it happen—saw the way Yukina's expression shifted from curiosity to confusion to something deeper, something instinctive and inexplicable. Her breath caught. Her small hands clutched at her dress. Color rose to her cheeks, and she took an involuntary step forward.
"Who..." Yukina's voice was barely a whisper. "Who is he?"
"This is Iki," Yaho said carefully, watching the strange interaction with growing concern. "He's my nephew. He'll be living with us from now on."
Yukina moved closer, drawn like gravity toward the expressionless boy. She stopped just out of reach, staring at him with eyes that held recognition despite never having met before.
"Hello," she said.
Iki turned his head to regard her. "Hello."
"I'm Yukina. Yukina Aoki." She fidgeted with her dress. "I... I live here too. Yaho-san saved me."
"I'm Iki Susami."
Silence stretched between them. Yaho watched, uncertain whether to intervene, as something unspoken passed between the two children. Yukina's face had gone red now, her breathing slightly uneven, and she couldn't seem to look away from Iki's empty eyes.
What is this? Yaho thought. What am I seeing?
"You're hurt," Yukina said suddenly, pointing at a small cut on Iki's arm—barely visible, probably from the desperate flight through the rain.
"Yes," Iki agreed, with the same flat tone he used for everything.
"I'll get bandages!" Yukina declared, and rushed off before either could stop her.
Yaho let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. "Iki... do you know her?"
"No."
"Then why did she—"
"I don't know." Iki's expression remained unchanged. "But I think... I think she recognizes something."
"Recognizes what?"
The boy's dark eyes shifted to meet Yaho's, and for just a moment, that ancient presence flickered behind them again.
"I don't know that either," Iki said. "But the voice says we're connected. All of us. Every soul in every world. We're all pieces of something that was broken a long time ago."
Yaho opened his mouth. Closed it. Had no idea how to respond to that.
Yukina returned with bandages, fussing over Iki's minor injury with far more attention than necessary. The boy accepted her ministrations without comment, simply breathing steadily while she worked. And with each breath, Yaho felt it—the strange pressure in the air, the way spiritual particles seemed to flow toward Iki like water circling a drain.
What are you? Yaho wondered, staring at his nephew. What did my brother bring to my doorstep?
Night fell properly, and the rain finally stopped.
Yaho had given Iki a room—small, simple, with a futon and a window overlooking the estate's garden. He'd offered food, which Iki accepted and ate mechanically. He'd shown him where the bathroom was, explained the house rules, tried to create some semblance of normalcy.
It was almost midnight when Yaho finally allowed himself to collapse in his own room, grief and exhaustion warring for dominance. His brother was dead. His brother's widow was long dead. And now he was responsible for a child who spoke of voices and broken souls with the conviction of absolute truth.
I don't know if I can do this, Yaho thought, staring at the ceiling. I don't know if I'm strong enough.
But his brother had trusted him. Had spent his last breath begging Yaho to protect the boy.
So he would. Somehow, he would.
Yaho was just beginning to drift off when the scream shattered the night.
He was on his feet instantly, guitar in hand, charging down the corridor toward Iki's room. The door slid open—
And he froze.
Iki stood at the window, silhouetted against moonlight, his body rigid and his mouth open in a wail that didn't sound like it came from a child. The sound was wrong—too layered, too resonant, like multiple voices screaming in harmony. Papers scattered across the room as impossible wind tore through the enclosed space. The lantern flame gutted itself.
"Iki!" Yaho rushed forward, grabbing the boy's shoulders.
The screaming stopped.
Iki turned, and his eyes—his eyes were glowing faintly white, reflecting light that had no source.
"He's in pain," Iki said, his voice his own again but thick with emotion that hadn't been there before. Tears rolled down his cheeks, the first Yaho had seen. "He's been in pain for so long. So long. They cut him apart. They used him. They broke him."
"Who? Iki, who are you—"
"I don't know his name," the boy whispered. "But I can feel him. In here." He pressed a small hand to his chest. "He's asking for help. He's begging. Free me, he says. Please, free me."
Yaho pulled Iki into an embrace, holding the trembling child against his chest. "It's okay. It's okay, I've got you."
But even as he said it, Yaho felt the wind continuing to howl through the room. Felt the pressure building, the way reality itself seemed to flex and strain around his nephew's presence.
And he realized, with creeping dread, that nothing about this situation was okay.
Nothing about Iki Susami was normal.
And whatever voice the boy was hearing—whatever being was crying out for freedom through a six-year-old's lungs—
It was something far, far beyond a simple Fullbringer's understanding.
The vision took him without warning.
One moment, Iki was in Yaho's arms, anchored to the physical world by warmth and the smell of his uncle's clothes.
The next, he was elsewhere.
The palace stretched before him in impossible geometries—crystalline spires that curved through dimensions human eyes weren't meant to perceive. Everything gleamed with ethereal light, casting no shadows because shadow implied the absence of light, and here there was only presence. The architecture defied logic: stairs that led nowhere, doorways that opened onto themselves, pillars that supported nothing while holding up everything.
And at the center of it all—
Him.
The figure suspended in amber light.
Iki's child-mind couldn't fully process what he was seeing. The shape was humanoid, but only in the way that suggested the concept of "human" before stripping away everything that made the term meaningful. Limbs extended at wrong angles. The torso was incomplete, pieces missing as if reality itself had been surgically excised. The head—
The head was wrapped in something that looked like cloth but felt like crystallized time.
And from the gaps in that incomplete form, Iki could feel it: pain. Ancient, unending, multiplied across countless millennia until it became something more than suffering. It became existence itself.
"Please," the voice whispered, and it came from everywhere and nowhere. "Please. I did not ask for this. I only wanted to—"
The vision shattered.
Iki gasped, finding himself back in his room, back in Yaho's arms, his uncle's concerned face filling his vision.
"What did you see?" Yaho asked quietly.
Iki's breathing had changed. Slower now. Deeper. Each inhalation seemed to pull at the air itself, drawing spiritual particles toward him with invisible force.
"I saw," Iki said, his voice very small and very calm, "the reason I was born."
And even though he was only six years old, even though he'd lost both parents and inherited a burden he didn't understand—
Some part of Iki Susami understood, with terrible clarity, that his life was no longer his own.
It belonged to the voice.
To the imprisoned god.
To whatever ancient being was using his lungs to breathe.
The night settled into uneasy peace.
Yaho stayed with Iki until the boy's breathing evened out and sleep claimed him. The wind had stopped. The pressure had faded. But the memory of that scream lingered in the estate's wooden bones, as if the house itself remembered.
One in four hundred trillion, Yaho thought, the philosophy that had sustained him through his own traumas surfacing unbidden. Every life is a miracle. Every existence is precious beyond measure.
He looked at his nephew—small and fragile in sleep, dark skin and darker braids, chest rising and falling with unnatural rhythm.
But what do you do, Yaho wondered, when the miracle itself is terrifying?
He had no answer.
So he did the only thing he could: he stayed. Sat beside the sleeping child. Kept watch through the remainder of the night. And when dawn finally came, painting the sky in shades of pink and gold, Yaho Susami made a promise.
To his dead brother. To his dead sister-in-law. To the strange boy who'd been thrust into his care.
I'll protect you, he vowed silently. No matter what you are. No matter what's inside you. I'll protect you with everything I have.
Even if it cost him his life.
Even if it cost him his soul.
Because that's what family did.
And Iki Susami—host to something divine, carrier of an impossible burden, whisperer to imprisoned gods—was family.
That was all that mattered.
Somewhere distant, in a place that existed outside conventional space, behind a crystalline palace that no mortal should see—
The Soul King's consciousness stirred.
A connection had been made. Tenuous. Fragile. But real.
And for the first time in millennia, something that might have been hope flickered in the darkness of eternal imprisonment.
The child would grow.
The breath would strengthen.
And perhaps—just perhaps—
Freedom was no longer impossible.