Such a child must never be allowed to live, nor study, nor learn to hold a sword in his hand for the sake of this world and the future ones beyond. One who does not know reality seeks to create his own reality – and will sacrifice all around him.
~The Black Prophesy

"Sousuke-sama, so here you are."

At the sound of the serving man's voice, the bespectacled youth raised his head from the ancient tome he had been reading intently, adjusting his glasses as he turned to send the speaker a quizzical look. At his gaze, the man bowed his head, spreading his hands in apology for the disturbance.

"Your lord grandfather wished me to convey to you the news that he has gone to the shrine again - and will not return until the end of the week. He wishes solitude to pray at the memorial of your late grandmother - and has bid me tell you that anything you need in his absence, I am to see to immediately."

There was a moment of silence, then the young man smiled, nodding his head.

"Thank you, Gorou. I'll bear it in mind."

"Yes, sir." The servant bowed his head again, then withdrew, leaving the youngster once more alone in the old, dusty library.

So his grandfather had gone to chase ghosts again.

Sousuke set down his book, getting to his feet and moving to the window, his gaze drifting across the uneven countryside to the mountain retreat where he knew the old man would be heading. He was an odd man - more a hermit than anything, Sousuke reflected - yet despite his growing infirmity, he often made the trek up the stony pathway alone to pray and commune with the dead spirit of his wife. She had been interred in the family crypt, where Junsuke and the mysterious Kohaku also lay, but his grandfather preferred to visit the mountain shrine where, the stories had it, he had first proposed marriage when he had been little older than Sousuke was now.

The boy did not know whether this was true, and he didn't understand the reasons any more than he had understood his mother's need to pray at Junsuke's grave - but he did not spend much time dwelling on it. His grandfather was old, and perhaps by going there he was preparing himself for his own passage into death. Sousuke had no desire to help him take those steps, but he knew that the withered old man would not be much longer in this world. His health was fading and so was his mind - soon he would release his spirit into the ether like others before him, and Sousuke would once more be alone.

But Sousuke was not troubled by that thought. In fact, very little troubled him these days. Not since he had come here, four years before.

Sousuke was seventeen now, and almost old enough to call himself adult, yet still three years below his majority. He had been a ward of his grandfather since the terrible fire that had ripped through and destroyed his family home, killing everyone that had been inside. Sousuke alone had escaped - his grandfather's attendants had claimed it a miracle that any had managed to pull themselves from that place - yet he had not left that part of his past without scarring. Even now, faint shadows covered his lower legs from where the angry flames had tried to consume him. And one thing more.

Sousuke raised his hand absently to touch the frames of his glasses.

The smoke and searing heat of the fire had done its damage to his eyes, too. The tears that had streamed uncontrollably down his cheeks that night had been mistaken for grief, but in fact they had held a deeper meaning - that his vision had also been burnt by the experience, and as a result, his eyesight had become uneven and blurred. To begin with, even opening his eyes in bright light had caused him discomfort and pain, and he had been forced to spend much of his time in a darkened room - a strange irony, when he thought back to his parents' attempts to confine him. Now that was no longer the case, and he could once more walk in sunshine, but the residual damage had yet to fully heal, and as a result, he had been forced into wearing glasses.

It was a nusiance, but Sousuke had accepted it with equanimity. His eyes would heal - they were already healing, and now he could see further without them than he had been able to the summer before, or the one before that. In time, he would discard them completely - but in the meantime, he had learnt another truth of this false, fickle world.

People did not expect someone who wore glasses to pose a threat.

Nobody had ever spoken to Sousuke about the fire, yet even so he knew he was not suspected of any involvement. He had been treated kindly but distantly by his father's father, who had taken him in but spent very little time watching what he did or where he went. He had given the boy free run of his manor, allowing him to read what books he liked, and indulge in whatever pastimes he chose. Consequently, Sousuke had once more been able to obtain a sword and, whenever he was not practicing his skills, he was reading in the library about the history of his family, searching and searching for the name Aizen Kohaku.

In four years, he had learnt many things. But he had still not learnt the full significance of the tomb he had found beneath the Aizen family crypt.

He had shied from asking his grandfather directly, for though an old and feeble man, Sousuke found his current life far better a prospect than being sent out as a ward to a strange house. They might try to control him - he might even end up in the custody of the Ootoribashi lord who had visited his parents that day. Sousuke had no idea where he lived or what kind of household he had, but from that brief impression, the young man was sure that he did not want to renew that acquaintance or draw attention to himself from that quarter. He remembered that through some unknown path the Ootoribashi lord was his kinsman - but distant enough for him to have paid no attention to the death of the Aizen family. That was how Sousuke preferred it. Disinterest bred freedom, and freedom was the thing he craved most of all.

In those years, he had heard Kyouka speak only two or three times. The mirror had visited him in dreams, showing him once more the silhouette of the great castle fortress that Sousuke now knew was a part of his inner self. Sousuke had asked Kyouka who Kohaku was - but the mirror had never clearly answered his question. Each time, all he had said had been, "Your destiny is yours to discover. Not for dead men to dictate."

Still, Sousuke had more or less made up his mind. In the darkest corner of his grandfather's library were ancient texts on the arts of the shinigami, and one in particular had caught his attention.

Kidou. The path of the demon.

His childhood recollections had flashed through him as he had stared at those two, roughly scribed kanji slashed across the fading paper. He had read the whole volume in an afternoon, devouring each and every piece of information with eager, desperate greed as he tried to understand why that kanji of all kanji should be present in something that so strongly related to the ancestor whose history he sought.

Time and time again, his thoughts were drawn to that man's drifting marble haori and his glittering blade. His mother - no, Kyouka also -they had both called the lights that touched the weapon 'Kidou lamps'. Now he had seen the word written, he understood his mother's fear. She had been weak - possessed by demons that had ultimately consumed everything, even her love for her son. But Sousuke was stronger than that. He had already learnt he could fight demons. Kill demons. Control demons. And here was proof in his hands that shinigami too had a way to subjugate those creatures and use their powers for themselves.

Then Sousuke had heard about the great Academy that crested the divide between the world of the shinigami and the lax, lazy word of the uninterested noble houses. It had been started by an ancient man older than life itself, yet a man who still commanded in the Gotei to this day - a man by the name of Yamamoto Genryuusai Shigekuni, who was held in high respect as the Sou Taichou of shinigami across the whole of Seireitei. This man must surely have known about Aizen Kohaku - perhaps he had even taught the man that to Sousuke was so elusive. Maybe at that Academy there were clues - perhaps there he would find out everything he needed to know about the ancestor he had been forbidden access to.

Yes, he would become a shinigami. He would learn the arts and don the shihakushou that his antecedent had once worn. Little by little, piece by piece, he would find out what secrets had been hidden from him. He was resolved now. He would know.

He had not told his grandfather of his plans, for though the old man did not interfere in Sousuke's life, the young boy was still wary of trusting his thoughts to anyone else. Perhaps, deep down, his grandfather would stand out against him too. Maybe he also feared shinigami - although if that was the case, Sousuke did not know why these ancient volumes were here, stored away in dust and silence but not destroyed nor locked behind cold stone walls.

They might have been undisturbed for centuries, but they remained intact. And while he was here, Sousuke was resolved to read all of them from cover to cover, absorbing whatever he could on his path towards the future.

He moved back towards the shelves, running his fingers over the old bound volumes with a pensive look in his brown eyes. It was no mean feat, trying to figure out the faded characters and unfamiliar orthography that the past scribes had favoured. Yet it was a challenge that he relished. His curiosity had not sated any with age - and without the shackles of his parents around his wrists, he was free to research anything he chose.

As he pulled the next volume from the shelf, he heard something slip and then thud against the floor, as though it had been knocked down between the shelves by his action. Sousuke frowned, setting his book aside as he peered into the darkness, trying to see what had fallen.

At first he saw nothing, but he knew that his vision was not as sharp now as it had been in the past, and so he gritted his teeth, slipping his hand into the crack between the books and feeling around tentatively through the long-abandoned cobwebs and thick layers of dust for anything that seemed out of place.

Eventually his fingers brushed against what felt like the spine of another book, and he felt faintly disappointed. So it had just been another of these volumes, pushed to the back and forgotten and now only disturbed by his own carelessness.

With a sigh he pulled it out, dusting it absently against his hakama as he prepared to return it to its place on the shelves. He glanced at the spine to check its volume number, but as he did so, he paused, his eyes widening in surprise.

Instead of a neatly monogrammed title and volume number, this book had been cloth bound and the characters that covered the spine were written by hand in brush and ink, in a script style that even Sousuke found difficult at first to decipher.

His heart skipped a beat and he got to his feet, moving across towards the window so that he could hold the book up to the light.

Now he could see it - faint and faded, but still just about legible, four characters written in black ink across the blue cloth.

『黒預言書』

"Kokuyogensho." He murmured. "The...Black...Prophesy?"

He frowned, sitting back down at his desk and pushing his earlier work aside as he set the old book down in front of him. It truly was ancient, still bound by ribbon with a spine that had been stiffened with something that Sousuke had never seen before. As he opened it, dust swirled up from from the pages and he coughed, wafting the musty smell away. Then he paused.

The smell reminded him of something he'd encountered before. Something...those years ago...inside the crypt. Inside the forbidden tomb - the mixture of old fashioned incense and general age and must. His heart stilled.

Did this...have something to do with...his ancestor, Kohaku?

He hesitated for a moment, staring at the introductory page. The same four characters were written inside in a column - in the same hand as the one that had marked the spine, yet there was nothing else. No author's name, nothing more to give him any clue as to who had written it, or why.

Slowly he turned the next page, and a mass of black characters greeted him - closely written kanji in a careful, educated hand. There were characters here that even Sousuke with all his wide knowledge of Japanese characters did not know - characters that had changed or simply ceased to exist with the passage of time, idioms that were old fashioned and no longer in recent use. Yet as he stared at it, a few words began to make themselves clear. And one in particular caught his eye.

"Demons." He whispered.

Carefully he flicked through the book, but there were no pictures, and every page was filled with similar columns of thick black text. It would take him time to read it, but as he reached the very end of the volume, he saw something that resolved him that somehow he would find a way to read every single word.

The final page of the volume was written in plain script - where the writer had discarded his formal, elegant kanji and instead had written in simple hiragana, presumably in order for people to clearly understand what he had written. There was a harried urgency in those final columns, Sousuke realised - the precision of the earlier writing was nowhere to be seen and though he was sure it had been written by the same hand, he almost thought that he could see where the writer's hand had shaken. From age? From fear? Ill health? Sousuke didn't know, but as he read the words, his curiosity was piqued.

One who like me will sacrifice all to change all. One who is me but a reflection of me, to whom I will never speak. One who will hold a terrifying power. The one who is the true heir of Father's goals. To change Seireitei...and to take control, as a God who walks among men.

"A God who...walks among men?" Sousuke murmured. "Then...but who wrote this? Whose father? Who...what...why...?"

He squinted back down at the page, and his heart skipped a beat once more as he saw that on the far left of the page, half obscured by a smear of ink and somewhat faded by age there was a signature. It was the only place in the whole volume where Sousuke had seen any sign of a name, but as he glanced at it, he realised at once what it said. He had seen the characters before, once, on the outer door to the forbidden crypt.

Aizen Kohaku.

It was followed by a date, but Sousuke did not read any more. Instead he closed the book, clasping it tightly to his chest.

This was written by him...it was written by him. It must have been. He had people seal up his tomb. He made sure people believed that it was cursed. This book...holds the reason. Something in here...something I hold in my hands now will tell me everything I need to know. Surely...for someone to write something like this...he had a reason. He was someone important, Aizen Kohaku-dono. And if I continue on this path, and become a shinigami...I will find out what. I will follow in his footsteps after all, and I'll read and learn why his tomb was sealed and why so many lies were told. Why did we forget about you, Kohaku-dono? And who...was the man who was your father? What did he seek to do that frightened this world so much a whole family had to forget?

People always fear what they don't understand.

Kyouka's voice rang through his thoughts at that moment, making him jump.

Be careful, Sousuke-sama. The paths you follow lead in many directions. Your ancestors were great men - but there have not been great Aizen in generations. You have a lot of work to do, and you will find a lot more demons waiting to block your path as time goes on. Read that book. Read it all and understand. That this world...is not yet ready. You must make it ready...for a God who will walk among men.

The reflection in the mirror is not the true soul. There is no true soul.
The end has come. Only the one whose blade can stop a phoenix can break the chain of fate.
If the prophecies collide, this world still has hope. But if not…all will be in vain and this world will be as ashes, dust unto dust.
~The Black Prophesy

~Owari~