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[Narrator Pov]
White
All he saw was white.
W̶a̶i̶t̶ ̶n̶o̶ ̶a̶c̶t̶u̶a̶l̶l̶y̶
Black.
A never-ending void of Black.
It wasn't empty, however, for in this blank dark void, there was one individual who was slowly regaining consciousness.
This individual was, unfortunately, Yhwach.
The "last" remaining Echt Quincy.
Yhwach blinked a few times, confused, angry, and honestly tired of whatever bullshit this was supposed to be. His head felt heavy as he lifted his hands and stared at them.
…Adult hands.
Actual grown-man hands.
He flexed his fingers just to be sure. They moved exactly how he remembered. No tiny wrists. No soft baby skin. no baby oil.....
"…what…?" he muttered, more irritated than shocked.
He remembered shrinking. regressing, His voice turning small and pathetic. The hollow ripping everything from him. Then darkness.
So why was he like this now?
The better question is.
Where the fuck is he?
He looked around and then saw it.
The hollow mask lying a short distance away in this weird black nothingness. That same miserable little shit that dragged him backwards and threw him in a different world.
Yhwach's stomach twisted with disgust.
He walked over slowly, picked it up, and held it in front of his face. The mask didn't move. Didn't twitch. Didn't speak. It just stared at him with those stupid empty eye holes.
"You," he said quietly, almost spitting the word. "You did this to me."
"Just what the hell are you?" he demanded.
Nothing.
Not even a breath.
He glared harder, his grip tightening around the hollow mask as it started to crack.
"I asked you a question," he said again, louder this time. "What the hell do you want from me? And how did you even find me? How did you drag me here?"
Still nothing. Just empty silence in this endless dark place.
"Answer me," he said, sounding more frustrated than calm now.
More cracks. More silence.
Then the whole thing broke in his hand as pieces fell like chalk dust and disappeared into the blackness of this horrible place.
The moment it did, something yanked him forward.
He gasped.
And woke up.
His body felt wrong again. Smaller. Fragile. Slow.
Yhwach opened his eyes.
Nothing.
Just darkness. Static. pure nothing pressed against his vision.
…Blind. Again.
He tried to speak to force something out of his throat, a word, a yell, anything but nothing came out. Not even a breathy sound. His own voice betrayed him.
Mute. Fantastic.
He strained, pushing his spirit senses outward, Reikaku, the sense that once let him read entire battlefields like open books.
Nothing.
Just a dead, suffocating silence.
...Deaf. Blind. Mute. No senses. No voice. No spirit perception.
Back to square one.
Back to that same nightmare state he once crawled out of centuries ago.
If he could grit his teeth, he would've.
Of all the humiliations… this one again.
Reduced to being a helpless infant waiting for the world to touch him like he was some kind of charity case.
But he wouldn't die.
He knew that.
He always survived.
Not by Ichigo Kurosaki.
Not by his nemesis, Captain Commander Genryusai Shigekuni Yamamoto who failed to kill him a thousand years ago.
And not by Ichibei Hyosube.
Nothing had ever truly erased or stopped him.
Time passed. He wasn't sure how long some seconds felt like minutes, minutes felt like hours in this tiny, suffocating body.
Hands started to touch him.
He felt violated.
I felt violated.
W̶a̶i̶t̶ ̶I̶'̶m̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶n̶a̶r̶r̶a̶t̶o̶r̶,̶ ̶h̶o̶w̶ ̶a̶m̶ ̶I̶ ̶s̶u̶p̶p̶o̶s̶e̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶f̶e̶e̶l̶ ̶v̶i̶o̶l̶a̶t̶e̶d̶?̶
He hated it.
Hated every second of it.
But he couldn't stop it.
He let pieces of his soul peel off and slip into them.
He endured it anyway.
Eventually, someone entered the room. He felt the shift in air, the vibration of footsteps through the floor. A deeper voice spoke.
Inspector Yamato.
"Doctor, forget everything you saw today."
Tanimura let out a soft, nervous exhale.
"A-Are you sure? We could-"
"No." Yamato cut him off immediately. "I know what I'm doing, Tanimura."
"But Inspector, listen, this child... this healing ability... this could change everything. Think about it we could cure illnesses, heal injuries, this could be a breakthrough in medical scie-"
"Tanimura. Please do not make me resort to permanently silencing you."
The room froze.
Yhwach couldn't see or hear, but he could feel the fear.
People always leaked emotion through touch.
"You're a good man," Yamato continued, quieter now, "but if word gets out about this? Villagers, officials, demon slayers, everyone will come running. Good or bad, it won't matter. It will drag this village into something we can't control."
"B-But he could save lives," Tanimura insisted weakly. "Think of the sick, the dying, we could use him to-"
"He's a fucking baby," Yamato snapped. "A baby. Not a tool. Not some miracle well you can dip your hands into whenever you want."
Tanimura went silent. Completely.
A long, tense pause.
"...Fine," the old doctor finally said. "I'll keep my mouth shut."
"Thank you."
He felt hands again, larger ones this time.
The inspector wrapped him in a blanket, swaddling him carefully despite clearly not understanding what he was holding.
Yhwach felt the weight shift, his small body pressed against a warm chest. A heartbeat. The faint scent of tobacco still clung to the man's coat, even though the damage in his lungs was gone.
This wasn't comfort.
He despised being carried.
But he could do nothing about it.
For now.
As you can see, I am very small, and I have no power or money, so you can imagine the kind of stress I am under.
He thought bitterly.
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Yamato pushed open the wooden door to his home, sliding it shut behind him with a quiet thump and familiar smells drifted from the kitchen rice, miso, and something simmering.
"Welcome home," a gentle voice called.
His wife stepped out, wiping her hands on her apron. She smiled at first, then froze when she saw the bundled infant in his arms.
"...Dear?" she asked slowly. "Whose child is that?"
Yamato inhaled through his nose, preparing himself for the worst.
"It's... complicated," he said, stepping inside. "Come here. And keep your voice low."
She approached cautiously, peering at the small face barely visible under the blanket. Her eyebrows lifted in confusion.
"He's dark... Where did-?"
"He was found at a crime scene," Yamato said quietly. "Don't panic. He's… okay."Mostly, he added in his head.
His wife blinked, clearly waiting for more.
Yamato rubbed his forehead. "Look... something is strange about him. Things happened at the clinic. Things I can't explain. And nobody, and I mean nobody can find out about him. Not the neighbours, not your friends, not even the children."
Just as he said that he heard a voice call out to him.
"Dad?" a small voice asked from the hallway.
Their daughter poked her head around the corner, followed by their younger son dragging a wooden toy behind him.
His wife quickly stepped in front of them. "Not now, you two. Go to your room. Your father needs a moment."
"Aww..."
"But I wanna see!"
"No," Yamato said firmly, sharper than usual. Both kids flinched. "Go."
They obeyed, grumbling, their footsteps pattering away.
Only when they were gone did his wife turn back to him.
"What exactly are you saying?" she whispered. "Is the child sick?"
Yamato let out a slow, heavy exhale. "I don't know. But until I do, the kids can't go near him. And neither can anyone else."
She swallowed hard, but nodded. "All right.... I trust you."
Relief flickered in his eyes.
He carried the baby into the spare room, once their son's nursery. Dust still clung to the corners, but the old crib stood there.
He set the wrapped child down carefully inside it, adjusting the blanket around the tiny body.
Yhwach, trapped in this small, useless form, felt the shift of movement. Wooden bars. A thin mattress. The faint creaking of the crib.
And Yamato's presence lingered above him.
The inspector stared at him in silence.
A grown man looking down at a baby... with pity.
Actual pity.
As if Yhwach was some lost kitten instead of the Quincy King who nearly laid waste to the entirety of Soul Society.
"...You must've been through hell," Yamato muttered under his breath.
Yamato truly felt sad for the boy; he couldn't imagine living a life like the child before him.
Yhwach, of course, couldn't hear it, but he could feel the weight of the man's emotions through his soul fragment.
Worry.
Fear.
Responsibility.
And something that annoyed Yhwach even more...
Sympathy.
Yamato sighed, rubbing the back of his neck.
"I don't know what you are," he whispered. "A blessing… a curse… or something in between."
He rested a hand on the crib rail.
"But for now… you're in my care."
Yamato lingered a little longer, then turned and left the room, sliding the door softly behind him.
The house grew quiet.
Yhwach lay there in darkness, blind, deaf, mute, and furious.
But alive.
And that was all he needed.
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Time passed, maybe an hour, maybe more. The house was quiet except for the soft creaks of the wooden frame settling in the night wind. Yamato sat alone at his small desk, a single candle melting down beside him. Stacks of opened books surrounded him, old folktale collections, scrolls copied from shrines, anything that mentioned masks, spirits, demons.
But none of it made sense.
He picked up the strange white mask again, turning it over in his hands. The thing felt wrong. Heavy, even though it shouldn't be. Like it was staring back at him.
"What the hell are you...?" he muttered, rubbing his thumb along one of the horn-like edges. "And where did you come from?"
The mask, of course, didn't answer. Why would it??? It's a fucking mask.
He hesitated. Then, sighing, he lifted it toward his face.
"Just... a test," he whispered to himself. "Just to understand."
He pressed it on.
It didn't fit quite right. too big in some places, too tight in others. But the second it touched his skin, something crawled through him. A cold shiver up his spine. His hands trembled a little.
"...Mm. Yup. That's enough," he grumbled, reaching to pull it off.
He tugged.
It didn't move.
"...What?"
He pulled harder.
Nothing.
A prick of panic spiked in his chest. He clawed at the edges, nails scraping the bone-like surface.
"Okay, okay, that's enough. Off. Off!"
Suddenly, pain tore through his skull. Yamato cried out, stumbling back from the desk as the books scattered around him. He fell to his knees, gripping the sides of the mask.
"A-Agh-K-Kami-!" he choked out, His whole body shook as if electricity was ripping through his blood.
He slammed his head against the tatami floor once, twice, anything to loosen the damn thing.
Footsteps thundered down the hallway.
"Yamato!?" his wife screamed.
The children's voices followed, frightened, confused.
"Dad!?"
They slid the door open and froze.
Yamato lay on the floor, twitching violently, fingers digging into the mask that was now half-sinking into his skin. His body jerked once more-
And then stilled.
Completely.
His wife rushed to him, hands shaking as she touched his shoulders.
"Y-Yamato? Yamato, answer me!" Her voice cracked instantly.
The kids cried behind her.
But Yamato didn't move.
Because he's dead...
The officers arrived not long after. Lanterns bobbed in the dark as they hurried into the house, boots thumping against the wooden floor.
One of them was Megumi, Yamato's most trusted officer, who stepped forward, removing his cap as he knelt beside the covered body.
He looked shaken.
"Ma'am," he said quietly, "are you sure the thing that killed him was the… demon mask? Not a stroke, or a heart failure, or-"
"Yes."
Her voice strained, her eyes red and wet. "It-it was that mask. He put it on and then...then that happened."
Megumi swallowed, glancing at the other officers, who were now combing through Yamato's cluttered desk. Books about spirits, demons, yokai-half-opened, pages sticking out.
"...He was researching this," Megumi murmured. "Trying to understand it."
His wife nodded weakly, then hesitated.
"There is something else. H-He brought a baby home with him earlier. I believe… he was the same child from the incident yesterday."
Megumi's head snapped up.
"Baby? Show me."
She led him down the hall, her steps shaky. They entered the old nursery.
There, in the dim light of a lantern, the baby lay still in the crib—quiet, unmoving, like a doll. His skin was dark, almost unnaturally so, tiny chest rising in slow, shallow breaths.
Megumi stared.
Why is he so black?
He caught himself immediately. No, no, hell no, that sounds racist. I'm not racist. I'm not.
He shook the thought out of his head.
"Officer Megumi?" the wife whispered, noticing his silence.
"R-Right, yes." He cleared his throat. "Do you mind if I... take him? Just to examine. Nothing harmful."
She stiffened. "My husband said not to let anyone touch the child."
"Did he tell you why?"
"…No. He never did."
Then how dangerous can a baby be?
He reached into the crib.
The moment his hands closed around the infant's small body, a strange jolt hit him like warm electricity pulsing through him. His heart fluttered, then steadied… stronger, clearer.
His breath hitched.
He gasped and dropped the ugly baby back onto the mattress.
"Ah! Are you all right!?" the wife cried, stepping forward.
Megumi froze.
Yesterday he'd gotten into a rough brawl at the bar, bruised ribs, swollen knuckles. He could still remember limping home.
But now?
His ribs didn't ache. His jaw didn't throb, and his knuckles were smooth.
"…Kami," he whispered, staring down in disbelief at his own hands. "It's all healed."
He looked at the child again, Yhwach lying still, his tiny face blank.
A sudden chill crept down his spine.
"What... what is this baby…?" Megumi muttered.
In the crib, Yhwach lay frozen, pain flickering through what little sensation he had left.
He despised the man for dropping him.
Just like that, the Yamato family held a funeral. It was quiet, small. The kind where no one really knew what to say except "I'm sorry" and "He was a good man." The wife and kids cried the whole time. Even some officers cried. Yamato was well-liked. Nobody expected him to be gone so suddenly.
The police searched everywhere after that. For the murderer who killed the drunks and the homeless man. For anything that could explain the mask. They searched the alleys, the woods, even the mountain. Nothing. Whoever was behind the killings was gone. No tracks, no clues, nothing.
Dr. Tanimura, the one who first examined the baby, came by the house a few days later. With Yamato gone, he said he would take care of the child himself. At least until things settled down.
He lasted one day before dying.
The villagers found Dr. Tanimura collapsed on his bedroom floor, eyes open, body already cold. The baby sat in a basket beside him, wrapped neatly in a blanket. Not a scratch on him.
Megumi tried after that. He stepped forward to take care of the child but even Megumi didn't last long. Three weeks later, he collapsed outside the station while talking to another officer.
After Megumi died, Yamato's wife took the baby in again out of guilt, or maybe out of fear of what would happen if nobody did.
She didn't survive either.
A month had passed.
And somewhere along the way, the villagers started whispering. At first, it was fear that the child was a curse or a demon. Then it turned into something else.
People touched him.
No, not aggressively or inappropriately, thankfully.
The people around him began to treat him like treasure. Because they realised that by touching him, parts they were missing would gradually be filled.
Those with ailing lungs saw their lungs healed. The lonely had their hearts filled. The timid were filled with courage. Even those who lost their legs slowly regained them.
They called him a blessing. A gift. A miracle.
The villagers didn't question the obvious things.
How the child could not see.
Couldn't hear.
Couldn't speak.
Could not even move.
How a baby like that should've died long ago.
But they didn't care about that.
All they cared about was that touching him made something inside them heal. Something deep. Something no medicine or prayer had fixed.
What they didn't know was that the child had the power to impart his soul.
His soul would be bestowed whenever he was touched. Wounds that could not be healed by their own soul would be healed. At the same time... while their wounds were healing, the knowledge they'd gained, abilities they'd acquired, talents that blossomed, all of it... were ingrained in the pieces of the child's soul given to them. And...
All of that would return to the child... when they died.
Yamato's fragment returned first.
Then Dr. Tanimura's.
Then Megumi's.
Those who touched the child did not live for long. A few years. A few months. Some would die after only a few days. Yet the people kept flocking to the child.
Every time a piece of his soul returned... the child's unmoving arms and legs... and his eyes that could not see, would slowly heal. Eventually... as his unhearing ears were hearing... he heard and saw.
The villagers. Chanting.
Praising.
Worshipping.
Dozens of them kneeling around him, hands reaching out like he was some holy grail.
They reached for him.
They prayed for him.
They offered him food, coins, letters, everything.
"Please, bless me."
"Please heal me."
"Please, child...please..."
Yhwach lay there in the shrine they built for him, his tiny body growing stronger with every soul he reclaimed.
They didn't know the truth.
They didn't know the price.
They just kept coming.And coming.And coming.
And soon a demon came knocking, curious to see the miracle child.
The villagers didn't notice it at first. They were too busy lining up outside the shrine, clutching prayer slips, charms, tiny offerings. Yhwach lay in the center on a raised platform, wrapped in clean white cloth, his small chest rising and falling slowly.
Something was standing at the entrance of the village.
A woman wearing what looked like a torn kimono, stained with dark blotches.
She wandered through the village slowly, almost lazily, humming to herself as she dragged a finger along the wooden fences.
"So many humans... strange little humans...." she murmured. "Why are you all so... happy lately?"
Back when she was human, the village was small and miserable. She remembered cooking with her mother, helping her father with the grain bags...
She refused to kill them. Instead, she ran. She left her home behind.
She thought she'd never return.
But rumours travel fast. and she heard them all.
The village had seen multiple strange deaths.
They were not even demon attacks.
Just found dead in unexplained ways.
Dead in ways that didn't make sense.
Since she was the only demon in the area, she got curious.
Curious enough to come back.
Curious enough to step through the familiar wooden gate as the villagers whispered happily toward the shrine in the centre-
giggling, chattering, excited.
Happy in a way she hadn't seen since she was alive.
That alone was wrong.
Villages didn't get happier after deaths.
Her yellow eyes narrowed.
"What are you all hiding...?"
She followed the scent.
It drew her to the shrine.
But she didn't rush.
She took her time, her fingertips brushing along the wooden shutters she remembered sweeping when she was fifteen.
"Funny..." she whispered. "I used to live here. I used to laugh here."
She paused beside an old well.
"And now look at me."
Her reflection in the water looked back.
A demon.
And yet, despite everything she'd become...
Something about this place made her chest ache in a way she didn't have words for.
But she kept walking.
Because something here was wrong.
Very, very wrong.
And she wanted to know what.
And know she will.
The demon woman stopped in front of the shrine.
She stared at the open doors.
Villagers inside were praying.
Crying.
Smiling.
Reaching toward something she couldn't yet see.
But her demon instincts were screaming.
So she snapped.
Screams filled the shrine as she lunged into the crowd, tearing through flesh like it was nothing. Men, women, even children. it didn't matter anymore. Her mind was gone. She was nothing but a hungry animal.
The wooden floors turned red.
And when it was finally over, she stood there in the middle of the massacre, blood running down her chin, her breathing slow and heavy.
That's when she noticed him.
The baby.
Lying on the platform, soaked in everyone else's blood but untouched... staring at her.
it wasn't crying like a baby should nor was it afraid of her.. it felt more like
...disgusted?
Like he was judging her.
She frowned.
How can a baby look at me like that...?
She stepped closer. That's when she saw it right beside him.
A strange, white mask. The villagers must've thought it was cursed. Probably blamed it for whatever happened here before.
She crouched down, nails still dripping with blood, and stared at the baby again.
"…Why were they worshipping you? What are you?"
The baby didn't blink.
And the longer she stared, the more a strange chill crept up her spine like he was the one looking through her.
Her instincts screamed again.
Not hungry this time.
Danger.
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What does [?] the Demon Woman do?
A) Take the mask and leave the baby behind.
Something about that infant feels wrong. She doesn't want to get any closer. She grabs the mask and flees before something worse happens.
B) Kill the baby
If this thing is dangerous… better to end it now. Even if it looks harmless.
C) Take the baby with her
She doesn't know why, but something in her chest twists. Maybe guilt. Maybe curiosity. She takes the child and leaves the village behind.
D) Nothing
Self explanatory.
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Relationships [M] (Yhwach 'Baby'):
Demon Women: 1/10
You've just encountered a random flesh-eating woman, and your opinion of her is yet to be formed without further knowledge. While you have no personal connection at this point, she could potentially become a valuable ally or enemy, depending on how she chooses to interact with you.
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Next Chapter: ???
Zaegar: "I didn't appreciate feeling violated, the author should leave that to Yhwach, oh hey, want some ramen?"