23 Dark Waters

It all started with a little question. The question grew and grew, pervading my thoughts, forcing me to act on it—the curiosity a piece of searing metal in my mind.

Kisuke had told me that I had a strong soul, repeatedly. As prideful as the man was, he had admitted to me that I was something worthy of being worried about. My soul had destroyed or interfered with his devices for almost as long as I've been alive.

But what did that mean.

What did having a powerful soul actually entail, what benefit did it provide? So far, I've seen no substantial difference between myself and Suzumi. Both of us had progressed at a fairly even pace, both of us focusing on our own path forwards.

She was faster than me, capable of more powerful punches, flurries of devastating blows. Aside from my spiritual shielding, I was mostly on par with Suzumi in combat and all other practical measures. Or, physical ones.

Maybe I was looking at this all wrong. I've been thrusted into a world of ancient Japanese death gods, capable of fighting off all the souls that get a little overripe and go really bad. Nothing makes any sense at all, all of it just a little too kooky to be considered logical, at all.

Like, why are there so many different 'Soul Societies'? Why haven't they all just banded together, create a ratified structure, open the knowledge of an afterlife up to the common person, educate and teach those capable of interacting with spiritual energy to become protectors, rather than leave it all up to a bunch of extremely powerful Soul Reapers, or whatever the equivalent is.

There are so many 'why's to this new and fantastic world. So many that there could only truly be a few answers.

Spiritualism, tradition, ignorance.

Maybe those with an almost blinding amount of power believe so strongly in the tradition of their Soul Society, their afterlife, that they must protect it from others. Protect their ways and understanding of the soul from every other afterlife instead of sharing knowledge and watching it all change.

And then I realised that was me.

Maybe I wasn't that ultrapowerful Soul Reaper, sitting up on high and enjoying their enforced status quo, content to let those who have always suffered suffer longer at the hands of conserving the normality of their centuries long life.

But I was trying to conserve something. I was trying to conserve my understanding of myself and the world I thought I knew. The understanding that I was just a visually impaired half Japanese, half Caucasian kid whose most interesting quality was that he could see ribbons, for some reason. That I wasn't someone that, for unknown reasons, possessed a wildly powerful soul, the ability to empower other souls, and the ability to rip the spiritual energy straight out of someone else's.

I was still too focused on the physical. How hard could I punch, how fast could I run, how long until I couldn't do either any longer? Important, yes. But only one dimension of a greater whole. I only interacted with my spiritual energy because it gave those results, like an office worker who uses a computer two decades out of date with software just as archaic, unwilling to learn the new software that could do his job in a few button presses, muttering, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Yet, where does that line begin and end? Where something archaic becomes just as inefficient as using a broken tool?

Well, it begins with me. I took a deep breath and reconceptualised myself, searching my own psyche for answers to who I actually was.

Who was I now? An idiot kid, raised by a family that taught him to lean on others just as much as himself. The same idiot kid who relied on a pair of thick, high-prescription lensed glasses so little that he'd lost them on his first day in a new country and hadn't thought about them for more than a moment. An idiot kid who'd seen ribbons most of his childhood, and only understood that it meant something more when someone told him so.

Now, we were at baseline. The beginning of who I was before everything changed.

I had changed from being that idiot kid, now, finding myself with power that outstripped anything I could have imagined. Attained mobility that was, frankly, impossibly for someone with a visual disability as severe as mine, the only explanation being my newfound power. I could survive under a weight most would be crushed under, the force of the spiritual pressure being deadly enough to make any normal human instantly pass out.

But no, those were all physical things.

I looked deep inside, far further than the flesh that I had relied on, had pushed energy through for hours and hours, slowly building strength in rote. Now, I let myself venture deeper, past the flesh and muscle, past the bone and marrow. Deeper and deeper into the dark I let my conscious plunge, feeling the haziness fall over me as the desolate darkness consumed my mind, tearing it away from the reality around me.

I felt as if I'd pushed a boat out to sea, jumped in, and let the waves take me. Time drew out, the endless horizon, devoid of anything to see, barring the faint shadow of the land I had once tied myself to. Yet, before long, that had faded into nothing, the ties cut with no way back.

It might've made me panic, if I wasn't so sure of my safety. Even as the proverbial ocean stretched on and on, into infinity, my mind sat safely aboard the boat, observing as the unchanging scenery remained that way. Unchanged.

Even as the boat picked up speed, gliding across the water, threatening to lift from the infinite waters and take to the sky instead. I could feel my eyebrow furrow as the boat's bow angled upwards, I felt a distinct sense of incompleteness.

No, this isn't what I wanted. I looked up towards the sky and felt safety, surety, confidence. I knew it would be so easy to let the boat drift into it and venture ever onwards, at peace and in safety.

But that's what I had always done, let myself be taken on a boat to wherever it would take me. As I looked upwards into that sky, I could feel it tempt me with that very same emotion that lead me everywhere in life. The very same that brought me here, to Japan.

The need to go, to ignore what lay deeper, under the skin of it. The need to run away from it all.

I stood from my spot on the boat, tearing my eyes from the sky above, and looking to the depths below, the dark and murky beneath the thin veneer of a glistening surface.

That's when I first felt the fear, like a drop in the stomach you'd feel when you jumped from something a little too high. The boat took to the skies, lifting it from the surface of the water at an unstable pace, as if it was desperately trying to stop me from looking further, from letting the idea fester any longer. But it was far too late, now. I allowed myself one terrified gasp before I coiled the muscles in my leg and jumped.

The wave of regret was immediate but was washed away as soon as my feet touched the waters, my mind fixated on those depths as I sunk into them deeper and deeper. The shock of cold I had expected never came, left with a warmth, even in the complete darkness as the magnitude of water overhead drowned the light with its density. When the complete dark surrounded me, a comfort came to me, different than the one I had possessed before.

Instead of the order I had once found comfort in, sailing on the surface of it all, I now found myself embroiled in the chaos that the order disguised, hidden beneath the illusion of understanding. Now that I was swimming in its waters, the ties cut, my eyes adjusted to the darkness, able to see the definition in it all without the distraction of the light.

Still, without a defined destination I moved forwards with a purpose I had crafted for myself the moment I leapt from that boat. The deeper I moved in the inky black, only barely able to see ahead of myself, the scarier it got, but so did my will, my drive, my purpose.

I would find what was down here, deep within myself somewhere. No matter how deep I had to go, no matter the time it took, or the energy it sapped, or the pain it might cause.

I pushed myself deeper into the depths, unquestioning of the direction despite being devoid of the sight I had above the surface. My purpose was true, and that was all that I needed, even without sight—

Wait, when had I ever needed sight? I scoffed at my own idiocy. With barely a thought I opened myself to the sense I knew better than maybe anyone, and in front of my eyes, one single ribbon appeared.

It was frail and weak, its length dropping away into the darkness and almost disappearing. I began to follow it with all my might, adding a direction to my purpose. As I followed it, the faint little ribbon that had greeted me in the darkness grew brighter, the light it propagated in the dull of the darkness. The frailness never truly disappeared, but my conception of it changed.

Instead of the skinny little dog I had once thought it was, in actually, a starved lion, its fur falling out in clumps. The skin beneath pulled against the bones underneath. But still a lion, its eyes alive with the power it once possessed.

"Once, yes."

The voice rumbled the water I was in, stopping me in my tracks. The sheer magnitude of voice sending me tumbling through the water with an invisible current.

"We can't be having that." The voice spoke again, the current only becoming more erratic, throwing my body in every direction like a crazed rollercoaster. Yet, even as my body flailed in the water, something grabbed my leg and yanked. The water rushed past me, the force of the water pulling me ramrod straight.

"Once I had power far outstripping a mere lion." The voice intoned, hearable even through the deafening rushing of water. The power of the voice was stronger now, even more so than before. I tried to resist the pulling, but it was entirely futile, it was like being sucked into a black hole…

Except it wasn't so black. In fact, the waters were lightening, the distance at which I could see wasn't necessarily increasing but the light was getting more powerful against the dark. Eventually my murky vision was a blinding cloud of white—and that was when whatever had grabbed my leg released me.

I didn't stop immediately, but over a course of time I drifted, spinning head over heels in the light waters. Slowly coming to a speed where I could stabilize myself upright, whatever direction up may have been. Out of the corner of my vision, I could see the glowing of the ribbon receding ahead of me, its whip-like movements giving me the impression that it had been what was pulling me.

"Very astute." The voice said neutrally, though I sensed some derision to it. The voice, while still just as powerful, didn't send the waters into a flurry. The drifting finally came to a stop, my form slumping slightly as it no longer had the force of the water to push against.

I looked around, hesitantly. The brightness was almost just as overwhelming as the darkness had been, but there was something right near me, I could feel it. Pushed myself towards the presence gently, but that was all it took.

There, in the bright, murky waters, sat a small mote of light, no bigger than a basketball, glowing with a pure golden light.

"Hello?" I spoke, my voice echoing as if I had yelled within a tunnel, repeating the noise gentler and gentler until it faded entirely.

"I've waited down in these depths for many years, Grayson Carter." The voice said, reverberating from the golden ball like a shockwave, but it didn't buffet against me so much as greet me with its embrace.

"How long?" I asked, the question ripping itself from my mind before I could think. The voice hummed gently, slowly gaining definition and identity compared to the almost featurelessness it had assumed before.

"Since you were born, and not for long before. I tried to make you come here as best I could, but you ignored yourself." The voice was distinctly male now, a deep timbre to it that whispered wisdom and gentleness.

"Tried to make me come–" I scrunched my face up in confusion, "How did you do that?"

"I took your eyesight, I believed that without the use of your eyes to see the physical world, you might decide to explore the world within." I suddenly felt as if I'd been struck, the heat of anger flushing into my chest and face, readying my tongue to lash out—but I paused.

"But it didn't work." I said, bitterness laden in my voice.

"Not how I believed it would. Instead, you found the ribbons and saw through them instead. It had me discouraged as I watched you navigate life, disabled by my own hand. I believed you would remain throughout your life just as you were." The powerful voice quieted in mourning before speaking again, "How fitting it was, that you found me with the sight you had unknowingly developed."

I stared at the golden orb, and I could feel it stare back, its focus entirely on me.

"What are you?"

"You. And me." It spoke—I spoke. A slight shock ran through me, making my body twitch.

"You're me? My soul?"

"Yes." The bright waters shuddered with satisfaction at the words. "I am you… but different. I came from far beyond, beyond the veil—guided by nothing more than chance and fate. To the body of a small, dead infant within the womb of a sick mother." I looked at the orb sadly.

"She was addicted." The glow of the orb lessened, holding its silence for a long time.

"…I did not know." I recognised the tone of the voice. It held the same emotion I had when I was told the truth. Though I didn't twist the knife as the foster mother had, gleefully mutilating the dreams of a small child who wanted nothing more than a loving mother.

"What happened after?" The orb brightened again, its focus back on me.

"I discarded what remained of what I was, and nestled myself in the bright waters of your own soul once resided in." I blinked with confusion at the contradictory words.

"Doesn't that mean I am you?"

"Yes." The bright waters shuddered again, a distinct glee of recognition. "We are both you and I. We are we." The waters shook along with my being at the declaration, as confusing as it still was. Then there was a protracted silence as we merely stared at… ourselves. At us? At me and him?

The voice, my soul—both me and someone else too—chuckled.

"It is confusing but is the truth all the same. Though, it would do no harm to differentiate, as no matter the terms, we are still both ourselves and one whole." I nodded tentatively, before letting out a bark of laughter of my own.

"You know, I came here because I thought I would find power, break a bottleneck that I had in my training."

"Who is to say that you wouldn't find that here? I did call you here, after all." I could almost feel the grin on… his lips. I could feel his personality evolving, quickly enough that it was perceptible. It was beginning to both feel like I was talking to myself and talking to someone else entirely.

"You know something?" I asked him.

"Of course, what did you think that memory of a spiritual shield was? It was me, and also you." Now I could feel him being cheeky. I struggled to keep a grin off my face, focusing on the important information.

"You have more memories?"

"Forgotten." He said dismissively, "With a chance of being remembered once again. Someday. No, I speak of the dark waters that drown us." He thought for a moment before correcting himself, "That drown me."

"The dark waters? They aren't meant to be there?"

"They are as much part of me and you soul as the bright waters, but they are dead. The dark waters stifle me, my light unable to force into them. They are parts of us that are lost and discarded, the unravelled soul of the dead child we were, and the parts of who we once were that I removed to allow us to live." I held up a hand, letting myself process the madness of his words for a moment before interjecting.

"What do you want me to do?" The orb glowed a little brighter at that, an excitement in the waters that surrounded us.

"We need to work together as one to reclaim what was once us as individuals and restructure them to become us as we are." I stared at him; eyebrow raised questioningly. With a long, suffering sigh he said, "I want you to pull in the dark waters by compressing it with the spiritual energy from outside us. While you do that, I will revive the dark waters that you can bring to me."

"Compress?" I thought back to the seemingly endless ocean of dark water, "I don't have anywhere near enough spiritual energy for that. That's sort of what I came down here for."

"What you seek, you shall find, if only you ask yourself nicely." I rolled my eyes uncontrollably at that.

"Can I please have the vital method of gaining spiritual energy so I can save our collective ass as well as our wield duo soul?" I snarked. If had a physical, or visible form, I swear he would have bowed mockingly.

"Touch me, and you shall know." And so I did.

The next moments were a blur, before I realised that the limitation I once thought I had never existed in the first place. By reaching here, I had already found the solution. All I needed to do was… condense it all down. I paused for just a moment, looking towards the golden orb once again.

"What… do I call you?"

"Grayhom." He said instantaneously and without hesitation. I furrowed my brow, but nodded, returning to the task ahead of me.

I took a deep breath, and became a vortex, pulling at the spiritual energy that I had merely sipped on before. Now I skulled it, litres at a time, without so much as a break for air between gulps. But even then I was hindering myself.

I did away with the drinking mentality. I didn't merely drink the energy, not did I eat it, or even consume it. No, that was too little. Too small. It didn't touch on the faintest image of what I could do, what I was.

No…

I was the energy. All I needed to do, was take back what was rightfully my own, parts of me that I'd lost accidentally.

So, I called it all back to me.

When I opened my eyes, I saw a man standing in front of me, panting and sweating. His grey eyes wild and filled with a dark promise, even more so than the wickedly sharp blade that sat a hair from my skin, between my eyes.

His pale blonde hair shrouded his face, pushed down by the white and green striped hat he wore—tastefully contrasting the dark colours of the black overcoat with white diamonds patterned at its hem and a dark green shirt and pants underneath.

It took me a moment to recognise the man as the murky figure I'd always been able to see, next to his much larger friend.

"Holy shit, Urahara," I said, ignoring the sword at my throat, "do I have some wild shit to tell you."