Harry took a deep breath as he relaxed his body and focused his mind into a tranquil trance. Ever so slowly, he purged the distracting thoughts bothering him and committed himself fully to Jinzen.
A bright light suddenly chased away the darkness that covered his eyes. The next moment, Harry found himself inside his inner world, where gentle gales kissed his skin. The sun shone brightly in the blue sky, with white fluffy clouds gently passing by. The forest surrounding him was filled with the chirping of birds, and its minty scent filled his senses.
"Amaterasu." Harry called as loudly as possible.
Ever since Aizen's defection, his zanpakuto had gone silent despite his repeated attempts to manifest Amaterasu. He had been too bogged down by paperwork till now to take a proper look at what was going on with his zanpakuto.
The sun above him flared up with a blinding light, forcing Harry to shield his eyes. He felt movement in the air, and in the next instant, he was staring into the face of Amaterasu.
"You've been silent all these days. What happened?"
"Because I know what you seek, and delving deep into that knowledge will be…" Amaterasu trailed off, her eyes shining with an emotion hard for Harry to discern.
"You listened to the description of Aizen's power. I need a way to defend against his zanpakuto's hypnosis."
"I do not have the natural affinity to defend against hypnosis. I'm similarly affected by Kyoka Suigetsu's power."
"Then there must be a magical defence capable of breaking the hypnosis." Harry earnestly said.
Amaterasu sighed audibly.
"What?" Harry asked, seeing the hesitation on his zanpakuto spirit's face.
"I'm afraid my knowledge of magic is limited to your experience and intuitions. If you truly seek deeper knowledge, you must face the darkness of your past."
"I don't understand. What darkness are you talking about?" Harry asked confusedly.
"Just as I represent your Shinigami powers and stand in the path of light, there is a darker aspect slumbering within your soul. The knowledge you seek is all here, and it'll take you to the heights of greatness." Amaterasu said.
"I feel a 'but' coming." Harry said with a frown.
"But there are consequences if you pursue this path. To embrace the full potential of magic in yourself, you must embrace the darkness that comes with it." Amaterasu warned.
"I cannot allow that man to exploit my trust and allow the hypnosis ritual to remain intact when the time comes for the final conflict." Harry said resolutely as he remembered the day Aizen showed him his zanpakuto's release state.
"To prepare for one conflict, you must engage in another that could threaten your very soul. Are you sure you want to take such a risk?" Amaterasu asked again, her green eyes shining with concern for his well-being.
"If it helps in defeating Aizen, then I'm ready to face any darkness."
"So be it." Amaterasu uttered ominously.
Suddenly, the air in his inner world fell dead. The light also started dimming, making Harry look up to the sky. There, among the clouds, the sun was undergoing an eclipse, plunging his inner world into darkness.
"What is…?" Harry trailed off as he couldn't find Amaterasu anywhere.
His zanpakuto spirit had disappeared into thin air when his attention shifted. Letting out a grumble while staring at the eclipse, he complained about the dramatic flair his zanpakuto had taken on in the past few days. When the eclipse reached its peak and bathed his inner world in a dull crimson light, Harry noticed the long shadows cast by the light started to flicker eerily.
"You think you're ready to face the darkness within your soul?"
A child's voice echoed throughout Harry's inner world.
"You, who have lived in the light out of fear, dare to seek the power of the dark?"
A mocking laugh that brought chills to his spine filled Harry's ears.
The shadows twisted and turned before converging together before Harry. An oppressive, magical, and spiritual energy manifested before him in the form of a dark vortex with terrible malevolence and rage enough to drown the whole world in despair. With a final flare of dark energy, a physical form materialised before Harry.
The manifested form of dark energy was in the form of a child eerily similar to Harry in his younger days. Long black hair reached just above the shoulders of the child before him, but the eyes were a burning red instead of green. There were dark marks under the smaller Harry's eyes, and the skin was pale white.
"Who are you?" Harry asked warily.
"I'm you. I'm a reflection of what you have suppressed for so long. I'm the darkness that shall devour all and exact vengeance upon my enemies." Dark Harry proclaimed before shooting a beam of pitch-black magic straight at Harry.
Harry disappeared using a flash step and watched the ground he stood on, and anything physical close to his position was devoured by the spell.
"Hadou 32: Okasen."
A flash of yellow energy burst out of the palm of Harry's hand straight towards Dark Harry.
A triangular yellow shield sprang forth with a flick of Dark Harry's wrist. The Kido spell bounced back with twice the force, forcing Harry to dodge out of the rebound spell's way.
"What the hell?" Harry muttered as he stared at the triangular shield with wide eyes.
There was no Kido or magical spell he knew that could reflect his attack that easily. And yet, he saw it with his own eyes.
"You think you know magic." Dark Harry snorted derisively with a mocking look. "You're nothing but a coward who never bothered to grow your power. You're a meek little mouse who allowed weaker fools to dictate your life. That's why you died. That's why your friends died."
Harry's eyes flared with anger, his spiritual energy roaring in concurrence with his emotional state.
"Bakudou 30: Shtotsu Sansen."
Three beams of white light slammed into Dark Harry and pinned him against the floor in the blink of an eye. Harry unsheathed his sword and appeared right behind Dark Harry to slash straight at his neck.
But his eyes widened when he found his blade only met the air instead of Dark Harry's neck. There was a popping sound, and Harry felt a shift in the air. To his utter surprise, Harry found his opponent nowhere inside his sensory perception.
In fact, he didn't even see Dark Harry move.
"You're surprised your meagre Shinigami powers cannot hold a candle to the magical power buried in your soul."
Harry's eyes widened when the voice of Dark Harry echoed from every corner of his inner world.
"But then again, all you ever wanted was to be… NORMAL!" Dark Harry snarled, appearing with a popping sound above Harry, holding a glowing red sphere in his right hand.
Harry's eyes widened, seeing his opponent once more easily escaping his sensory perception.
"Teleportation." Harry muttered in realisation just as Dark Harry unleashed a torrent of flames upon him.
"Hadou 54: Haien."
A concentrated lance of purple flames blasted out of Harry's open palm, smacking away the magical fire and pushing ahead straight towards Dark Harry. A sphere of simmering blue energy enveloped Dark Harry, which protected him from Harry's attack.
Harry picked up another popping sound, keeping his senses sharp this time. When Dark Harry's aura entered his sensory field, Harry immediately used flash step to appear right above his opponent with sword in hand. Just as Harry was about to plunge his sword into the back of Dark Harry, a familiar triangular shield flickered into existence between them.
His sword crashed into the shield, and sparks flew as the repelling force of the shield tried to overwhelm him. Harry was ready for it as he had previously seen the shield in action. Therefore, he poured more power into it and increased the cutting power of his sword with spirit energy.
"Do you really have what it takes, Harry? Aren't you going to whine about the woes of your life and depend on weaker fools to take control of your life once more? That's how you did things in the past, yes?" Dark Harry mocked him with a smirk.
"Ahhhhhh!" Harry yelled, pushing his Zanpakuto harder against the shield.
A violent torrent of energy blasted outwards, tearing away the ground, uprooting trees and pushing away the darkness that had consumed his inner world.
"Reign over the upper heavens, Amaterasu." Harry bellowed out.
A colossal wave of power washed over his inner world. When the rings of Amaterasu formed over his forearms, he immediately started bending space to breach the shield. All he needed was a small opening, and when the shield Dark Harry maintained was blown open by bending space, Harry didn't wait to act.
"Hadou 4: Byakurai."
A bolt of pale lightning blasted out of the tip of his finger and pierced through the heart of Dark Harry.
There was no surprise in his opponent's eyes, nor was there any pain.
"You have become more ruthless. Perhaps, departure from the wizarding world has finally allowed you to grow out of the silly misconceptions of suppressing your true selves to appear normal and fit in with a broken society." Dark Harry said calmly.
"Then…" Harry's eyes widened with some relief and eagerness, but that was short-lived.
Harry suddenly found himself blown back by a terrible repelling force that tore the ground open. Two red bolts of light struck him, and the rings of Amaterasu were forcefully expelled from his arms.
The rings became immobile before Harry's wide, disbelieving eyes when a magical circle enveloped them and bound them inside without much fanfare.
"What the…? That's impossible!" Harry shouted, holding out his hands, urging Amaterasu to return to his arms.
But try as he might, the rings refused to budge from inside the magical barrier.
Harry was about to use Kido to break the barrier when his entire body became paralysed. Ropes came out of nowhere and wrapped around his body, binding his limbs rather tightly.
Dark Harry stared at him with a mocking smile and gestures with his hand, making Harry float towards his dark opponent.
"You don't know what is possible with the magical power in your soul if it stared straight into your face. How could you? You were content being a mediocre moron and a decorated pawn in the wizarding world." Dark Harry mocked him with a snort.
"Oh, yeah. How about I show you who is a…" Harry summoned every ounce of his spirit energy to crush the bindings on his body, but to his horror, his power remained contained within his body.
It was then Harry noticed glowing runes on the ropes thrumming with an otherworldly power beyond his understanding.
"You see, Harry. I'm the true manifestation of your magic. I'm you, if you had chosen to seek the power to break the chains imposed on you by lesser beings." Dark Harry claimed.
"I have never known you."
"I was always there!" Dark Harry snarled suddenly, his red eyes burning with rage. "The Sorting Hat said so… remember."
Harry was suddenly pulled to a distant memory in his past life.
"Not Slytherin, not Slytherin." Harry whispered with his eyes screwed shut.
"Not Slytherin, eh? Are you sure? You could be great, you know, it's all here in your head, and Slytherin will help you on the way to greatness, no doubt about that—no?"
"Better be GRYFFINDOR!"
Harry gasped as he came out of the memory with a cold sweat running down the back of his neck. He had thought such memories had gone to the darkest corners of his mind.
"You see, Harry. You chose mediocrity over a powerful position and wonder why you lost so pathetically." Dark Harry mocked as he circled around the bound form of Harry.
"This is the fault you found in me. That was a sorting ceremony, and Slytherin was filled with the children of Death Eaters." Harry argued back.
"So what? You would run from a challenge rather than face it head-on? Is it bravery that brought you to Gryffindor, or is it cowardice? You were not brave enough to accept that you have ambitions and the power to surpass even the most powerful wizards?" Dark Harry accused him with utter conviction.
Harry couldn't argue against that accusation. So, he fell silent.
"I was just a child. I didn't know anything then." Harry made an excuse.
"You were not an ordinary child, Harry. Who are you trying to scam here – yourself? You, who have suffered at the hands of the Dursleys like no other child should have known – to trust no one."
Harry froze as the memories he tried so hard to suppress emerged to the forefront of his mind. The beatings, the demeaning of his individual self, the absence of a name and even his starved childhood came
"You knew the importance of amassing power, for it was the only way to freedom. Yet, you abandoned all of those principles in your silly quest to fit in with the mediocre ones."
"My friends were not mediocre!" Harry snarled.
"Maybe not, but you became one to become NORMAL!" Dark Harry shouted in his face.
Harry stared into the enraged red eyes of his counterpart before closing his eyes.
"Maybe I wanted to be accepted in the wizarding world instead of getting rejected like in the muggle world."
"Then they were not worthy of your friendship. Those who cannot accept you as you are shouldn't get to dictate your life." Dark Harry said after calming down.
"You're right. I don't have to let anyone dictate how to live my life." Harry said before he forced his magic to come forth and burn away the ropes binding his limbs.
"Hmm. So, you're not hopeless after all." Dark Harry hummed amusedly.
Harry dropped to his knees as he struggled to catch his breath.
Dark Harry waved his hand, and the binding around Amaterasu disappeared, allowing the rings to return to Harry's arms. The burns incurred by the magical fire Harry summoned reversed once Amaterasu returned to his side. He was slightly startled by that, but he ignored it in favour of facing his opponent.
Harry climbed to his feet with his spirit energy restored to its previous state.
"If you hope to learn more of the magical arts, you need to show that you're different from the Harry of the past. I need to know that I entrust the knowledge of magic to someone who understands the value of that power." said Dark Harry.
Before Harry's eyes, Dark Harry started disappearing.
"Oh, look. She is asserting herself on your behalf. I suppose our time is cut short." Dark Harry sardonically said with a scoff as his form turned into black smoke.
"No, wait!" Harry yelled, seeing Dark Harry start to disappear. "I need your help to break Aizen's hypnosis."
"The knowledge you seek is yours. You don't need me to hold your hand." Dark Harry said with a shrug before disappearing entirely from Harry's sight.
The eclipse lifted, and the warm glow of dawn once more consumed his inner world.
Wisps of golden energy converged together to form Amaterasu.
"He can go overboard sometimes. He gets lost in his nature sometimes, but he means well." Amaterasu said upon fully forming into a stable physical form.
"Are you kidding? If you hadn't intervened, he'd have killed me." Harry complained.
Amaterasu just waved off his claim with a chuckle. Instead, she redirected his attention to the part where his darker self provided the information he sought. More specifically, he received instructions on pursuing Occlumency and Legilimency and employing them against Aizen's hypnosis powers. It was not a sure shot, but if the Mind Arts could purge Kyoka Suigetsu's influence from his mind, it'd be a trump card against Aizen when the time came.
After Harry left, Amaterasu stood in his inner world with a knowing look.
"You are too soft on him. He's prone to fall into his old weakness without a stern guiding hand." Dark Harry said once he manifested beside Amaterasu.
"Let me handle my wielder as I see fit. He wouldn't have achieved my true form if he weren't worthy of it." Amaterasu said calmly.
"That's the only reason I gave him access to the knowledge he sought." Dark Harry muttered.
"And yet, you were not completely honest with him." Amaterasu accused.
"He is not ready." Dark Harry said before abruptly disappearing from the area.
"Hmm… stubborn as always." Amaterasu shook her head with a fond smile before she too became one with the inner world of her wielder.
******
Captain Jūshirō Ukitake stood at the open sliding doors of his private study, gazing toward the horizon. Though his white haori hung as impeccably as ever from his shoulders, the subtle tension in his brow betrayed the unrest behind his composed exterior. His breathing was shallow but even, his body used to the unyielding strain of his illness.
Still, it was not his health that occupied him this morning.
Behind him, the sliding door eased open.
"Captain Ukitake?" came Harry's voice, formal but laced with a hint of concern.
He turned slightly, favouring Harry with a gentle smile.
"Good morning, Harry-san. Thank you for coming on such short notice."
"Of course. I sensed the urgency in your message. Has something happened, Captain?" Harry asked curiously.
Ukitake motioned toward a low table, and both seated themselves on the cushions laid across the wooden floor. Tea steamed quietly from a nearby pot, untouched.
"I wish I could say it was a minor concern," he began, folding his hands in front of him. "But I believe we are on the verge of something serious."
"Is it about Aizen, Captain?" Harry asked.
"No." Ukitake shook his head, "As you know, we have increased surveillance over Karakura town after the events with Aizen. Squad 12 have noticed an anomaly in the town and its bordering areas in the last couple of days."
"Hollows?" Harry asked.
"No, Bounts. They are an old mistake the Gotei 13 failed to curb, and it seems our failure has reared its head in the World of the Living."
"I'm afraid I do not know much about these Bounts, Captain."
"I shall fill you in on the details. The Head Captain has charged us with tackling this issue owing to Rukia-san's close relationship with Ichigo Kurosaki and the other ryoka."
"Captain, we're stretched thin as it is." Harry reminded gently.
"Our other duties will be transferred to the other divisions. Our priority is now Karakura town and the Bounts." Ukitake said gently.
"In that case, I shall immediately recall all our seated officers and formulate a team to prepare for this new enemy."
"Good." Ukitake nodded. "Have Rukia-san keep contact with her human friends. I have a feeling they'll be involved in this somehow."
AN:
To read ahead of the update schedule; pat(r) eon. C (O) M/Dragonspectre.
For artwork related to the fic:
https://discord.gg/Nw2JH25fJf