The whispers started when Asahi took his first steps at eighteen months.
Not the wobbling, uncertain steps of a typical toddler, but confident strides that carried him from his nursery door to the garden entrance without faltering. The servants watched with poorly concealed unease as he navigated the polished wooden floors, his small hands never reaching for support, his balance perfect.
"It's unnatural," Junko murmured to another servant when she thought he couldn't hear. "Children his age should still be crawling. And the way he looks at things... like he's calculating."
She wasn't wrong. Asahi had spent the past year and a half learning to coordinate this body, forcing muscles and nerves to obey commands they shouldn't yet understand. Every movement required conscious thought—a frustrating process made easier only by the enhanced cognition that came with Leonardo's modification. His mind knew what it wanted; his body just needed to catch up.
The Shihōin estate revealed itself in layers as his mobility increased. What had been distant sounds and glimpses through nursery windows became tangible geography. The compound sprawled across what must have been several acres, enclosed by high walls that managed to feel protective and confining simultaneously. The main residence sat at the heart—traditional architecture of dark wood and white plaster, with sweeping roofs that curved like drawn blades.
But it was the gardens that captivated him.
They weren't merely decorative. Every element served a purpose, arranged according to principles he recognized from his previous life's study of Eastern philosophy. Stone paths wound between carefully manicured sections, each turn obscuring the next destination—teaching awareness, forcing attention to surroundings. Water features created white noise that masked footsteps and conversation. The layout itself was a lesson in stealth and misdirection.
Flowing shadow, Asahi thought, remembering fragments of Shihōin philosophy from the manga. Movement that adapts to terrain. Presence without presence.
Ancient trees dotted the grounds, their bark scarred and pitted. He ran small fingers over embedded shuriken that had rusted into the wood over decades. Training marks. This wasn't just a garden—it was a living dojo, every surface bearing evidence of generations practicing their craft.
A distant sound pulled his attention. Metal on metal, sharp and rhythmic. Then silence. Then the sound again, accompanied by something that made his developing reiryoku stir in recognition.
Spiritual pressure. Not his father's crushing weight, but something different. Wild and electric, barely restrained beneath layers of control.
Yoruichi.
Asahi followed the sound, his small legs carrying him along garden paths he shouldn't yet know. The estate's layout made intuitive sense now—how one area flowed into another, where the blind spots were, which routes offered the most concealment. Another gift of his modified mind, processing spatial relationships with frightening ease.
The sounds grew louder. He rounded a bend and found himself facing what appeared to be a solid stone wall covered in climbing vines. But there—a shadow that fell wrong, darker than it should be. He pushed through the vegetation and discovered a narrow passage, steps leading down into the earth.
The underground training facility opened before him like a secret world.
The chamber was massive, carved from living rock and reinforced with spiritual energy that hummed in the walls. Torches burned in sconces, their light casting dancing shadows across a space designed for combat. Training equipment lined the perimeter—practice dummies, weapon racks, meditation platforms. But the center drew his eyes immediately.
Yoruichi moved like lightning made flesh.
She was sixteen now—taller, leaner, her body honed by relentless training into something between dancer and predator. Purple hair whipped as she spun, her bare feet finding purchase on stone with perfect precision. Three Onmitsukidō members surrounded her, attacking in coordinated strikes that should have been overwhelming.
She dismantled them with casual efficiency.
A punch redirected into empty air. A kick that left its wielder overextended and stumbling. Yoruichi's hand found a pressure point on someone's wrist, and their sword clattered to the ground. She moved through their assault like water through rocks—flowing, inevitable, untouchable.
Her spiritual pressure pulsed with each movement. Even suppressed for training, it was immense. Not the crushing weight of his father's Captain-class power, but something faster. More dangerous. Like touching an exposed wire and feeling electricity race through your nerves.
Asahi's infant reiryoku responded instinctively, drawn toward that power like iron to a magnet. His small body shivered with the resonance.
"Again," Yoruichi commanded, barely winded. The three Onmitsukidō members picked themselves up, bowed, and reset their positions.
The sparring continued. Asahi watched from the passage entrance, transfixed. This was the Flash Goddess in development—not yet at her peak, but already beyond what most Shinigami would achieve in ten lifetimes. Every movement contained lessons he filed away: weight distribution, momentum manipulation, the precise angle required to turn defense into counterattack.
"Enjoying the show?"
He nearly jumped. Yoruichi stood directly in front of him now, though he hadn't seen her move. One moment she'd been in the training circle. The next, she was crouching at his eye level, grinning with familiar mischief.
"You walked all the way here by yourself?" She looked impressed. "Most kids your age can barely make it to the bathroom without face-planting."
Asahi managed what he hoped was an appropriately childish smile. Speaking was still difficult—his vocabulary was growing, but complex sentences remained beyond him.
"Yoru-nee," he managed. The honorific came naturally; his mother used it constantly.
"That's right!" She ruffled his hair, her spiritual pressure warm and welcoming this close. "And you're Asahi, my impossibly precocious little brother who apparently wanders around the compound unsupervised." She glanced back at the Onmitsukidō members, who had frozen in position. "Take a break. I'm commandeering training time for family business."
They bowed and departed through a different exit, their discipline absolute.
Yoruichi turned back to Asahi, studying him with those sharp golden eyes. "So. You want to learn?"
He nodded emphatically.
"Can't have you just watching from shadows. That's creepy." She straightened, hands on hips. "Alright, baby brother. First lesson: reiryoku circulation. It's the foundation of everything we do as Shinigami. Watch carefully."
She held out her hand, palm up. The air above it began to shimmer, spiritual energy condensing into visible form. It swirled in a slow vortex, purple-tinged and crackling with barely contained power.
"This is reiryoku—spiritual power drawn from your soul. Everyone has it, but most people can't access it consciously." The vortex compressed, becoming denser. "Circulation means pushing it through your body's spiritual pathways. Like blood, but... not. It strengthens you. Makes you faster, more durable. Eventually, it lets you do things like this."
She closed her fist. The energy exploded outward in a controlled burst that sent her hair whipping backward. The sheer force of it pressed against Asahi's chest, making his infant heart race.
"Your turn." Yoruichi dispersed the energy, kneeling beside him. "Hold out your hand. Feel for the warmth in your center—right here." She tapped his chest gently. "Everyone's reiryoku feels different. Mine is fast, always moving. Yours will be... well, we'll find out."
Asahi extended his small hand, mimicking her earlier gesture. This should be impossible, he thought. I'm barely two years old. My spiritual pathways aren't developed enough for conscious manipulation.
But he wasn't really two years old. His mind was adult, enhanced by Leonardo's modification into something that processed information with supernatural efficiency. And his body—his body was a prodigy's vessel, designed to exceed normal limitations.
He reached inward, searching for that warmth Yoruichi described. Found it immediately—a core of power that had been building since birth, fed by his developing soul. It felt... different than he'd expected. Not wild like Yoruichi's. Not crushing like his father's. Something in between. Controlled chaos. Potential waiting to be shaped.
He pushed, willing the energy to move. It resisted at first, sluggish and uncertain. Again. The pathways weren't clear yet, but they were there—faint channels that could be widened with practice and time.
Third attempt. The reiryoku moved.
A faint shimmer appeared above his palm—barely visible, nothing compared to Yoruichi's display, but undeniably present. Purple-tinted energy swirled lazily, reflecting torchlight.
Yoruichi's eyes widened. "That... that should have taken weeks. Most students need dozens of sessions before they can even feel their reiryoku, let alone manifest it externally." She leaned closer, examining the energy with professional interest. "What are you, Asahi?"
Too fast, alarm bells rang in his head. Slow down or they'll think you're possessed. Or worse, a threat.
He let the energy dissipate, swaying slightly. Not entirely faked—the effort had been significant. His toddler body protested the spiritual exertion, exhaustion creeping through his limbs.
"Tired," he mumbled, rubbing his eyes with small fists. Playing up the childish angle. "Did good?"
The calculation worked. Yoruichi's expression shifted from shock to something softer. Pride, maybe. She scooped him up, settling him on her hip with practiced ease.
"You did amazing, little sun. Better than amazing. You're going to be a monster when you grow up." Her grip tightened slightly. "But we need to be careful. Can't let the elders see you doing things like this yet. They'll push too hard, too fast. Make your childhood disappear."
Too late, Asahi thought bitterly. It already disappeared. This is just the aftermath.
"Our secret?" he asked, looking at her with what he hoped were innocent eyes.
Yoruichi grinned, but it didn't reach her eyes this time. "Our secret. At least for a while." She carried him toward the exit. "I'm claiming you as my student. Anyone wants to train you, they go through me first. Deal?"
"Deal."
The clan elders summoned him three months later.
Asahi had continued training with Yoruichi in stolen moments—early mornings before servants woke, late nights when the compound settled into sleep. She taught him basics: meditation to strengthen spiritual awareness, breathing exercises to improve reiryoku circulation, simple physical conditioning appropriate for his age. He absorbed everything with frightening speed, always remembering to fail occasionally, to struggle just enough to seem merely talented rather than supernatural.
But secrets didn't keep in noble houses. Servants talked. Guards reported. Eventually, whispers reached the clan council.
The meeting room was oppressive by design. Dark wood panels absorbed light from paper lanterns, creating shadows that seemed to move in peripheral vision. Five elders sat in a semicircle on raised platforms, their aged faces carved by decades of political maneuvering and combat. Behind them hung the Shihōin clan symbol—stylized purple lightning against white silk.
Asahi knelt on a cushion at the center, feeling very small. His mother stood to his left, hands clasped tightly. His father occupied the right position, expression unreadable. Yoruichi had been barred from attending—"family matters," they'd said, which really meant "heirs don't get votes until they inherit."
"Asahi Shihōin." The head elder spoke—a woman perhaps two thousand years old, her white hair bound in traditional style. Her spiritual pressure was like aged steel: refined, deadly, patient. "Reports suggest you've been training in secret with your sister. Displaying unusual aptitude for one so young."
Here we go. Asahi kept his expression neutral. At two and a half physically—twenty-five in Soul Reaper years—he could speak clearly now, though he maintained a slight childish affect to avoid suspicion.
"Yoru-nee teaches me," he said simply. "I wanted to learn."
"And learn you have." Another elder leaned forward—male, scarred, missing his left eye. "Show us. Circulate your reiryoku."
There was no point in refusing. Asahi extended his hand, drawing spiritual energy through his developing pathways. It came easier now, weeks of practice having widened the channels. Purple-tinged power swirled above his palm, denser than his first attempt, more controlled.
The elders exchanged glances. Calculations happening behind ancient eyes.
"Remarkable," the head elder murmured. "At his age, most children can barely sense their own reiryoku. Conscious manipulation shouldn't be possible for another decade." She fixed him with a stare that seemed to pierce through flesh. "The boy shows promise. Extraordinary promise."
"Too much promise." The scarred elder's tone carried warning. "Unnatural development breeds complications. We should proceed carefully—"
"We should proceed intelligently." A third elder cut in—younger, perhaps only eight hundred years old, his ambition barely masked. "The Shihōin clan hasn't produced a prodigy of this caliber since Yoruichi-sama herself. If the boy possesses even half her potential, wasting it would be criminal."
"He's barely a toddler!" His mother's voice cracked through the formal atmosphere. "You can't possibly expect—"
"The clan expects what it must." His father spoke for the first time, and the room fell silent. Captain-class spiritual pressure leaked into his words, command that brooked no argument. "Asahi will enter preliminary training immediately. Modified curriculum, accelerated pace. We'll assess his limitations as we proceed."
"Takeshi-sama, he's your son—" his mother tried again.
"He's a Shihōin." The coldness in his father's voice was absolute. "Sentiment weakens our bloodline. He must be forged properly, or he becomes a liability."
The head elder nodded. "It's decided. Asahi Shihōin shall begin formal training at age three physically. Until then, supervised meditation and basic spiritual awareness exercises only." She looked at his mother. "Akane-sama, you'll oversee his preliminary education. Ensure he maintains proper discipline."
His mother bowed, defeated. "Yes, Elder."
"This meeting is concluded." The head elder waved dismissively. "The boy may go."
Asahi stood, bowing with perfect form despite his young body. He walked toward the exit with measured steps, neither too fast nor too slow. Behind him, he heard his parents being detained for further discussion—probably about resource allocation and training schedules.
The door slid shut. Yoruichi materialized from shadows beside him, her expression tight with barely contained fury.
"I was listening," she said quietly. "They're treating you like a weapon that needs sharpening."
Asahi looked up at his sister. Saw the cracks forming in her carefree facade, the weight of clan politics pressing down on shoulders too young to bear it.
"That's what we are," he said, and hated how easily the cynical truth came. "Assets. Investments. The Shihōin clan doesn't have children—it has future operatives."
Yoruichi flinched. Then her jaw set, determination replacing anger.
"Come with me."
She took him to the highest point of the estate—a veranda attached to the main residence's third floor, overlooking the entire compound. Night had fallen, stars scattered across the sky like spilled salt. The moon hung full and bright, casting silver light across rooftops and gardens below.
Yoruichi sat on the railing, legs dangling over a drop that would kill a normal toddler. Asahi settled beside her, trusting his developing spiritual energy to keep him stable.
They sat in silence for long minutes. The estate breathed around them—guards changing shifts, distant sounds of late-night training, wind rustling through ancient trees.
"I hate this place sometimes," Yoruichi finally said. Her voice was soft, lacking its usual energy. "The rules. The expectations. Everyone watching, waiting for you to stumble so they can swoop in and take your position." She looked at him, golden eyes reflecting moonlight. "Don't let them break you, Asahi. Don't let them turn you into something cold and calculating, like Father."
Too late, he thought, but didn't say. The modification was already doing that—sharpening his thoughts into efficient patterns, stripping away emotional responses that didn't serve immediate purposes. He could feel Liam Bright fading with each passing day, replaced by something more capable and infinitely more dangerous.
"I won't," he lied, because that's what she needed to hear.
Yoruichi smiled, but it was sad. Then she stood on the railing, balancing with supernatural grace.
"Want to see something cool?"
Before he could respond, she moved.
Not walked. Not jumped. She became a blur of motion that defied physics, appearing twenty feet away on another rooftop in an instant. Then another rooftop. Then back to the veranda, the displacement of air ruffling Asahi's hair.
Flash Step. The Shihōin clan's signature technique, refined over millennia into the fastest movement method in Soul Society.
"One day," Yoruichi said, slightly breathless from the exertion, "I'm going to be so fast that nobody can catch me. Faster than Father. Faster than any Captain. So fast that all these walls and rules and expectations can't hold me anymore." She grinned, and for a moment she looked truly free. "And I'll take you with me. We'll go somewhere the clan elders can't reach, where we can just... exist. Without the weight."
Asahi's chest tightened. He knew what she didn't—that she would eventually leave Soul Society with Kisuke Urahara, exiled and branded a traitor. That she'd spend a century in the human world, finding peace away from noble politics and clan obligations.
But in that version of events, he didn't exist. He was an unknown variable in her timeline, a brother that canon never mentioned. Would his presence change her path? Would she still find that freedom, or would he become another chain binding her here?
"Promise?" he asked, hating himself for the hope in his voice.
"Promise." Yoruichi hopped down, settling beside him again. She wrapped an arm around his small shoulders, pulling him close. "You and me, little sun. We'll figure it out together."
They sat like that until the moon began its descent, two children trapped in a beautiful prison, planning impossible escapes from destinies not yet written.
And in the moonlight, with his sister's warmth beside him and 280 years of foreknowledge weighing on his mind, Asahi Shihōin made his own silent promise:
I'll get strong enough to protect this. To change the parts that need changing and preserve what matters. Even if it costs me everything I used to be.
The estate walls framed them like a painting. Inside: safety, structure, suffocating expectations. Outside: a world of possibilities and dangers they couldn't yet imagine.
Asahi looked up at the stars and wondered which side of those walls he'd ultimately choose.