BLEACH: The Dusk In Red

"A weak one?? What do you mean its a weak one?? How can you even tell?"

Mugen stared at him quietly for a moment, with very slight emotions of contempt. He then face palmed himself for a moment, before giggling suddenly.

"You have yourself to blame for this really. Although members of our family can receive a Shikigami, its actual power is decided by the Tetragrammaton. Although it doesn't look like it, the sacred relic is conscious and has a will. As such, it can also show preference to certain people."

It wasn't that hard to understand really. The power of the Shikigami, is determined by how favoured you are by the Soul King himself. As such, one favoured by him, will receive a Shikigami of great power, while one disliked by him will receive one that's basically useless.

"So because I stopped praying to him, I started to lose his favour? And you didn't tell me this before, why??"

"I didn't tell you, because then the relationship wouldn't be genuine. It's like trying to befriend a well known rich person while being poor. Although you may say you truly want to be his friend, you'll end up treating him differently just because he's rich. A friendship forged from benefit, isn't friendship at all."

On the surface it made sense, but at the same time it wasn't fair at all.

"What the hell!? How am I supposed to befriend someone I can't see, hear or hold a conversation with??"

"Well.. that's the point. Were seriously expecting the Soul King to hand out power like candy? If you want to be strong then you must undergo the necessary trials to obtain that power. Very few beings are exempt by that rule, and you my son, are not one of them."

Hearing that, Hyoma felt dishearten. He had decided to throw away his belief just so he could gain the power to save his friends, and now it turns out that it had all been for naught.

'That's not right.. that simply isn't right...'

Mugen clasped his hands together,

"Come, boy. We shouldn't linger here too long. There is still more that I need to show you."

**

The two then took the same path that they used to get there, and proceeded back to the main hall of the mansion. From there, Mugen took Hyoma to their back garden.

Much like the front, the back garden was filled with twisted withered trees, along with overgrown murky grass. The stone path that they took, had long since been hidden behind tenacious moss, while only reaming clear as the two trampled through it.

Once they reached the end of the back garden, the path stopped in front of a shed.

'We had a shed? Since when?'

The shed itself seemed relatively new. It was fitted with mahogany wooden walls lacking any windows, a roof made from stone tiles, and the large steel door with what seemed to be a dragon engraved on it.

Mugen sighed quietly, as he put the palm of his left hand on the door. The steel groves which formed the dragon began to soft shine, as the doors started to push open by themselves.

"What?"

The light of a warm fire automatically turned on, as several lights of embers appeared on the inner walls of the shed. They glistened quietly, enveloping them in their warm radiance while illuminating the entire space.

Inside that shed, there was nothing except the coldness of the floor, and the emptiness of several shelfs.

"Um.. father? What is going on?" 

Mugen appeared to have a very glum look in this place. Unlike before, he seemed especially upset. Not at Hyoma or anyone else for that matter, but at himself.

"This is the second duty of our family.. or at least it was. This duty is one that our family adopted while living in the human world rather than carrying over with them as they moved.

700 years ago, there was a treacherous man named Kaizo Escallion. He was a human who possessed a strange ability to create numerous weapons from mundane objects. The name for this ability has been recently discovered. It is known as fullbring. The weapons this man created from his fullbring varied in power, but they all possessed the ability to cause unimaginable destruction. Kaizo himself sold these weapons to mundane people, granting them the power to overthrow army's for a profit. Once Soul Society found out about him, it took 10 years for them to find and seize all the weapons he made, and an additional 2 to find Kaizo himself, who they then promptly killed."

Despite the Shinigami's rule to never kill a human being, they would sometimes break this rule if the human caused an unnatural balance in the world, much like Kūgo Ginjō and Xcution once did. Kaizo had been one of those humans.

"Kaizo was then living in Soul society much like everyone else, however he continued to make weapons. He was quickly detained before he could cause chaos, but this time he was imprisoned in the central underground prison where rouge Shinigami would usually be kept, just because of how dangerous he was. All the weapons that were seized had been entrusted to our family to protect by a member of squad 0, and so they were stored here in this dragon shed for safe keeping."

Hyoma looked in the shed again, and saw that it was still dreadfully empty. He waited for the part where the ceiling would unfold, the walls would flip, and numerous weapons of all kinds of deadly nature would spring out. And yet it never came.

"..and where are they?"

The already grim look on Mugen's face grew worse. He then said with a shaky voice.

"They were all stolen... 3 months ago. 2 years ago Soul Society had been invaded. Although they fought back successfully, the majority of the prisoners they had held captive managed to escape. Some were killed, some disappeared, and unfortunately, Kaizo Escallion was one of them. It must've taken him a while, but somehow he found this place, and took his weapons back."

A string of connections instantly formed in Hyoma's mind.

"3 months ago the fires started.. it was him wasn't it?"

"Surprisingly no. But I wouldn't be shocked if he had a play in all this. Those flames are not something that can be produced by a mere Fullbringer, as they're special in their own way. In fact, they have a little to do with the third original duty that our family was entrusted with."

"And that is?"

Mugen went quiet for a moment, before replying,

"That I cannot tell you. It is something that has been entrusted to every family head, and is taught to the one that will succeed them."

Instantly, Hyoma knew who it was. 

'Brother.. of course.. he started doing all of this, long before I did.."

It wasn't particularly hard to figure that out. The two were the only reaming candidates after all. Mugen quickly noticed the change in Hyoma, as he turned slightly blue.

"Don't bother comparing yourself to him. In the entire history of our family, he's the only one to have been granted not just 2, but 3 Shikigami by the Soul King."