Renji's breath hitched, trembling like glass on the verge of shattering. His chest rose and fell as though every inhale threatened to collapse into sobs he couldn't contain. The apparition before him stood silent, still, yet radiating an aura that was both painfully familiar and impossibly otherworldly.
"Dad?" His voice cracked, breaking the fragile silence of the room. It came out raw, like the word had been rusted in his throat for years.
The figure inclined his head, features half-veiled in ghostly light, eyes glowing faintly as if burning with some celestial fire that time itself couldn't extinguish.
"Yes, son," the voice answered, deep and sorrow-laden, vibrating with echoes that stretched beyond the physical. "I'm sorry you had to wait so long to see me. I wish I could hold you right now but…" His words frayed, dissolving like smoke in the wind.
Renji staggered a step forward, his fists trembling at his sides. "Where were you? Where was Mum all my life?" The question tore out of him, thick with accusation and grief, like a wound ripped open after years of being bandaged in silence.
His father's figure wavered, as though even admitting the truth hurt the tether that held him in place. "Dead, son. Long gone. You won't want the details, but I'm here for a purpose."
The word purpose echoed in Renji's head like a drumbeat.
"A purpose?" Renji whispered, voice trembling as he tried to wrestle control over emotions boiling inside him.
His father's ghostly expression hardened into something grim, resolute. "Yes. Not to keep you in the dark any longer. Look, Renji… you are the descendant of a long line of demon hunters. Our gift, our curse, was named the Abyssal Covenant."
Renji's breath stilled. The air felt heavier, as though even the walls of his room bent inward at the weight of that revelation.
"The Abyss?" His tongue felt thick, hesitant. "Does that mean…?"
"Promise me—" His father cut in sharply, voice suddenly iron-clad, commanding. "Promise me you will never summon it."
Renji blinked rapidly, confused. "Summon what?"
"The demon in you," his father said with a weary finality, as if he were dragging the words from deep inside. "Everything's always… stable, manageable, bearable—until you summon it."
Renji's blood ran cold. His hand balled into a fist so tight his knuckles blanched. "My powers… are from a demon?" he murmured, disbelief coiling around the edges of his voice.
"Not just a demon," his father corrected, his tone carrying both dread and reverence. "More like a vengeful abyssal god. The Shin'en itself—an endless hunger. Listen to me. Don't you ever summon it. Ever."
Renji swallowed hard, a knot in his throat. His mind spun with fragments of the half-remembered night when strange surges of power had flared within him. He had thought them blessings. Now they felt like poisoned gifts. "Okay, Father," he whispered, nodding despite the chaos in his chest.
His father's sternness softened just slightly, sorrow flickering in his spectral eyes. "Good. When I first learned this truth from my father—your grandfather—I was enraged. Confused. Broken. I thought the blood in my veins had damned me. But he told me something profound, something I've carried through the abyss of my own life."
The apparition straightened, his form glowing brighter, voice resonating as if it carried the weight of every ancestor before him. "He said: Sometimes darkness might be the only road to light. But only you can choose. Will you drown in the tides of the abyss, or will you wield them to carve your purpose?"
The words struck Renji like a hammer to the heart. His eyes burned, vision blurring as tears welled. A single tear escaped, tracing a slow, deliberate line down his cheek. His chest heaved with emotions too vast to name—fear, anger, longing, grief.
"Wield the abyss," his father urged, the glow of his body beginning to fracture like stained glass under pressure. His voice trembled, distant, as though drifting to the far end of a tunnel. "Use it… find your purpose…"
"Father!" Renji shouted, panic clawing his insides. He reached forward instinctively, as if he could catch a ghost with trembling hands.
"I'll be back again, Renji," the fading figure promised, his tone fierce despite the weakening echo. "But remember this—so long as you remain bound to Shin'en, death is not your end. It is only… a power-up." His final words splintered into whispers, fading into nothing as his form scattered into the thin air like embers smothered by wind.
The room fell silent. Oppressively silent.
Renji stood frozen, his hand still outstretched toward the emptiness, chest heaving. The tears that slipped down his face felt scalding, burning a path down skin already pale with shock. The air itself felt colder now, emptier, as though his father had carried warmth away with him.
And then—
It hit.
The world tilted, a pressure wrapping around Renji's skull like an iron vice. His vision flickered, blurring as the cursed eye burned—his Demon Eye alive with a will of its own. He stumbled backward, gasping, and suddenly fell into a trance.
A vision surged violently before him.
He stood in the heart of a city swallowed by chaos. The night sky was crimson, burning with smoke and fire. In the center of it all, a towering demon tore through skyscrapers like paper, its claws dripping with shadows so thick they seemed to eat away the light itself.
Then his cursed eye dragged him closer—closer to the carnage.
A family. A man, a woman, and a child. Their bodies twisted grotesquely, blood painted across walls in strokes of horror. The smell of iron and rot burned into his senses, making bile rise in his throat. The child's eyes—hollow, frozen—pierced him.
"No—stop!" Renji cried, clenching his head, shaking violently in the grip of the vision. His knees buckled. His heart thundered like a war drum, drowning out every rational thought.
And just like that—
The vision snapped. The silence of his room rushed back in, deafening after the scream of carnage. His body shook, drenched in cold sweat. His chest felt tight, as if invisible hands had been pressing down on it.
He staggered to his feet, staring wide-eyed into nothing. His lips parted, whispering the only words that surfaced past the suffocating fear.
"Something… is coming."
He swiped at his damp face with trembling fingers and rushed to his wardrobe. The wooden doors creaked open with urgency, his hands darting through piles of shirts and jackets until he found a set of dark clothes. His body moved automatically, mind still half in the nightmare.
A quick glance at the clock on his bedside drawer glared at him with cold digits. 12:30 a.m.
The hour of whispers. The hour demons love.
And Renji knew, with a certainty that made his stomach twist, that the night had only just begun.