He opened his eyes once the glow of the portal faded away, releasing him from the spectral void.
He found himself in a dark, familiar, hallway. He sighed, as he looked around then paused suddenly as he saw three familiar people to his left.
He ignored his relatives for now and faced his mother's steward. "You are here," he acknowledged.
The shinigami bowed low at the waist. "Master Reficulus, it seems I have been called from my long rest to serve," he said in explanation.
'Long rest? This vessel of death found ten years long?' He asked himself. 'But then again, maybe for him it had been longer.'
Shinigamis were demonic undead and they were born during mass killings and genocides.
Events like these cause a great flood of souls into Naraku, attracting the demons of the domain of death—the Onis.
The Onis liked to feast on dying souls, plucking them off before they could make the journey to the afterlife.
But what Onis have refused to learn, and would never accept because of their greed and hunger for souls, was that their involvement in these killings made them a ritual—thus, at the end of it all, if any of the dying soul, while still in their mortal vessel, manages to touch the Oni something great happens.
They get the power of death. It is as great as it is nightmarish.
All the souls that had been inside the Oni would enter them. Millions sometimes. If you try to kill them only one out of the host dies, except they can face something that perpetually kills— like throwing them into a star —nothing else can kill a Shinigami.
And there was even more to their powers than that. Anything any of the souls had been capable of in their lives, and past lives as souls carry the imprints of every life lived, then the host was also capable of that thing.
So they were not just multitalented, they were omnicompetent.
They could sing any genre, play any sport, work any work, do anything. And often there's always a few souls who had been capable of working the kin among the host, so they become instant kin experts.
The host is always led by the consciousness of the owner of the vessel, but they were a hive mind.
A Shinigami had urges to kill people because anyone they kill is absorbed into them, another soul for the host.
And to make it even worse, they had a paralysing aura that when anyone got within range of it they'd find themselves mentally paralyzed.
'Well not me,' he added, mentally.
He was much of a greater Assarian than a mere result of an abominable apotheosis into demonhood.
He was half Yosei afterall, and half angel. Though as ridiculous as it might sound, he preferred the latter nature to the former.
'I'd cast out the Fey in me in a heartbeat if I could.'
"Ran, is that you?" Haru asked from where he was paralyzed, unable to look away from the Shinigami.
'Ran? Could I even still be called that?' It was the name given to him by the father he'd chosen.
He's gone by many names now: 'Reficulus, Armaged, Mahero, Ran, Ya.'
He was Reficulus to his mother, Armaged to HIM, Mahero had been the name he bore once when he ran away from it all, Ran was the name given to him by his father, and Ya was the name of the hands of destruction.
"Ran, get out of here. He's a Shinigami."
The raw terror in Kigana's voice snapped him right out of his soliloquy. He realized he'd done nothing but stand there and stare since his arrival.
He faced the serial killer turned vessel of death. "I won't be needing you, Prof. Matsuda."
The Shinigami bowed. "Whenever you have need of me master, I'll be in the mansion awaiting your call."
With that, the demon in human skin was cloaked in shadows and faded away like a lost whisper.
With his presence gone, warmth seemed to fill the hallway. The shadows became less dark, the moon's glow had them basking in its brilliance, evil was gone and it took its fear with it.
Haru let out an explosive sigh staggered against one of the lockers in the hallway, Kigana just collapsed to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been severed.
"Are you alright?" He asked them, stepping forward.
Kigana met his eyes then suddenly she was on her feet and he soon had his arms full with a sobbing cousin.
"Why did you leave? Why did you have to throw your life away? You would have left us?"
He had no response to any of her questions so he just held her as cried.
When she'd calmed down she unwrapped herself from him and held his face, cupping his cheeks. "Now you have turned into an old man, baby cousin."
He snorted, he could not help it. "Ignore the white forelock. That's just my hair returning, my true hair."
"What do you mean by true hair? What happened to you in Naraku, Ran? Your hair has always been dark," she said, looking at him in perplexity.
Haru shuffled towards them. "No, his hair is actually white. As white as snow and you'd see that he has snow grey wings, four of them, when his shroud finally comes off."
Ran looked at his friend and stared into his eyes, trying to determine the truth before even asking the question they both knew was on his lips.
"I knew," Haru said before he could even ask. "Why? Did you never wonder that you were so lucky to find someone who'd help you make it to Naraku? Help you save your father? Help you rebel against the forces of hell?"
"Why didn't you say anything?" Ran asked. He was not angry, just curious. In fact, he knew if Haru said anything back then it would have changed nothing, it wouldn't have suddenly made him remember.
His mother's kin had been tightly wound around his mind, only she could have ever taken it off.
Haru gave him an unimpressed look. "I believe you know the answer to that question. If you're looking for another, well my mother warned me not to associate with you. Mukoku was given the same warning too, but whenever has the Queen of Severance bowed to the command of another?"
"I still believe you could have tried to help me," Ran said, pursuing something. He wanted someone to blame, someone to let his anger out on.
He was tired of the weight of his sorrows. He just needed someone to unburden him, even if it was only for a moment.
From the look in Haru's eyes his friend understood.
"Ran, you can't expect me to have been able to do anything to counter the magic of a Fey such as Tītānia–"
The name had barely left his lips when they all felt eyes on them, and then a giggle lit the air with the sound of chimes.
"We..we should get out of here?" Kigana said, her voice wobbling.