God Phase: The Long Play

1. Opening

Kurosaki Ichigo was seventeen years old. He knew the people in his life, many of whom were hundreds to thousands of years older than him, often forgot this boy with the power of ancients was merely a teen, barely out of his late adolescence. Sometimes, maybe, even he forgot his own age. After all he had seen, after all he had done, perhaps he could be forgiven for this forgetfulness...

"It's gonna rain in here, King."

He smiled in his sleep, then opened his eyes to see the unsurprisingly sunny, sideways landscape of his inner world. Standing several feet from him, his Quincy avatar wore a somewhat amused expression. Not far from him stood Zangetsu, whose back faced them, and an inverted white eye glanced back at him.

"Looks perfectly fine to me," Ichigo said, looking around in faux surprise.

The zanpakutō spirit shook his head, then looked forward again. "Nah, it isn't that."

Confusion seeped into Ichigo's expression. "What do you mean?"

"Something is happening somewhere in the world," Yawach explained, his expression leveling. "It is such an...anomaly...that even your soul can sense it."

"And I don't like it." Zangetsu turned around with crossed arms. Upon seeing Ichigo's confused face, he huffed, "As usual, King, you're denser than a rock. I'd go back to the waking world..."

"Why?"

"Someone's watching you."

Ocher eyes snapped open in pitch darkness, and Ichigo's gaze locked on a large black figure in his open window. He immediately sat upright in alarm at the glowing yellow owl eyes staring at him. "What th—"

"Impressive." The figure's voice, feminine but gruff, didn't match the word it spoke. In fact, he daresay the person seemed flatly unimpressed. "Figures you can see me."

"Who the hell are you?" he demanded, moving to place his feet on the floor. His brows furrowed deeply. "Your reiatsu...it's..."

"'Reiatsu'?" The yellow eyes, which he would swear were exactly like those of an owl, briefly glanced away. After a moment, she sighed, "Yeah. Where I come from, we call it kēpu...or, in your case, rei. Never spoke to a human before..."

"What are you? You're not a Quincy, Hollow, or...a konpaku at all." He stood, keeping his guard up. He didn't sense her as a threat, but he knew better than to underestimate her intentions. It didn't help that she felt so...wrong.

"I don't have time to explain. I need your help since you can see me."

He slanted his eyes. "I'd rather know what I'm dealing with first."

She stared owlishly at him. He clenched his jaw, hating how uncanny her gaze felt. She then exhaled deeply and moved from her crouched position in his window to slide onto the floor with her legs crossed.

"My name is Aiyūl. Aiyūl Wasihl. I'm a faifeth, a mortal being—like humans—from the realm Rejisea, more specifically the plane Sahīleth." She crossed her arms. "I fell from my plane. Be it that it's the last plane in Rejisea, there was no other place to go but down...so I ended up here. No one in my realm knows what happens when we fall...I guess I've found out the hard way."

"How did you fall?" He cocked up a brow. "Your world...Your plane isn't flat, is it."

"It is, actually."

He blinked in surprise, mouth open.

She scoffed at his expression. "I'd love to explain it, but I don't have time. I wasn't alone when I fell. I went after my incorrigible nephew," she said, sucking her teeth and cutting her eyes away in irritation. "Fuckin' brat. He should have known better than to trust the military after all he went through..."