Utter horror was the only thing running through Percy’s mind. Mrs. Dodds was some kind of monster. Apparently, a monster out for his blood.

Did he mention just how terrified he was?

What happened next was kind of a blur. Mr. Brunner wheeled in, tossed him a pen, that transformed into a sword, and then he was facing off against Mrs. Dodds slash monster thing.

And the only thing he could think about was that the sword in his hand didn’t feel right. It felt entirely wrong to him to be holding it, almost as if he would be insulting something else just to be handling this sword.

“Rankle the seas and the skies!”

He had the urge to shout out those words, but he had no idea why. He didn’t even know where those words had come from or what they meant.

Instead, he ran forward with the sword and tried to slash at Mrs. Dodds, eventually hitting her and turning her into…golden dust? He shook his head and decided he’d think about it later, turning to Mr. Brunner, blinking when he realized the wheelchair bound teacher was nowhere to be seen. And that strange sword in his hand had become a pen once more.

It was all very strange.

He went back outside, seeing everyone still gathered and Mr. Brunner off eating like nothing had happened. He saw Grover still sitting where they had been together before, looking nervous and panicked. Cautiously, he went back to sit near him.

“Percy! Oh gods, you’re okay! What happened?”

‘Gods?’ he resisted the urge to narrow his eyes and instead chuckled hesitantly.

“Oh man, I thought Mrs. Dodds was going to kill me,” Percy scratched the back of his head nervously.

Grover paused before laughing timidly, “Mrs. Dodds? Who are you talking about?”

Percy really did want to narrow his eyes this time, but once again he refrained. But he’d caught the hesitation on Grover’s part.

“Mrs. Dodds? You know, our pre-algebra teacher?” he’d already mentioned her; he couldn’t take it back and pretend to be oblivious. But he could potentially find a way to put this to his advantage. He just had to be more confused (which wasn’t hard because he really was), and keep the suspicions down. Not that he shouldn’t act a little suspicious, because then that would look suspicious. He just had to be careful not to overdo it.

“Percy, are you sure you’re okay?” Grover had finally grown into his role and was playing the lie more comfortably, Percy noted. Probably because Percy was upping the confusion. But he wasn’t getting anywhere and he just wanted some answers!

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“There isn’t a Mrs. Dodds, man. There’s only Mrs. Kerr,” Grover smiled uneasily.

Percy blinked, “Huh?”

“Mrs. Kerr? She’s the pre-algebra teacher. Who’s this Mrs. Dodds ya talkin’ about Percy?”

What to do? What to do?

“W-wasn’t there a Mrs. Dodds? I…I could’ve sworn,” Percy blinked in confusion, half acting and half real about it.

Grover looked confused at him, though Percy didn’t know if it was genuine or not. Or the reason why his friend was confused; he was only guessing that Grover was confused about Percy’s confusion of the teachers.

Ugh, Percy was confusing himself.

“Ah, never mind. I’m not sure about anything. I must be real tired or something,” Percy evaded.

Grover nodded agreeing, “Yeah, that must be it. You should go to sleep early today, maybe catch up on that sleep, eh?”

Percy nodded distracted, thoughts whirling in his head. That night, he tried to go to sleep early, but instead he ended up staying awake and listening to Grover snoring away. Frustrated, he got up and walked out of his dorm room, wandering down the hall. Making it outside of his dorm, he found a bench and stared up at the sky. The stars twinkled and shined down on him, and he wondered what it would be like to be a star.

“Late for someone as young as you to be out.”

Velvety. Dangerous and smooth, but velvety was all he could describe the voice.

Stiffening, he slowly turned to face the man that was leaning against a tree nearby, wearing a dark expensive looking suit, shoulder-length dark hair tied at the nape of the man’s neck. Dark obsidian eyes glittered ominously at him.

“W-who are you?” Percy stuttered, pushing down the urge to shudder.

“Who I am is not important,” the man murmured. “It’s who you are that will make the coming days vital to destiny, Perseus Jackson.”

His eyes widened and he stared at the strange man terrified.

“How do you know who I am?!”

The man smiled grimly, pushing off of the tree and walking leisurely towards him. Percy was screaming at himself to move, to run away, but instead he stayed rooted to the spot, flinching once the man was right in front of him.

“Perseus, I can tell you everything you want to know. All you need to do is grab my hand.”

Percy did want to know what was going on and he had a feeling this man knew…but was it going to be worth it? Was knowing everything going to be worth whatever consequences came his way? And the fact was…just how much could Percy really trust what this guy was saying?

Knowing it was pretty stupid but going to take the risk anyway, Percy just shrugged and grabbed the man’s hand. What he didn’t expect was for a dark chariot attached to two equally dark scary horses to burst neighing out of the ground.

“What the hell?!” he screeched, feeling himself almost flying behind the man as the mysterious stranger practically leaped, gracefully moving through the air to land in the chariot.

“Tartarus, young Perseus,” the man said in dark humor. “Tartarus. And I am Hades, Lord of the Dead. And your uncle.”

Before he could speak another word in response to that, Hades clucked his tongue and grabbed onto the reigns, and they were riding through the air into the new tunnel from where the magnanimous chariot had come from.

Percy wanted to scream, but the scream got stuck in his throat. Instead, embarrassingly so, he threw himself at Hades’ side and clutched at the man, scrunching his eyes closed and waiting for the damn ride to be over.

Suddenly, things stopped and he warily peeked one eye open.

“Is it over?” he mumbled.

Hades chuckled darkly, “Yes. You may open your eyes now.”

Swallowing nervously, Percy did so and sweatdropped at the airport-like appearance of the Underworld. He was still unsure about believing all this so far, but with what just happened he’d be hard pressed to push it off as a nightmare…

Hades waved his hand lazily, transforming his chariot into a go cart after letting his horses go, both of which neighed and trotted off idly.

“Get on, Perseus,” his…uncle drawled, smoothly slipping into the driver’s seat.

“Ngh…Just…Percy, Lord Un –uh…U-Uncle Lord….Hades,” Percy ended lamely. This was really uncomfortable…

Hades raised an eyebrow at him, but his lips twitched upwards slightly. Percy nibbled his lower lip and shrugged apologetically.

“Just Lord Hades for now, young Percy.”

Percy nodded and Hades began driving the black gleaming go cart to their destination. Percy’s head swiveled this way and that, trying to catch everything and not miss anything as he passed by.

“We’ll be reaching the throne room soon, and that is where you will have to make your decision,” Hades spoke to him again, his velvety voice running over Percy’s skin.

Percy shivered and wondered if he was heading to his death.

In the extravagant throne room, Hades didn’t head to his gigantic throne. Instead, he chose to sit on the steps leading to it, still normal-sized and looking at Percy. Getting the hint, Percy nervously walked over there, nearly running in his haste to not keep his uncle waiting.

“Okay, Percy. What I tell you, will be the foundations of your self,” Hades said seriously. “It is the truth and what you make of it will shape your destiny from here out. But you have to make a choice. I can give you the truth. The entirety of it. Or you can choose to find out only what Chiron and Grover have been hiding from you. Only the whole truth of that.”

Percy wasn’t even going to ask how Hades knew about Grover, but he didn’t know who this Chiron was.

So he asked.

“Who’s Chiron?” he scrunched his eyebrows in confusion.

“That will be part of the truth that needs to be revealed. Either way of your choices though,” Hades added as an afterthought. “So no matter your choice, you will find out about him.”

Percy took a deep breath and nodded at the god.

“I understand. I choose to know everything, Lord Hades,” he said decisively.

Hades smiled mysteriously, but began telling Percy everything, starting about him being a demigod.

“Your mother met your father on that beach of yours. Montauk. There, the two of them struck a romance that lasted until your father was forced back to his kingdom. Do you wish to find out who he is, or do you want to wait until he chooses to claim you?”

He didn’t know what being claimed meant, but he definitely didn’t want to wait to find out who was his father. He didn’t know if he was excited or angry, but he knew that he just had to know.

“Please, Lord Hades. I have to know who he is.”

Hades nodded grimly, “Your father is my brother, which explains how I am your uncle. Poseidon, God of the Sea, Stormbringer, Earthshaker, Father of Horses.”

Percy nodded, accepting it. He would probably think more about it later, but right now he needed Hades to keep explaining.

“That means you are a demigod, young Percy. Half mortal, half god,” and then Hades began explaining about who Mr. Brunner is, what Grover was and why the two was attached to Percy. He talked about Camp Half-Blood, and he even explained about the pact between the three brothers and of the prophecy.

“It is not too early to tell you of it, Percy, I hope you understand. It is to my belief that it will benefit you in the long run, that you know exactly what you are in for. You will be better prepared for it, and much more informed,” Hades said, seeing Percy’s eyes widen and panic enter them. “You must calm yourself. Think on it later. But for now, we must continue. You have to know everything now, ‘break’ everything all at once.”

Percy nodded, not feeling any better about it, but understanding.

“Now, I must tell you what is extremely important to me,” Hades clenched a hand, Percy noted but didn’t say anything about it. “Percy, a long time ago I created a separate world called Soul Society to help me deal with souls. It’s a hard business, dealing with death and the souls of the people. And as you can see, the Underworld is becoming too crowded. But Soul Society is destroyed.”

Hades held up a hand to stall Percy’s questions.

“There was something called a Winter War some time ago. A man named Sousuke Aizen wanted to be God. To do so, he had to usurp the throne of the King, which incidentally is my throne and I was King of Soul Society. Not that anyone knew. And the throne room led to this throne room. He had to be stopped at all costs and the situation had grown too out of control. The only solution…was to completely wipe out Soul Society and Hueco Mundo, the opposite dimension of Soul Society for ‘bad’ souls and where Aizen had been ruling over for a time. I understood that many souls would be absolutely wiped out, many good, and that the balance would be broken. But it had to be done. And to counteract the broken balance, I stabilized it by once again overstuffing souls into my kingdom here. But I cannot keep it up anymore and I need help in maintaining balance between the world of the living and the world of the dead. So I’ve been slowly recreating the dimensions of Soul Society and Hueco Mundo, and now I need what is called a shinigami, those of Soul Society whose main job was to maintain the balance, to perform the duties that I require of them, such as purifying Hollows –bad souls –and performing Konso on good souls –like ghosts. You’ll also, from time to time, watch over the people in the Rukongai, the city outside of Seireitei, both places which make up Soul Society itself.”

“Woah, woah!” Percy backtracked the last sentence in his mind. “Did you just say ‘you’ll’? Wait a second, I can’t be a shinigami. I don’t know what to do and I’m definitely sure I’m not shinigami material.”

Hades smiled grimly, “When I wiped out Soul Society and Hueco Mundo, I knew I would also be wiping out the shinigami. Those souls will never again be reincarnated and will never exist again in any form. However, there are shinigami who died before the wipe, and there were a handful of powerful and responsible ones that because they died before the wipe have been able to be reincarnated. But there was only one I wished to see, and was lucky enough to find. The others will be lost, happy enough in their new human lives. You, however, must take up the mantle of shinigami once more. Because you, reincarnated as the demigod Percy Jackson, are, or rather was, Kaien Shiba –former lieutenant of the Gotei 13, Squad 13 under Captain Jyuushiro Ukitake.”

Percy shook his head in disbelief, but there was nothing else for it.

“I understand that I just gave vague details, but I needed to get out the important stuff first. I promise that as needed, I will become more specific when the subject comes up,” Hades took his attention again. “But there is no other way, Percy. You must be the shinigami I need to rebuild Soul Society.”

“What…what next then?” Percy held back his grimace.

“I will need to restore your memories from your past life. You will still be Percy Jackson, but you will remember how you were as Kaien Shiba.”

“I understand,” the newly deemed demigod shinigami sighed.

Hades nodded and touched his hand against Percy’s forehead, his hand glowing for a second before Percy began seeing another’s life flashing through his eyes. But there was one memory that stood out.

There she was again. Beautiful Miyako. Her long tresses flowed from her head, looking like the ocean’s water in the darkest of the night, the dark skies reflecting the watery surface.

“Kaien-sempai, will you help me with this kido? I am having trouble being able to use the incantation to properly summon the light beams,” Miyako asked in frustration.

“But of course, Miyako-san,” Kaien inwardly sighed, and strode towards her.

But that had led to them getting together…

Another memory cut in and instead Percy was faced with his death.

“I dragged you into this. My stubbornness has caused you pain. I’m sorry. You must be torn apart inside. Thanks to you, my heart can still stay here.”

“Kuchiki,” Percy choked out, dropping to his knees and clutching at his chest.

“Your death then,” Hades said gently, and Percy was sure that it was an unusual tone for the god to take.

“I made her kill me,” Percy bit his lip. “And Miyako…my wife! Has she been reincarnated too? Lord Hades, do you know if –”

“Percy,” Hades stopped him. “You are 12. And you are Percy now. You don’t have a wife.”

Percy swallowed harshly, “But she…”

“Don’t go looking for her,” Hades ordered. “You won’t be happy to know her now,” he warned.

Percy nodded reluctantly.

“Now, it’s time for training. I will train you myself in the four arts of the shinigami: Zanjutsu –swordmanship, Hoho –agility, Hakuda –hand-to-hand combat, and Kido. I assume that from your memories, that you remember these things, but you must retrain your body, mind, and your spiritual energy to know them again. Do you understand, Percy?”

“Yes, Lord Hades,” oh, Percy was so not looking forward to that…

Suddenly, Hades grinned sadistically.

“First things first.”

Hades thrust his palm out, straight into Percy’s gut, and forcefully took the breath right out of him. But all of a sudden, he felt himself slide like water and then he was looking at his downed body. It was also a lot harder to breathe and move around in his current state.

“What the hell?!” Percy screeched.

“This is your spiritual body. Your physical body is on the ground,” Hades explained coolly. “I’m going to take you through a shortcut to gain your shinigami powers. Only one other has done it this way before, and he was also unfortunately wiped out.”

“Okay…but why am I out of my body?” Percy forced himself not to whimper.

“The more your spiritual energy rises, the sharper the movements of your spiritual body becomes. If you can manage to move even better with your spiritual body than you can with your mortal body, then your spiritual energy will almost be up to par as a shinigami,” Hades explained. “To do this, I’m going to fight you. We’re going to keep going until one of us can’t move.”

“What?!”

But it was too late and then Percy narrowly dived a hit from Hades, the area he was just at exploding in debris and dust.

“Lord Hades!”

“No time to talk. More running!”

After an hour of just running, Percy realized that he was fast enough to outrun his uncle. If he could outrun him…

“Then I can dodge him,” he muttered. He’ll land a hit. He had to.

Percy stopped and quickly turned to face his incoming uncle, whose fist was cocked back. At the last second, Percy dodged and smirked, throwing a punch that was supposed to hit Hades’ side. However, with just a shift of Hades’ body, Percy only ended up grazing his uncle’s clothes. Without warning, he was sucker punched in the face and he flew to the side.

“Ouch,” Percy muttered, twitching and already regretting accepting Hades’ offer.

“Ouch?” Hades asked, smirking at his nephew.

“…It hurts too much to say anything else,” Percy forced out and then refused to speak anymore.

Hades rolled his eyes, “Lesson cleared, young Percy.”

Percy only blinked up at him.

“I never said you actually had to beat me,” Hades said dryly. “As if you could. I am a god, Percy. Besides which, the point of this was for you to gain your spiritual energy faster, which is more easily done when the soul is in danger of being destroyed. You can breathe and move easier in your current form now, can’t you?”

Percy noted his breathing and moved his hand and arm a little, noting that (outside of his exhaustion and pain) yes, he could breathe and move easier in his spiritual body than earlier.

“Hm…perhaps I should have given you the headgear,” Hades muttered to himself. “The other one had it…”

“You had headgear?” Percy growled in irritation.

Hades shrugged, “Yeah. But it’s useless. It’s just for show. Didn’t help the other one at all…”

Percy groaned.

Hades nodded absentmindedly, completely lost in thought.

“You see that chain in front of you, hanging from the hole in your chest and connecting you to your body? That is called the Chain of Fate. It is what binds your soul to your body. Without it, you will die and never be able to return to your body.”

And then Hades promptly cut the chain.

Percy screamed in pain and panic, “Why the hell did you do that?!”

Hades, absentmindedly again, put away the sword, “Hm…the severed end of the chain on your chest is starting to corrode. Once it’s reached your chest, you’ll become a Hollow. More on that later, but first…”

The Lord of the Dead suddenly kicked Percy into a pit that appeared out of nowhere, landing at the bottom with a loud thud.

“So, anyways! To avoid being a Hollow, you become a shinigami! There’s a gas down there that speeds up the Hollow transformation from months and years to just 72 hours. All you have to do to avoid that is climb up the shaft and become a shinigami before that happens. But…Bakudo #99! Kin!”

Percy screeched in both indignation and surprise, as he was caught off guard by his arms being restrained behind his back with what he guessed was spiritual fabric and iron shafts.

“I can’t climb up with my hands tied up behind my back like this, old man!” Percy yelled disrespectfully.

Not even fazed, Hades proceeded to call down the shaft.

“You better get started on scaling the walls or else you’ll become a Hollow! Then I’ll have to destroy you,” Hades ended on a cheerful note.

“Are you planning on killing me?” Percy muttered.

“I will have to if you give up,” Hades answered seriously. “By the way, don’t get hungry. Hunger is a sign that you’ll become a Hollow soon.”

Percy shivered, glaring balefully up at the god as Hades walked away and left the demigod alone in the shaft. His chain started another period of corrosion, leading him to start screaming in pain again, writhing on the ground. Minutes, hours passed. He didn’t know how long he was down there, screaming when his chain corroded and panting in exhaustion when it went dormant.

He collapsed again, another period of corrosion crippling him. But it was different this time. It wasn’t stopping, and it was worse than before. All of the links were being eaten up at the same time.

Screaming, he arched his back and felt something forming over his face. Something like a mask…

Then he was pulled into another place as his vision darkened, only for him to open his eyes and see a whole different world. It was an underwater city, the water surrounding the clear dome secured around the gleaming white walls of the gigantic city, a huge palace centered right in the middle of it.

“Percy,” a melodic voice, like musical wind chimes, called out to him.

Blinking, he turned and immediately spotted a bewitching woman. She was extremely beautiful, ethereally so, with impossibly long blue (of all colors!) hair, an aura of gracefulness that made Percy feel awkward and clumsy, and seemed naturally angelic with a gentle elegance. She held herself proudly, but tranquil –a serene radiance that put Percy to calm immediately the longer he stared at her. She looked completely composed, staring back at him calmly.

But it was her eyes that caught his attention the most.

They were as blue as her hair, looking at him in a mixture of fondness, sorrow, and longing.

“You’ve forgotten me, Kaien. Or shall I call you Percy now?” there was that musical voice again.

“Percy,” he croaked, feeling sad himself –sad that for some reason he’d disappointed this goddess in front of him somehow.

“Percy,” she murmured.

“Who are you?” he forced himself to ask.

She spoke but he couldn’t hear.

“What?” Why couldn’t he hear her?

“It’s so sad, Percy. You can’t hear me anymore? What has happened to you? Hear my name, Percy!”

“What is your name? Why can’t I hear you?” Percy shouted.

She smiled sadly at him, “We used to be so close, Kaien. It saddens and distresses me so that my name eludes you. How many times must I repeat my name. It is –!”

“I’m not Kaien!” he screamed, frustrated that he still couldn’t hear her name and also that his former life was seemingly beginning to encompass who he was.

“No one knows me better than you do,” she murmured. “Not in this world, my beloved Kaien,” her eyes glittered mysteriously, and this time he just knew for sure she had called him that on purpose.

“My name is –!” he was cut off when he was suddenly shoved out of the dome, and inside of the waters outside of the protected city. He began panicking, struggling in the water and trying not to breathe.

“Do not fear, Percy. Shinigami control death.”

‘But I’m not a shinigami yet!’ he protested in his mind.

“You are. You must look deep in your soul, my beloved one. Control the spiritual particles around you and swim back, Percy. Try to remember a time when you were a shinigami, when you were Kaien. Recall your training. Hurry! Before your world crumbles!”

Percy gritted his teeth and frantically tried to shift through his new recollection of his past life, trying to remember anything. He was still having trouble remembering bits and parts, some memories were hazy, some he’d glazed through and only had a vague recollection of, memories that stood out, but he really hadn’t had time to gather his memories of his life as Kaien Shiba together yet. So he forced himself to concentrate, eyes closing instinctively.

His eyes snapped open and he began swimming back, going faster the more attune he became with the spirit particles surrounding him, and the more he grew used to controlling them. Bursting into the dome, he automatically concentrated and remembered Kaien summoning Spirit Threads. He caught sight of the thick red ribbon flowing to his side and he grasped it, following it quickly to the center of the city (barely noticing the water slipping through the cracks of the dome and flooding the city from everywhere), in the courtyard before the palace. It led straight to the fountain in the middle of the courtyard, and he ran towards it, hand automatically reaching for the hilt of a sword peaking from the depths of the strangely deep water of the fountain.

For a second, he blacked out.

Regaining awareness just as quickly, he saw he was out of the shaft and facing an amused Hades, feeling the familiar cloth of Shihakusho, the uniform of the shinigami, clinging to his body once more. He didn’t think it would feel so familiar...

Even more disturbing was the feel of a mask completely on his face.

He hadn’t meant to freak out and practically smack the flat side of his sword against the mask, breaking the mask in half and bringing the sword to his attention. Huh...he hadn’t even noticed he had it in his hand.

Percy stared at it. It looked like an average katana, with a rectangular cross guard and smooth rounded edges, and the hilt was colored dark blue.

“Percy? Are you done staring yet?” Hades’ voice sounded mocking.

He snapped his head up to stare at him, anger slowly growing to cloud his vision.

“You bastard! I could’ve died down there!” Percy snapped. “I swore I would kill you when I got out, and now I’m out!”

Hades just kept smirking. The god tapped the obsidian crown gleaming on his head.

“Lesson three. Knock the crown off my head, boy.”

“With pleasure,” Percy growled. “R-rankle the seas and the skies!”

The name. What was the name? What was her name?

“Hm, interesting. You know the activation, and yet you don’t know your zanpakuto’s name? How backwards,” Hades said.

Percy’s eyes flashed.

“I’ll show you backwards!

“Rankle the seas and the skies! Nejibana!” he roared.