Once he took that form and Reio recognized him, as the translucent wall that once allowed him to see the future, Black, or Ichibe changed.
It was something that was once part of him, a thing he knew and observed for millions of years. Reio felt that Black, or Ichibe as he named him, started acting irrationally once he took that form.
He seemed lost after being unconscious for millions of years. Yes, now he was alive, but he also seemed to have forgotten about what he was and what he was supposed to do!
Black was no longer the darkness Reio once knew: it had truly changed!
After he rose from his long slumber, he began to roam the world aimlessly, and for some reason, he seemed to have gotten weaker. He was also neglecting the sole purpose of his existence: destruction!
He no longer devoured the creatures that Reio was trying to create, instead actually starting to act much like Reio; he seemed to have come to like what Reio has called, overlooking the world.
Of course, he couldn’t observe the entire world and everything that was happening all at once like Reio was doing; he could only observe them from a hill he took as a place to sit, but he seemed to be having much more fun than Reio.
Yes, Reio was creating, and darkness was no longer trying to destroy his creations. This alone was motivating him to bring more creatures from his visions to life. However, that always ended with a bit of frustration for him.
He created some animals, some types of trees, flowers, different terrains, but he still couldn’t create the things that had the same form as Ichibe.
As for the other creatures he created; they couldn’t survive in the world as it was at that moment.
This was Reio’s limit, he could try to replicate the images he saw in that vision, but in reality, he knew nothing about them. He could tell which is which, and which creature was more interesting than the other, but he couldn’t tell what made it more interesting.
Moreover, Ichibe was no longer acting as a counter to his power, so it actually went wild, acting on its own.
That frustrated Reio the most!
On the other hand, this new free soul that had neglected its duties was having a lot more fun than him. Everything seemed new to Ichibe.
He had no expectations, and no hope. He didn’t know anything, nor did he have any preconceptions about anything that he was seeing; thus he was having much more fun watching the world change.
After observing the world for a long time, Ichibe decided to do something to make life a bit easier. If he could give a name to each thing he saw, he could then have a better idea about this world, and observing would get much easier.
At first, he did the same thing Reio did when he first saw him; Ichibe named the two most interesting creatures he saw; himself and others with similar characteristics to him: ‘man’, and the creatures that were trying to devour those men, as Hollows.
Ichibe had also identified the darkness before, but never realized that. He also seemed to be rather ignorant about the fact that darkness itself was also his power.
He wasn’t neglecting his duties as Reio thought; he had just forgotten all about it.
Through error and trial, Ichibe learned more things about each creature, and began to change his perspective and approach to naming and identifying different creatures; he even stopped calling himself man at some point, and changed it to, Shinigami!
At that point, Reio finally understood how important Ichibe’s new role is. While observing Ichibe he stopped adding to the world, as the latter was trying to identify every creature, which helped Reio learn a lot of things!
He even finally understood what made Ichibe so interesting, and what the difference was between the likes of him that Reio saw in his visions and the normal men that he created before he created!
During this process, Ichibe also came to understand what darkness is, and how it’s related to him, and finally chose to give it up, and let the world be, even if it meant getting weaker.
Reio was happy to see this and even began to like Ichibe. Watching him identify everything he was creating, slowly became his new hobby!
Yes, a hobby, that something Ichibe had named as well!
The world had changed...
With time Reio has learned to accept his creations, every single one of them turned out to be very important to the balance of this world.
Also, those who survived these changes to the world also changed!
At some point, the big picture became a bit clearer, and the world began to look a lot like what he first saw in that vision.
However, by now, Reio had quit observing the world directly; at some point, he picked up the habit of observing it through Ichibe. It was simply some much fun, watching Ichibe’s reactions and hearing his ideas about every new creature and every single change that took place in his world.
Somehow, it all went back to how it was at first; it seemed that Ichibe was the key to everything.
Some of the men and Shinigami even came in contact with Ichibe at some point, they called him ancestor, which he was in Reio’s eyes, but Ichibe never took that last step… He never blended with them. He just watched them from afar.
The Five Houses were created.
These were the most worthy Shinigami in Ichibe’s eyes, as each house was represented by one of the first five Shinigami that had ever gotten a Zanpakuto like Ichibe.
Ichibe called them the true ancestors, and they even had a say about everything that was happening in their community as Shinigami.
As time passed, the Shinigami community got bigger, and they even cast mere men outside, creating a high society and calling themselves the Five Great Noble Families, bringing order and balance to their world.
Reio had never understood the meaning of this, nor did Ichibe, who was still insistent on staying out of this community. This gradually made observing the ever-expanding world much more difficult than before. These creatures were getting more intelligent, and with time, some of them even gained wisdom. They knew that they were being watched, so they moved in groups, discussed in houses, and killed in the dark.
Reio of course knew about everything, but Ichibe didn’t.
Ichibe was simply bored, while Reio was out of ideas. To be more accurate, he could no longer add anything without breaking the balance of the world. The visions that he saw before never truly came to life, but one must have some contentment. Also, he came to learn that the world, as he made it, is ever changing, and that one day it might finally reach its potential. However, he couldn’t leave the fate of this world in the hands of these Shinigami. They needed some guidance; he hoped Ichibe would be the one to guide them as he did with him before, but the latter never did.
Reio felt that this was a mistake; Ichibe chose poorly, and someone had to correct the path of this world.
“If he’s not going to do it, I will.”
Reio came to life.
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