"Ahh..." Muten Natsu leaned back on the sofa, threw his head back with his mouth wide open, and let out a completely meaningless noise.
"Be quiet!" Rukia Kuchiki shot him an annoyed glare. "I finally found the right approach to this problem, and you broke my train of thought."
Orihime Inoue took a bottle of Calpis out of the fridge, poured it into a glass full of ice, and handed it to Muten Natsu. "What's wrong?"
Ririn looked from side to side. Earlier, she had been worried about Orihime Inoue, but now it felt like Rukia Kuchiki was the one she should be worrying about... What exactly was she even worrying about?
"What else could it be..." Rukia Kuchiki said in a tone full of disdain, though she still closed her book as she spoke. "Having trouble communicating with your Zanpakutō?"
"There's no one more annoying than that thing. It rambled on forever, and in the end it was all just to hit me where it hurts." Muten Natsu took the glass and drained a big mouthful. Only then did the irritation on his face gradually ease.
"That really does sound exactly like a certain someone." Rukia Kuchiki gave him a sidelong look. "So this is what they mean by self inflicted suffering."
"You should read fewer of the manga Honshō lent you." Muten Natsu set down the glass. "Myōki told me I should get better at using Hollowfication to raise my Reiatsu, and now it's saying I'm too obsessed with quick results."
"Hollowfication and all that... I don't really understand it." Orihime Inoue squeezed the bottle in her hand. "But it should be kind of like a water bottle, right?"
Muten Natsu looked at her in confusion.
"Look." Orihime Inoue shook the bottle lightly. "A bottle you just took out of the fridge feels cool if you press it against your face. But if you pour the water inside out and splash it on your face, it feels even cooler. Hollowfication should be something like that... right?"
Muten Natsu nodded. "The real situation is a bit more complicated, but that's basically the idea."
"If you want the water to come out, you can either crush the bottle or unscrew the cap." Orihime Inoue tilted her head. "I don't really understand Zanpakutō, but I think Myōki probably wants you to use the second way."
Rukia Kuchiki paused to process that. "Orihime... are you sure you don't understand it? That was an amazing explanation."
Muten Natsu stared silently at the bottle in Orihime Inoue's hand.
"You still don't get it?" Rukia Kuchiki picked up a pen. "I'll draw you a diagram."
"Wouldn't that just make it even harder to understand?"
Rukia Kuchiki's face flushed red with anger. "What exactly do you mean by that? Are you looking down on me?"
"I just thought of one possibility." Muten Natsu moved his fingers, imitating the motion of twisting off a bottle cap. "It feels like Hollowfication really isn't something you can master through practice alone."
Rukia Kuchiki pressed him. "What do you mean?"
"They're both powers that harm the body. I can control Hell Flames, but I still can't quite get a handle on Hollowfication." Muten Natsu organized his thoughts as he spoke. "There's probably a missing twisting step somewhere in the process."
Rukia Kuchiki murmured to herself, "Twisting... some kind of outside force?"
"The first time I Hollowfied..." Muten Natsu paused, skipping over that part. "When I'm facing a Hollow, Hollowfication does seem to come more easily. Of course, part of that is because the situation is dangerous enough that I have no choice."
"So that means you'd need to practice in Hueco Mundo... That's way too dangerous!" Rukia Kuchiki blurted it out, then immediately corrected herself. Her expression turned serious, and her little face tightened.
"Don't worry. I'm not reckless enough for that." Muten Natsu gave her a reassuring look. "I'll go ask Urahara later and see if he has some kind of method."
"No matter what, you absolutely cannot act on impulse." Rukia Kuchiki still looked uneasy. "Aizen is in Hueco Mundo right now. He might even be sending people to the World of the Living to capture you as we speak. If you go to Hueco Mundo, you'll just be walking straight into a trap."
"He already took the Hōgyoku. There's no reason for him to..." Muten Natsu's voice stopped abruptly. He suddenly turned his head toward a certain direction. An invisible wave was spreading outward.
This was... completely undisguised Pesquisa.
...
A crescent moon hung high in the sky, and a figure sat atop a tall building.
His short white jacket hung open, exposing firm muscles and the hollow at his abdomen.
A jagged fragment of white bone mask covered his right cheek.
His pale blue hair stirred lightly in the wind. His sky blue eyes were half open, and the lake green markings around them gave him a wild, almost wicked beauty.
"Everyone's here." He looked up into the air. Five men dressed in a similar style hovered there, each wearing a broken mask on his face. "No one noticed us, right?"
"Of course," one of the tall, skinny men said. "Even after becoming Arrancar, we haven't let our old hunting skills get rusty."
"Hmph." The blue haired man rose to his feet. "He's just some brat. Why bother scouting? We can just kill him."
"I agree," the tall man replied. "There is no need to let the enemy live."
"Open up all your Pesquisa." The blue haired man stepped onto empty air and stood there in midair. "Kill everyone you can sense. Leave no one alive."
...
"Orihime..." Tatsuki Arisawa had just finished training and was on her way home. She looked up at the crescent moon in the sky, her expression a little lonely.
Those fireworks had been breathtakingly beautiful.
But it was precisely because they had been so beautiful that Tatsuki Arisawa had clearly realized Muten Natsu and she lived in completely different worlds.
And Orihime Inoue was moving closer and closer to Muten Natsu's world.
Which meant she would inevitably drift farther and farther from Tatsuki Arisawa's world.
Tatsuki Arisawa had always known that day would come sooner or later.
She had even been looking forward to it.
She had looked forward to the day Orihime Inoue would truly be able to face everything in life on her own, gather her courage, and walk toward the future.
But now that the day had really come, she still could not help feeling a little lonely.
That little girl who used to cling to her had grown up in the blink of an eye.
So fast that it caught her completely off guard.
But it was fine.
Orihime had said she would come back.
So she would definitely come back.
Tatsuki Arisawa took a deep breath and suppressed the inexplicable unease in her heart.
It's fine...
"Seriously." A boy with a hollow in his chest complained, "And they gave me the weakest one..."
Tatsuki Arisawa stopped dead in her tracks.
A Hollow?
No.
Tatsuki Arisawa noticed the skull like thing on the boy's head. It looked very similar to a Hollow mask, but it did not fully cover his face.
Instead, it sat over his head like a cap, wrapped in white bandages that covered his right eye.
It looked like a Hollow, but it was different from one too.
What exactly was this...?
Before Tatsuki Arisawa could figure it out, the boy had already rushed in close. His outstretched palm stabbed toward her like a blade.
So fast.
Tatsuki Arisawa's pupils widened. She tried to dodge, but her body felt as if the air itself had trapped her in place. She could not move at all.
"Santen Kesshun!" a familiar voice rang out. "I reject!"
A triangular golden barrier unfolded in front of Tatsuki Arisawa and blocked the boy's attack.