Kuchiki Rukia gathered her few remaining drops of spiritual pressure at her fingertips, aiming at the bloated Hollow before her.
Its body resembled a fat caterpillar, yet it possessed a head like a pig. It squirmed under the sunlight, saliva dripping from its tusks.
"Hado #4: Byakurai!"
A faint bolt of white lightning erupted from her finger, striking the Hollow's massive frame.
The result was nothing more than a small, charred mark.
To a Hollow of this size, such a wound was less than an itch.
"Dammit...!"
Rukia gritted her teeth and dodged a swipe from one of the Hollow's thick forelimbs. She rolled through the dust, her expression darkening with grim intensity.
'Kido is completely ineffective... Is this thing more than just a low-level lackey? Or could it be—'
Her knees trembled slightly as she landed, her breathing already becoming ragged.
'I've been in this Gigai for quite some time now, yet there's still no sign of my power returning... If this continues...'
She moved quickly under the cover of the kicked-up dust, her mind involuntarily drifting back to that pillar of light she had seen piercing the sky.
'And... that bizarre, bone-chilling pressure from before... What on earth was that light?'
Seeing that the creature before it—which carried the scent of a Soul Reaper—was pitifully weak, the pig-headed Hollow cast its caution to the wind.
It grinned, letting out a cackling laugh as it swung its heavy forearm down toward Rukia's position with crushing force—
Just as Rukia prepared to force her exhausted body to leap away, an orange-haired figure rushed in ahead of her, delivering a fierce kick straight to the Hollow's face.
"...Ichi...!"
"I missed you so much, Big Sis!!!"
The orange-haired boy turned and lunged at her, his face aiming straight for her chest.
Rukia reacted instantly, grabbing the restless head with a grip so tight she nearly crushed his skull.
She ground her teeth, squeezing the words out one by one: "It's... Kon... isn't it? You're Kon!"
Kon—short for 'Modified Soul'—was a Soul Candy Rukia had previously purchased to allow Kurosaki Ichigo to take his Soul Reaper form even when she wasn't around.
Though they later discovered he was a combat-type Mod Soul that should have been destroyed, Rukia and Ichigo kept him around because he wasn't truly malicious.
He wasn't malicious.
But he certainly was a pervert.
At that moment, Kon was pinned to the ground: Rukia held his wrists down with her hands and planted her foot firmly onto the face that belonged to Kurosaki Ichigo.
Since Rukia was wearing her school uniform today, and the girls' uniform consisted of a skirt, her current posture was... well, rather unladylike.
"Doing something so provocative out in the open... I can only imagine what you two are like at home."
A lazy voice drifted over from the side. "Tsk, tsk. My imagination is running wild."
"..."
A vein throbbed on Rukia's forehead.
"Gwah!"
She kicked Kon away, sending him flying like a cannonball. He traced a long arc through the air before hitting a wall with a wet thud and sliding slowly to the ground.
Rukia stood up calmly and brushed the dust off her skirt. Crossing her arms, she turned a serious gaze toward the person sitting atop the perimeter wall.
"How much do you know about what's happening? Why are so many Hollows appearing here?"
Asakura Yoh, who had been sitting on the wall with his chin in his hand watching the show, let out a yawn.
He looked drained of energy, his eyes half-lidded as if he might fall asleep at any second. Hearing Rukia's question, he didn't answer immediately; instead, his gaze drifted slowly downward—
Right to the hem of her skirt.
"As I thought, they're rabbit patterns..."
"Hado #1: Sho!"
A faint shockwave shot from Rukia's palm, its power roughly equivalent to a punch from an ordinary person.
Asakura Yoh hopped lightly off the wall, dodging the symbolic warning and landing right beside Rukia.
"Just a joke, don't be so stiff," he said, raising his hands in a mock gesture of surrender, though his face showed no hint of remorse.
"Who's in the mood for your jokes right now!"
Rukia grabbed him by the collar, pulling him close to her face.
"Do you have any idea how much damage this many Hollows could cause in a densely populated city?"
She stared into his eyes, trying to find an answer in that nonchalant expression.
Though her intuition told her that Asakura Yoh wouldn't go so far as to summon a swarm of Hollows, the timing was simply too coincidental.
"Big Sis is right!" Kon shouted, having somehow crawled back to his feet. He stood a short distance away, pointing at Asakura Yoh with righteous indignation.
"Her sanctuary isn't something for the likes of you to peep at—"
"Shut your mouth!"
Rukia snapped her head around to glare at him. Her terrifying expression was so fierce it looked like Kon's actual soul might jump out of his body.
He mimed zipping his lips and retreated to a corner, not daring to utter another sound.
Asakura Yoh shifted his gaze from Rukia's face to the dense black shadows filling the distant sky.
Hollows were surging in from all directions like a rising tide, their roars and screeches echoing through the air.
"I think the quantity isn't going to be the main concern much longer, Kuchiki."
"Huh?"
Rukia followed his line of sight—
In an instant, her pupils constricted.
The sky was being torn apart.
A massive black rift spanned the heavens, looking as if an invisible blade had carved a hideous wound into the firmament.
Countless Hollows flocked toward the rift from every corner of the city. They let out roars that sounded almost like worship as they scrambled to dive into the endless darkness.
Then, something reached out from within the crack.
It was a bone-white mask.
It was unimaginably large.
By comparison, the ordinary Hollows looked like ants standing before an elephant.
The pale mask slowly squeezed out of the rift, its hollow eye sockets looking down upon the city with a cold, almost indifferent hunger.
Rukia's body began to tremble uncontrollably.
"How is this possible... Is that... a Menos Grande!?"
Her voice was dry, her throat feeling as if it were blocked by something.
A Menos Grande—she had only ever seen photos of them in the textbooks at the Shin'o Academy.
A monster of that caliber required at least a high-seated officer to handle. And she... in her current state, she couldn't even defeat the most common Hollow.
"Ichigo..."
Before she could finish, the Menos Grande moved.
Its tongue shot out like a spear, piercing through dozens, even hundreds of ordinary Hollows. With a single flick, it pulled all its prey into its massive maw.
The sound of chewing followed.
The sound of bones and flesh being crushed.
The noise echoed through the sky, making her skin crawl.
"It... it's eating the other Hollows?" Not far away, Ishida Uryu, who had just met up with Kurosaki Ichigo, looked up at the titan in the sky, his face pale.
"What a terrifying creature..."
He instinctively gripped his bow of spirit particles, only to realize his fingertips were trembling. Against an opponent of that size, his arrows probably wouldn't even pierce the skin.
"Heh..."
A laugh sounded beside him.
Ishida turned to look at Kurosaki Ichigo.
"What's so funny, Kurosaki?"
"Why bother thinking about how to deal with a big guy like that?" Ichigo gripped his Zanpakuto, the blade gleaming with a cold light.
"What?"
"It's just hack, hack, hack! Just keep on hacking!" He turned his head, his eyes burning with reckless battle intent.
"Sooner or later, I'll have hacked the whole thing away!"
With that, Kurosaki Ichigo charged toward the Menos Grande.
"Let's go, Ishida!"
"Wait... don't be reckless, Kurosaki!"
Ishida gritted his teeth but ultimately followed after him.
...
Inside a renovated apartment building nearby.
Sado Yasutora stood by the window, silently watching the massive figure in the distance.
His hands hung at his sides, his fists clenching and unclenching repeatedly.
Inoue Orihime stood beside him, her hands tightly clutching the fabric of her shirt at her chest. Her lips trembled, though she made no sound.
Behind them, Arisawa Tatsuki leaned against the wall with her arms crossed, her gaze fixed complexly on the scene outside.
A bandage was wrapped around her neck and the back of her head, covering the wound where a Hollow's seed had pierced her. A faint trace of blood could still be seen seeping through.
From a room on the second floor, the sound of faint sobbing could be heard.
A young female soul was huddled in a corner, clutching the soul of a parrot as tears streamed down her face.
[ROOOAAAR!!!]
The Menos Grande's roar pierced through the walls, making the glass windowpanes vibrate with a low hum.
"I don't care if you want to stand there and watch..." a gloomy voice spoke from the corner of the room.
"But could you close the window? It's noisy."
Inoue Orihime turned to look at the speaker.
It was a teenage boy wearing a black cap, a black trench coat, and a white scarf.
He was slouched on the sofa, holding a PSP. The screen's light reflected off his features—golden hair, deep-set eyes, and a pair of eyes filled with impatience.
Yukio Hans Vorarlberna.
Like Dokugamine Riruka, who had brought them here earlier, he was a Fullbringer who had awakened his powers at a young age.
"Ah! Oh! Sorry, sorry!" Orihime hurriedly shut the window tight, cutting off some of the external roaring.
She turned around, looking at Yukio with a bit of hesitation.
"Um... Yukio-kun... right?"
Yukio didn't look up, his fingers continuing to dance across the PSP buttons as if the game were far more important than the Menos Grande outside.
"What?"
His tone was as cold as a winter wind.
Orihime took a deep breath and summoned the courage to ask what was on her mind. "You, and Miss Riruka... what is your relationship with Asakura-kun?"
Yukio's fingers paused for a split second.
'What relationship...?'
A memory surfaced from deep within his mind.
It was from when he was very young.
Because he 'failed to meet his parents' expectations,' he had been locked in a room—not just a simple grounding, but true imprisonment.
The door was locked, the windows were sealed, and no one except the servants who brought his meals ever came to see him.
He had been like an abandoned doll, trapped in a magnificent cage.
Then, one day, that boy appeared.
It was a face he had never seen before, and there was no reason for anyone to be there, yet there he was.
Standing by the window, separated by the glass, the boy had smiled at him.
That smile had been far warmer than anything he'd received from the parents who almost never visited.
"That's none of your business, is it?"
Yukio pulled himself back from his thoughts, his tone remaining cold.
"Sorry, heh heh~" Orihime tapped her own head, trying to ease the awkward atmosphere.
"Oh dear, look at me, asking questions like that when we've only just met..."
"Hey, even if Orihime misspoke, there's no need for that attitude. She didn't—"
"It's okay, Tatsuki-chan." Orihime gently pulled on Arisawa Tatsuki's sleeve, cutting her off.
She wore a slightly goofy smile and winked at Tatsuki.
"I was just being too nosy, heh heh..."
Tatsuki looked at her and swallowed the words she was about to say.
That was just how Orihime was. Even when she hadn't done anything wrong, she was always the first one to apologize. It had been that way since they were kids.
"More importantly..." Orihime turned back, her gaze falling on the massive shadow in the distance, her voice tinged with worry.
"Will Asakura-kun and the others be okay? That monster... it looks really strong."
She successfully changed the subject.
The room fell silent for a moment.
Sado Yasutora leaned against the wall by the window, his large frame looking like a silent mountain in the dim light.
He looked at Orihime, his voice calm as if stating a simple fact.
"I have never seen Yoh fight."
He paused.
"Inoue, didn't you say you saw him just now?"
His deep eyes held a hint of inquiry.
"Is he strong?"
Sado's question hung in the room like a stone dropped into a deep well, returning only silence.
Arisawa Tatsuki and Inoue Orihime looked at each other and then looked away.
"It's not that we don't want to say..."
Tatsuki broke the silence first, her voice lower than usual.
"It's just that it's really hard to describe it as 'strong' or 'not strong.'"
She leaned against the wall with her arms crossed, her eyes focused on a point in the void.
"It's not like karate, something you can see with your eyes."
"It's not about how much power he has or how fast he is... the kind of strength you can touch or measure."
Orihime stood beside her, her hands clasped in front of her, her knuckles turning white from the pressure.
"It's something else..." Tatsuki's voice grew even softer. "How should I put it..."
She looked up, her gaze complicated.
"At the time, Orihime and I knew perfectly well—Yoh was saving us. When he appeared, we actually felt relieved. But..."
She wrapped her arms around herself, instinctively pulling tighter.
"Our bodies were instinctively afraid."
"At that moment, Asakura-kun..." Orihime picked up the thread.
"It was like he was a completely different person."
Silence fell over the room once more.
Sado Yasutora leaned against the wall, his eyes downcast as his curly bangs cast thin shadows over his eyelids.
"I see..."
His voice was low and steady, revealing little emotion.
But behind the veil of his hair, his eyes were lost in deep thought.
'Like a completely different person...?'