Awakening is the event that transforms a Hybrid (in this case experimented on Humanoids) into an awakened being but can be more generally applied to a moment when magic fully merges with a piece or entirety of a being.

The Moira Institute believed and currently still does believe that awakening is when a hunter uses too much energy and turns into a psychopath. However, the Institute was only partially correct.

Awakening is truly when the abused energy of an individual can't take any more abuse and separation from its owner (hence the part of using too much energy) and rips apart its owner's mind and reforms around the soul of the individual in a personalized armor. This armor is what shows in the body and creates the awakened's awakened form. The soul of an awakening individual can either be covered by its magical "armor", retaining the memories of human (and Hybrid life) and keeping its humanity or can be destroyed and integrated into the energy, creating mindless awakened ruled by their instincts.

The result of the combination of the mind and its mana is what drives the body after awakening. Another way of looking at the situation is that the monster's flesh acts as a reflection of the being's soul. Upon awakening, the human mind and body fully succumb to the monster parts, being devoured entirely, leaving the foreign mana in power over the soul. However, due to the nature of the genetic manipulation of transplanted flesh, the awakening results in monstrous forms (now that the altered mana's inhuman nature is dominant) and a need to feed on other life, especially humanoids (as that is the only thing that the altered mana is used to eating before when it was eating the human parts of its master). Awakening also releases any of the Hybrid's latent potential and causes them to gain an awakened body and mindset. Typically, awakening is followed by mindless rampaging in Blood Mist, although the rampaging, insane aspect is skipped if the Hybrid wasn't hungry when she awakened.

Awakening is inevitable and a natural stage of evolution as the altered mana constantly gets stronger with time, and continually devours anything it contacts. The mana in a Hybrid has already consumed their bodies and thus, begins to corrupt their minds. Hybrids usually don't accept their mana and monster half and instead try to push it away with chaining due to their own self-loathing. However, their human minds eventually grow weaker as time progresses while the monster aspects in their bodies get stronger the more it is used due to its nature and corruption of the mind (it needs to corrupt the mind since the body is fully corrupted already). The altered mana starts replacing the dying human mind, unnoticeably as the mana itself thinks the same as the human mind so the Hybrid still feels as though nothing has changed.

Eventually, upon awakening, the human mind is finally destroyed, making way for the monster's mind. The monster's mind contains everything the human mind had and all of its repressed instincts and secrets, particularly, bringing out the instinct to feed and find meat to eat. In this stage, the energy can assimilate the memories and personality of the original human mind to create an awakened that thinks it is still a human and have memories of its past (which isn't its past as the awakened is the monster DNA itself that bonded to its host), or awaken mindlessly (usually only happens to Destruction Squads).

This mindless awakening occurs due to a lack of time in all senses of the word (time to copy, Seasoning). The energy has only been in contact with the body for less than a day before it is forced to awaken and copy the mind. However, the copying time is too short to copy the whole mind so only the most basic instincts are preserved. Similarly, looking at it from a seasoning perspective, the Destruction Squad member has only days worth of seasoning which could never be enough to engrave the entire human mind into the mana so only a small amount is engraved.

In THUMA, awakening still occurs. However, instead of the monstrous mana destroying the mind and copying its master's self-loathing, the mana is merged with its master's mind, allowing for perfect control over the monster's particular ability/reality warping. The user can still eat regular food as the human mind was not overwritten and the body responds to the human mind's human needs (albeit these needs are far lower than a regular human (sleep, eating, etc..)).

However, if an awakening were to go through THUMA, the need to eat flesh and blood would still be preserved as there no longer is any human mind in awakened and the only mind to use is the monster's will which includes the need to eat raw food.

Users of THUMA say this allows the monster half to combine with their souls completely.

Another way of thinking of awakening is like this:

Hybrids have "monster" bodies (bodies shaped by their soul through mutated mana) but these bodies don't show due to them wearing a skin of their appearances as humanoids and the mental chaining of their monster half. As they use more monstrous mana, unlike an awakened, their body remains somewhat human since the chain is preventing their awakened sides from showing on their bodies. When the Hybrid awakens, the chain (the Hybrid's mind) is destroyed and the Hybrid awakens.

As an awakened being, there is only one will in the body (the awakened/monster's will) so awakened are constantly using 100% of their power (since nothing is restricting them). However, like Hybrid, they too wear the skins of their human appearances, just with no chain to stop their true appearances from showing when they use their power.

Upon awakening, the late Hybrid loses any physical sign of their experimentation. Unawakened practitioners of THUMA can't awaken since their wills are one with their monster half. Awakenings can be reversed if the target hasn't fully awakened through mana synchronization to calm down the raging mana and reinforce the user's chain. Full awakenings can be reverted in the cases of Zeros (Although zeros can only use 95% yoki, this is above the awakening threshold) and Soul Linkers.

The Celestials are rumored to be even able to reverse a complete awakening.

Corpseborn are an unusual case as they can be seen as Hybrids even without experimentation. Their state of being both among the living and the dead, the mortal realms and the godly, gives them a unique perspective. Among this species are those who could devour the souls or essence of others, or connect to them, which is similar enough to the Hybridization Process to be compared easily with. Depending on if they are Natural Corpseborn or become one later in life, they might be lacking the organs and other physical parts needed for a transfusion to even take place.