A learning curve was an understatement, to be honest.

Though it did come with its own unique benefits, strangely. The way that I sense things has always been inherently piecemeal—like most humans, I guess. A little bit of sound, a ribbon, a dark shape in the murky grey fog, and a slight rush of air on my left. I had gotten exceptionally good at using those cues—some bigger than other—to effectively ‘see’.

That way I could actually make do in this whole fighting thing, at least on a smaller scale. Sight and hearing were inherently muddy when it came to fighting—especially when someone can kick the ground and hit you into a geyser of dirt and stone. So, my ribbon sense was invaluable in fights. As far as I knew, it was exceedingly difficult to lie to it—though that didn’t stop someone from hiding from it all together.

The Phantom Hollow was a good example of that in general. In the days after my little fiasco we had been out on trip after trip, beating up Hollows like nobodies’ business but I was still to catch a glimpse of the Hollow’s harrowing ribbon. Every now and then I swear I saw or felt something, and I wasn’t stupid enough to not trust my most powerful sense. I was certain that the elusive Hollow was still in Karakura town, and I wouldn’t even be surprised if it had been as close as a few blocks away from me.

Regardless, with the limited sight as an addition to my senses, I was effectively forced to take advantage of another sense at the risk of letting it drag me down like a ball and chain. It simply wasn’t something that I could ignore, it was an intrusive and potentially destructive addition if I didn’t manage the sensory overflow it caused.

Unique benefits with a new addition as frustrating as this were happily accepted. The specific benefit—other than being able to see—is a sudden ‘command’ of the space I can see in. I had struggled with the feeling for a long while, trying to understand what it was trying to tell me. Eventually I came to the realisation that seeing something—perceiving it as lucidly as possible—has a lot of spiritual significance.

It was when my newfound sight worked in conjunction with my other, more developed senses, that the benefits really show themselves. The spiritual energy inside of me moved more snappily to my intended actions with just another element of my perception. The depth perception and proprioception helped dramatically, obviously. Even if my sight only reached a five to ten metres, the precision that I could achieve with sight and ribbon sense was a little nuts. So that also means that my cat and mouse fighting style could be aided with a real offensive edge, rather than a counter-attack intensive style.

Suzumi’s fist snapped forwards, her enhanced fists screaming through the air towards me as I twisted out of the way, jumping into the air towards her and launching a kick using the force of the twist. The kick didn’t land, unfortunately, but the cheeky ribbon snatch did—catching her while she was busy correcting her stance.

From there it was game over, her spiritual energy depleted and now in my own reserves, with what couldn’t fit being used as an aggressive punch at her gut, one of her least defended areas.

“God damnit,” she cursed, brushing off her training uniform as she pulled herself from the little ditch she’d been pushed into, “I thought I had you. You were spacing out and everything!” I chucked at her exasperation, offering her a hand despite knowing she could launch herself from the hole with enough force to rocket her a few stories into the air.

“Well, I have been getting powerups left and right lately.” She scowled at my total lack of humbleness, “Also, I’ve been messing more with spiritual senses recently and when you shroud your hands in spiritual energy you light up like an LED.”

Oh yeah, spiritual senses. Another new addition to the senses basket, though not a really significant one yet. After gaining some sight, I was able to sort of… mish and mash senses, you might say. I realise now that I had performed a version of it a few times in the past, especially when Urahara’s eyes cut through the fog of my vision.

Grayhom had said that he ‘made me blind’, but I’m not sure I buy that being the exact truth, or at least not with full context. My sight seems inextricably linked to the dark waters of my soul, and how much there is. I think if Grayhom had the capability to entirely lift the fog, then he probably would have done it already. It doesn’t really help either of us if I’m blind.

So then when Urahara’s eyes cut through my own personal fog cloud, then it must mean that I am capable of seeing spiritual energy being used, at least when it was powerful. I asked Kisuke about it and he said that it was a technique meant to be seen, deliberately sharp and undeniable. But the fact I saw it through my ‘soul fog’ meant that I could theoretically see any spiritual energy through it.

Thus, with the help from Suzumi and Uyu, I managed to include less and less powerful spiritual energy usage. Though it’s still a bit lacklustre and while I certainly use my own spiritual energy to ‘ping’ the other spiritual energy, it doesn’t help me with any understanding of physical environments outside what I can already see.

“Well, still! You’re totally spacing out again, I can see it in your eyes, Grayson.” Suzumi said, her own eyes suddenly only centimetres from mine. I flinched slightly before laughing and giving her a smooch as a peace offering.

“Are we going out on another Hollow hunt today? It’s a Tuesday, so I don’t think Uyu will be coming along.” Suzumi, sufficiently mollified by the kiss, nodded easily.

“It’s better than sitting around here all day, mulling over prospective new senses and power gains.” She grumbled with a glower, though it lacked any real heat.

“Hey now, miss. Who out of us wins eight of ten matches now?” I drew out an accusatory hum, making Suzumi roll her eyes. Before quickly racing off towards the stairway.

“Last one to the top is a rotten egg!” She called as she jumped out of my vision range. Taking the challenge, I raced forwards myself, only barely catching up by the time that we reached the steps—eventually emerging from the top of the steps with a victorious roar. I had beaten out Suzumi by maybe a fraction of a second, with her emerging with an even more pronounced glower.

“Oh shush you,” I said dramatically as we made out way through the halls of the ‘candy store’, giving Tessai a quick nod and a short word about where we’re going. After that we were on top of roofs, bouncing from one to another. Unfortunately, my new sight didn’t really help with my acrobatic ability on the roofs, where most big jumps would be slightly too large to make on blind ambition.

“Alrighty then! Where are we going, Miss ‘I don’t want to put effort into getting stronger’?” She laughed despite her mock offense.

“How about we go take a poke around Minamikawase, we keep going to Mashiba and Kinogaya all the time.” I groaned a little more exaggeratedly than was strictly necessary. The Urahara’s Sweets shop was located in Mitsumiya, the eastern most suburb in Karakura and also more than a little out of the way. The more populated areas were to the north and west, generally. Mashiba and Kinogaya were directly to the west and south of Mitsumiya—Kinogaya being the favoured hiding spot for the local hollows, as it doesn’t get patrolled often because there isn’t much of a population to speak of.

Minamikawase is a whole different story. In fact, the one or two times we made out way over there, I couldn’t sense any souls of the dead, let alone Hollows.

“But there’s never any Hollows over there, Suzumi!” I whined petulantly even as we corrected course to make our way over to the suburb on the far west of Karakura town. I huffed childishly, “I thought you were supposed to be the one who loved fighting, Miss Battle Addict.”

“What!” She yelled from in front of me exasperatedly, “am I not allowed to explore the nicer suburbs now that I can run there in less than half the time it takes me to drive there? I lived in Komatsu you know!” I recoiled a little. Komatsu was a small suburb directly west of Kinogaya, the ickiest suburb in Karakura.

“Oh, wait. Is your mother’s flower shop in Komatsu?” I said, remembering the comparatively short drive. I received a just perceptible nod, “Ouch, is she managing to stay in the green? I don’t even know how many people even live in Komatsu.” Suzumi chucked.

“Not many, and don’t worry about mum. She basically runs the social world in Komatsu and Sakurabashi like a mini mafia. She isn’t hurting for cash by any means.” We laughed a little bit at the mental image of Yua—the kind old woman that she is—running any sort of crime syndicate. It fit surprisingly well, actually.

We chatted our way across the urban landscape, the houses progressively getting nicer, in their own very Japanese way. I swear that we used a convenience store sign as a springboard every five steps, but eventually we made it all the way to Minamikawase. I instinctively reached out my ribbon sense, covering what had to be at least a few kilometre radius. Instantly I recognised the ribbon of a wayward soul becoming a ‘demi-Hollow’, similar to the one that we had encountered on our first night out.

“Demi-Hollow to our right!” I called, taking the lead on changing direction and letting Suzumi naturally adjust. As we bounded from rooftop to rooftop, another ribbon slowly started to appear as I drew closer, distinctly a Hollow’s pallid white. “Hollow as well, possibly chasing!”

We sped up after that, a sudden imperative to compel us forwards. It was going to be a pain in the ass to drag the hollowfying soul all the way back to Mitsumiya and get one of the Soul Reapers to take care of it, but it was always worth it, when you managed to save a soul. No matter how weird they sometimes got when they were out of their body.

Eventually we came across a mostly abandoned street, the only occupants being a large, almost doglike Hollow sniffing around for a terrified demi-Hollow, hiding in the corner of the street. For some reason there was an unnoticeable redirection that occurred when a Hollow appeared. It seemed that most were able to instinctually steer clear of the Hollow’s presence. We dropped down to the street, preparing ourselves to fight with the large, doglike Hollow.

As soon as we were seen, it stumbled towards us with uncoordinated legs, dragging its body against the front of a store and smashing through the glass panes and metal of the windows as it raced towards us.

“Please help, please help! I don’t want to die!” the hollowfying soul started to scream, his form of a middle-aged man slowly degrading as the hollowfication process continued to proceed. I looked to Suzumi.

“Can you hold it off? I need to try and help this–” I started but got cut off midway through.

“No need for that. I can take care of this just fine, children.” An older, matronly voice said—easily cutting through the madness of the Hollow coming towards us. I turned towards the voice, seeing a short orange haired lady, standing in the middle of the road behind us with a silly smile on her face.

“Uh–” I began, ready to try and convince the woman to get out of here as soon as possible before I thought better of it and opened my spiritual senses. And was summarily blinded by an extremely powerful light coming from the sides of her head, two six-pointed flower hairpins. As the woman walked towards the Hollow casually, the monstrous dog leapt forwards at her before either Suzumi or I were able to react.

“Barrier, please.” The woman called, and suddenly burst of light consisting of three edges came into being. A golden barrier appeared in front of the woman, shining spectacularly in my vision—and as the Hollow hit the barrier the woman chanted solemnly, “I reject.”

The Hollow simply bounced off the barrier without a even a millimetre of flex in the barrier’s shape. But the barrier didn’t seem to do it any damage, able to pull itself up from the ground after just a moment of being dazed. The woman laughed merrily, as if she was told a joke we couldn’t hear.

“Oh hush, Hinagiku—Ayame is already embarrassed, no need to rub it in.” She scolded gently before her voice hardened only slightly to chant, “Tsubaki, I reject!”

I the single greatest flash of spiritual energy I’ve ever seen, a wave of spiritual energy cut forwards, slicing the Hollow directly in two, the regular black blood of a Hollow leaking out of the cut as its body fell apart. There was a moment or two of hushed chatter from the older woman before she turned to both me and Suzumi with a bright grin on her slightly aged face.

“Well, I haven’t seen you two around before. Are you friends of one Kisuke Urahara, by chance?”