Suzumi had learnt all there was to learn about the Chains of Fate over the next few days. Grayson was training still, finally managing to find his way out of that spherical machine that Kisuke had put him in.

Tessai had to go down to that sphere every so often to supply it and the being inside with his own spiritual energy, Kisuke having run out and had to leave on a journey to get more. Suzumi wasn’t able to go down to the Study Room, not while Grayson was spewing spiritual pressure like nobody’s business. Apparently, her boyfriend was consuming so much spiritual energy that he was creating spiritual pressure by the bucketload, to where she found it distinctly uncomfortable to be down in the Study room for any lengthy period of time.

While is hurt Suzumi that she couldn’t even do so much as talk to her boyfriend, one of the only true links that she had within this crazy world, it did force her to take her training seriously, just as Grayson was.

The Chains of Fate where incredibly complex things to understand, the greater context of souls being even more indescribably frustrating a topic. While there was a science behind the soul at large, Tessai knew some of it, but not enough to boil it down to teach a complete beginner. Tessai’s speciality was the Chain itself, and basically only the chain. In fact, he’d been instrumental in the progression of Ichigo Kurosaki’s development, helping him become a Soul Reaper again after losing his powers… for the first time.

Tessai had a lot of the spiritual understanding of the Chains down, capable of explaining them with ease, but the scientific parts were more esoteric and really did need more context of the general laws and theorems of spiritualism as a while. Suzumi had none of that, and Tessai clearly outsourced at least some of the mathematics and science to Kisuke, to help him form what he called the Soul Freedom Ritual.

Thankfully, the goal of the Soul Freedom Ritual was simple. The Chains of Fate are both enablers and limiters at the same time, allowing you to interact with the surrounding spiritual energy to supply your soul with sustenance, and then a little more for your own personal use, and also restricting you from becoming much more than you were ever ‘destined’ to, putting a soft limit on how far you can actually progress.

Something to note is that this soft limit is soft, meaning that you can kick the can up the road if you’re willing to undergo some risk to achieve it. Soul Reapers use Asauchi to do so, allowing the foreign power into their soul and letting them manage their internal power to a degree, also lending them the ability to extend their power with releases; like Shikai and Bankai.

However, this can only take them so far, leaving many Soul Reapers stranded at the height of their power, unable to reach any higher despite any amount of effort, at least in the spiritual sense. Many are capable of optimising their power, reducing the spiritual bloat, and replacing the fat with muscle. But even still, the limit is still their limit.

Some, the very rare few, have managed to once again kick the can down the road by introducing yet another player into the game, in this case the Visards with their hollowfication. By allowing the Hollow within to break down barriers further, they are able to create a knock-on effect with every level of their own power and increase further.

But the limit remains, their Chain of Fate unbroken.

There are only a small number of beings that have truly surpassed their Chain of Fate, and they are freaks of nature so egregious that it’s almost impossible to compare them to anything but what would be a God.

Soul Freedom would make those incapable of moving further have a chance at power of a higher order. It has absolutely no bearing on how quickly you can gain power, even those that have Chains of Fate with more leeway than anyone else may gain power slowly, simply being the way things are.

The name Genryusai was brought up again, having heard the name a few times from both Grayson’s recollection of conversations and her own conversations. She’d asked Tessai who he was, and she was given a nostalgic smile along with a few words about an old man, stuck in his ways and caught between generations. He’d apparently been possibly the strongest Soul Reaper who’d ever lived, optimising his power so completely, even as his own Chain of Fate restricted his power from growing to the God-like realm it truly deserved to be.

Tessai had wanted Genryusai to one day undergo the ritual, as one of the first.

Regardless of the implications of the Soul Freedom Ritual at a larger, societal level, Suzumi still had to make a determination that, yes, she felt comfortable undergoing the highly experimental ritual knowing full well that the risks it posed were enormous.

She had decided yes.

Suzumi had come up with all sorts of reasonings, why she would risk herself so completely, the very sanctity of her own soul for this ritual. Protection was one such reason, though it felt weak even to Suzumi. The real, powerful reason that made her consider it a viable option was nothing so grand, it was baser than even that.

She wanted to follow. To find. To explore.

It was something that she’d asked Orihime about one time, and the exact answer had been similar, though at the time Suzumi had a hard time understanding just why she’d go to such lengths. Now, there was a little more understanding there, because it wasn’t just about Grayson as much as she was growing to truly love the man, it was more than that. It was about her own independence from the world itself, to fly free without restriction or anyone saying otherwise.

Thus, she sat in the centre of the circle, Tessai circling it over and over, the man’s inquisitive eye constantly tearing the ritual down and building it again in his mind. He came to stand at the helm of the ritual circle, described by a powerful circle where Tessai was going to sit and infuse it with his own power.

“Are you ready to begin?” He said, his voice booming in the confined room. Suzumi nodded hesitantly but didn’t dare say anything—her emotions a mess of anxiety. The tall man sat in the circle, the blue robe glowing with the dim light of the room. Tessai took a breath, one that seemed to drag on forever as he pulled a Zanpakutō from seemingly nowhere, the sealed form of the thing reeked with power even as it held its secrets.

“Rend, Kokoro o Kizamu.” The simple words shook the air with power as the blade in the man’s lap exploded in an extreme wave of power, deforming itself and quickly changing to become something entirely different altogether. In just a moment’s notice, the katana shaped blade had become a menacing thing, moving quickly to cover Tessai’s right hand, each fingertip becoming a short blade, a claw on its own.

The bladed claws hummed with a gleeful menace, the fingers of the thing were connected to each other by a set of thin chains, and a light piece of black metal that sat on the back of Tessai’s hand. The thin chains made a gentle tinkling sound as the large hand they sat upon moved.

“This is my Shikai, roughly translating into Heart Carver or some such. I will not release my Bankai for this ritual, you are not yet strong enough to require it. Nevertheless, if you hear the voice of my blades, do not touch them, or respond to them, regardless of how they might plea to you.” Even as the man spoke, Suzumi couldn’t tear her eyes from the blades. She could see how they would be something that would entice and destroy.

They were dangerous, and Suzumi was only just beginning to understand why Tessai had never done so much as release his Shikai in more than a hundred years. Though, it was only the beginning.

“Begin.” Her voice managed to say, cracking out of her mouth unevenly, and the man who now wore the bladed claws on his fingers nodded solemnly. He lowered his hand, hovering just over five holes in the ground surrounded in circles that much of the ritual circle was connected to. In one smooth movement, the blades were sheathed within the holes and Suzumi’s world exploded into pain.

---

“Fuck.” I said, the glowing pegs running further from my view as I fell once again.

The path upwards was precarious to the maximum, each jump being filled with a whole new level of anxiety. I had done pretty well so far, managing to take out three of the Hollows that Kisuke had put down here. Thankfully, I was experienced with fighting Hollows without a great sense for where they were in physical space, otherwise I’d be totally screwed on my progression.

Hollow one had been a Hollow grunt, one that I’d probably killed hundreds of in my hunts, nothing much more impressive than a mindless human with a bit of spiritual enhancement, as reductive as it might be. Hollow two had been a big jump in difficulty, roughly similar with the big hollow that I’d fought with Uyu and Suzumi but taking him down had been easy enough with a little dancing around.

Hollow three just about kicked my ass.

I had known that the difficulty was spiking as I went further upwards, but I had found this Hollow to be about as difficult as the ambush Hollow I’d beaten only a few days ago. The fight, I had won, but the cost of which was falling down all the way to the bottom of the pit. Thankfully terminal velocity wasn’t enough to kill me anymore, though if a particularly strong Hollow spiked me downwards, I’m sure it’d do a fair share of damage.

The journey back up was gruelling. Instead of taking short breaks on the platforms, I was now trying to race up the metal pegs, ascending from platform to platform recklessly in search of a quick passage to platform four, my next nemesis.

Each leap was a different feeling from the rest, a specific movement required to only just make the leap and stay stable on the next peg. It’s been difficult to understand at first, but soon I had created a little library of movement from them—each an unexplainable movement from the rest. It was difficult, but soon other parts of me kicked in and did the work for me, my body remembering those movements with an ease I could remember that I’d found in that fight against the ambush Hollow.

I found myself as a learner, rather than a creator. As soon as I was shown something, I could recreate it, find a new way to do it, rather than create something entirely from scratch. The Hollow’s movement helped a little with the speed and power of my movements, but it was imprecise and stopping was a massive difficulty.

So instead, I started to forge my own, using some of the Hollow’s basic movement, some of Kisuke’s movement, and some of something else entirely.

Soon, I found myself enraptured in the movements themselves, letting my brain connect with the movements in a way that I’d only done a few times with other things, like the spiritual energy techniques. I could feel the movements dredging something up within me as I hopped from peg to peg, each easier than the last.

I remembered this odd feeling. The memories from nowhere, from no-one, and from nothing. Now, I understood more than I did back then, that these flashes of memory were likely from Grayhom, from a life he’d once lived and had somehow collided with my own, becoming our life.

The movements were methodical, but slow, unable to boast the intense speed that Kisuke could perform, but each step I found I could place with absolute surety, with absolute precision.

It was something, and I was willing to take it.

With use of my newfound movements, I made my way easily to platform four, the location of my next fight within the darkness, yet not entirely. The darkness still surrounded me like a thick blanket, but the difference was my ability to sense objects containing spiritual power, which was now slightly expanded once I’d defeated the last Hollow, modifying the technique of it to also work on living, moving beings.

“You seem juicy.” A calm voice murmured as my foot touched the outcropping of stone.

I was going to reply with something witty, but I was interrupted with something… disturbing. A strange buzz appeared within my mind, an alert ringing and only getting louder and louder. I turned towards the sound, even if it was away from the Hollow’s large, white shelled form on the other corner of the platform.

I saw a white ribbon, flickering and shimmering as something fundamental about it changed, something somehow wrong and right at the same time.

“Grayhom, that wouldn’t happen to be Suzumi’s ribbon, would it?” I asked, even though I knew it was. There was no response from Grayhom, but I could feel the impression of wide-eyed shock as my soul’s other discerned what was happening with Suzumi’s ribbon, what was happening with her soul.

“Say no more.” I growled, rushing forth to meet the armoured form of the Hollow with a newfound strength, piercing through its tough armour with a single hit and retreating quickly to avoid another blow.

I wasn’t going to let something bad happen to Suzumi, not while I wasn’t there to protect her. Not even if Tessai was there to help her. Whatever it was, I knew that if Tessai was near, then it’d be above board, and with Suzumi’s permission, yet I still felt that mortal fear burning in my gut.

With that little bit of fire, I rushed up the Hollow’s arm, which had been buried a few inches into the stone of the platform and stole its ribbon along the way. With an enhanced knife-hand blow to the Hollow’s mask, it split immediately, entirely disabling the thing within only moments of reaching the platform.

Yet I couldn’t force myself to feel happy, only quickly resigning myself to more climbing, my eyes set on the flickering ribbon, dancing like a candleflame in the wind.