The gentle warmth of the sun beaming in through the windows on Suzumi’s skin was what woke her up, in the end.

She laid in bed for a few minutes, trying to wrest her mind from the fog of sleep, and after a while she finally managed to pull her body from the warm sheets and Grayson’s comforting embrace. She looked down at her boyfriend’s sleeping form, cuddled up tightly by ‘her’ side of the bed despite the expanse that laid behind him.

For a moment, she allowed herself to bask in his face. Grayson was average looking, despite the mix of ethnicities, but he still managed to look distinctly handsome. The benefits of spiritual energy and extreme fitness, she could only assume. His blue eyes were hidden behind his eyelids, but she could imagine the depth she had witnessed within them time after time. His warm-coloured skin almost matched her own, much of it put on display with the lack of shirt the man wore to bed, something she’d come to appreciate more and vocalised any time she could.

She wearily dressed herself, choosing the casual clothing instead of her training clothes. There was something to be said for using clothing as a tool for compartmentalising different states of mind, like a soldier might use his uniform to assume that particular state of mind over his civilian clothing.

Suzumi plodded out of the warm room, her mind and body in their usual lazy state in the morning, though she certainly had her reasons for being tired. She made herself a quick breakfast, a remarkably western meal of eggs on toast, something that Grayson had insisted that she eat at least once. Her father had been a lover of Japanese food, and while Grayson was fine with the cuisine, he was more at home with simple western dishes.

Suzumi had found another part of herself in those foods, even if they were definitely a different style than the ones she’d been eating her whole life in Japan. It felt like just another little connection to her father that she felt she sometimes needed. Though pancakes were clearly the best western breakfast food, with jam and cream of course.

The simple meal lead into the beginning of her own day, Suzumi deciding that she wanted some time to herself instead of spending it with Grayson, or any of Urahara Sweets’ main cast. Even Uyu would be too much at a time like this.

She’d found herself remarkably cut off from everything and was only now trying to build bonds once again. She had been friends with a few people within her old life, though they were mostly co-workers that she didn’t really feel the need to rekindle a relationship with. The one person she had really missed, however, was her mother.

Suzumi walked within a park near Urahara’s shop, a relatively isolated part of Karakura that really didn’t have much going for it aside for a little bit of greenery in the centre of it. She wouldn’t want to live here long term, and if she actually wanted to go do something interesting, she’d be forced to go outside of the little suburb. Unless you wanted to fight Hollows, that is.

There was a little flash of remembrance within her mind at that thought. The memory of the Hollow that laid within her soul coming out to usurp her. She’d come to terms with it now, the idea of there being a powerful Hollow portion to her own soul, stronger than you’d normally see in someone of her power.

Grayson had been amazingly helpful with that.

You know, Grayson has told her again and again that he isn’t a people person, and sometimes he’s right. But if you have a problem, and you need it fixed or you need it talked through, then Suzumi knew that all she needed to do was talk to her boyfriend.

Kisuke could do a good enough job, Suzumi supposed. But there was something about talking to Kisuke and having him break down your soul into statistics that you don’t understand, abstracting them into other questions that make even less sense, and finally offering you little in the way of answers, that made you even more nervous and unsure.

Grayson worked differently. He had been there with her, in that space. He’d stared her Inner Hollow down, crackling with a power that truly terrified them. He’d been there after to explain what had happened to her, and what he’d done to fix it. He’d been there to advocate for her when Tessai tried to understand what had happened.

He’d been there, and he understood.

She understood now, at least a little bit. That Hollow is her, built off the same stuff and working on the same paradigms. They are no different than each other, no different than Grayson and Grayhom are to one another too. She found a quiet solace in that, within the assurances of Grayson’s words.

She felt no different, even after the Soul Freedom Ritual had succeeded, with a little help from Grayson’s new abilities. If she did feel different, Suzumi couldn’t tell whether she’d even be able to discern the difference.

She didn’t feel free, that was for sure. Especially not as she walked towards her mother’s store.

Grayson had changed a little. He was… more, now. More realised, more clear, more distinct against the backdrop of the world. More him. He couldn’t tell the difference either, so maybe she was the same.

The long walk let her think about it all, about the completion of her Soul Freedom and what had happened after. In that walk, she realised that maybe she did feel different.

She might not feel free, or anything close. She still felt the pressure of the conversation she’d allowed herself to put off for far too long now. But underneath all that, she felt as if she was made of something a little stronger than before. It was more than just willpower, drive, or even emotional hardiness, but at the same time it was all of those things.

Suzumi could still feel that blissful sensation when Grayson had placed his hand on her within that small place in her mind. The silver energy had been infused into her, deeper than anything else had reached or touched, and now she couldn’t help but feel like it’d made her more. But still, she didn’t feel any different.

The quaint little entrance to her mother’s storefront was open, like it always was during the day. Suzumi walked through them without enough time to pause, feeling the quick change in temperature from the warmth of the outside air to a cool breeze of the air-conditioned storefront.

She took in a deep breath, letting a wave of nostalgia wash over her, memories of her childhood faintly rising to the surface for a brief moment. She looked around the store, the brightly coloured rows of flowers and bouquets prearranged by her mother’s hand hours earlier. Each row had been lovingly placed, in just the right way for them to look spectacularly appealing, something that her mother was exceptionally good at.

Suzumi was almost sad when her reverie was interrupted by the shuffling feet of her mother’s sandals. She tore her eyes away from the flowers, finding her mother’s face with them and trying valiantly to greet her with a happy smile. In reality, the expression ended up as more of a pained smile than anything remotely happy.

“We need to talk, don’t we?” Yua Hamari spoke sadly. Somehow Suzumi could tell that her mother already knew something. The little woman smiled just as Suzumi was, her soft, aged skin crinkling as she did so. She turned and walked up the stairs, into the home that Suzumi had spent much of her early life in.

Suzumi watched her mother’s form, dressed in the same jeans and blouse she’d been dressing in for the past decade, the apron she wore to protect her clothes of dirt was promptly taken off as they walked past the hooks that still contained a little jacket she used to wear as a child.

They walked into the little living area, sitting on the worn couch that Suzumi had forgotten was the place they would always talk about the hard things in life. Yua sat on the couch, adjusting the tight bun of grey hair that sat at the back of her head, then patting her lap and looking up at Suzumi expectantly.

Suzumi rose an eyebrow, “Really, Ma?” Yua smiled gently and nodded. Despite her verbal misgivings, she complied easily, letting her long black hair drape over her mother’s legs as she placed her head in Yua’s lap. She curled up into the foetal position as she rested with her cheek against her mother’s warm thighs.

“I already know, Suzumi.” Yua spoke gently while she pulled her fingers through her daughter’s black hair, the spitting image of her own hair from many years ago.

“Do you?” Suzumi said quietly, though the volume didn’t stop the crack of emotion bubbling through the words, the tears springing to her eyes without effort. Her mother replied by brushing her thumb over her cheek, like she had a million times after her father’s death. They had hurt together, back then.

“For many years I’ve been spiritually sensitive, Suzumi. Since I was a child, my brother too.” Her mother’s voice was calm and soothing, like cool water on a burning wound. “It was a secret, for just us two. We never told anyone that we could see the dead, or the beasts that roamed the nights, or that my grandfather had become one after he’d died.”

“Then, when we were only teens, there was a war here. It was terrifying, the sheer magnitude of power we felt that day. They may as well have been Gods to us, and just like everyone else who could feel it, we cowered. We were only children.” Suzumi felt the sad warmth from her mother, as if she were telling a subtly sad lullaby, the morbid truth hidden behind the calming tune of it.

“We grew older much more quickly after that. We had seen beyond the veil for just a moment, and I began to notice it in others too. I found them, and they found me. Before long I found Jinta and Uyu Hanakari as well.”

“Really?” Suzumi said, though the surprise was dulled behind the warm blanket of comfort. She laughed gently, feeling the first tears leak from her eyes subtly. “What was Jinta like as a kid?”

“Exactly as you’d expect.” Suzumi could hear the nostalgic smile in her mother’s voice, but it quickly boiled back down to the warm silence until Yua broke it once again.

“I was attacked by a Hollow one night, straying too far from my childhood home. I almost died, but Uyu saved me from it. The rest was history, the creation of the officially titled ‘Karakura Spiritual Defence Force’ followed shortly after. Now, I’m the manager of the non-combat spiritual sensitives of which there are three thousand in Karakura Town.” Yua raked her fingers gently over Suzumi’s scalp while the silence drew on.

“So, you could tell when I came here with Grayson?”

“I could tell, yes. I could feel the power of his soul as soon as you drove within a block of the house. I could tell you’d grown more powerful than most high-spec humans did in their entire life as soon as I set eyes on you, my darling.” Yua sight deeply, the weight of the mutual secret they’d help only adding to its quiet might.

“And when I saw the pillar of energy in the sky, the waves of it radiating over all of Karakura, I knew it was you. I’m so sorry, my darling.”

Suzumi couldn’t withhold the sob as it dragged itself out of her chest, wet and ugly.

“I’m sorry, Mum. I’m so, so sorry.”

There was no need for words after that, not really. They both understood, and despite the suddenness of the reveal, it made sense.

It was in the way that she talked about her father, the surety that he’d passed on to somewhere else. She knew that her mother had known about her interaction with her father’s soul. It was in all of it, and it was so clear now that she looked back on it, even if she’d never have guessed it before.

“You’ve become something more, now. Something more than human, more than I or my brother ever could have been. The moment you walked in here with Grayson, I knew that you’d go further than any of us.” The words rang out with their own sense of finality, the voice that her mother had decreed any number of things throughout Suzumi’s childhood.

“As far as you travel away from me, away from the world you no longer truly belong in and towards one I could never reach, you’ll always be my daughter. You will never be too different, or too powerful to be my little girl.”

It was with a long hug that the day continued, and the hearts of the mother and daughter were poured out to one another, solidifying a truth Suzumi had always known.

Her mother loves her, and always would.