A wave of force exploded out from where I’d been standing only moments ago, the frog Hollow sending a small ball of spiritual energy out like a bullet in hopes that it’d hit me. The concrete of the road shattered in a few metre radius, though I easily dodged any shrapnel that might’ve hit me.

Dodging had become almost effortless after attaining spiritual senses at my current level, the exact precision of the sense allowed me to map myself in three-dimensional space along with everything around me. After a while, it became surprisingly easy to navigate that way, especially as I wasn’t restricted to a viewpoint, like birds-eye, but instead had a grasp of distance and space on an entirely different level of precision.

In fact, I almost used spiritual senses entirely in lieu of my actual eyesight, only using my eyes for the basest information like colours instead of relying on them.

“I’ll pull its attacks; you kick its ass!” I called out to Suzumi as I dashed towards the sizable Hollow as it removed itself from the side of the apartment building it had been sitting on with surprising grace. My movement was fast, something that Suzumi couldn’t quite match as of yet. But with the strange fusion of Hollow instinct, and her own natural proclivity towards creating new techniques, Suzumi was going to catch up very soon.

The Hollow barely had time to react before I was at its side plunging a fist into the green skin, though it did no real damage. It was strangely fleshy and rubbery for normal Hollow skin, but the blow managed to hurt the thing of instinct enough that it lashed out at me with one of legs. The hand contained four fingers, though they had what looked like barbs covering them that likely gave it the ability to stick to things.

I narrowly avoided the swipe, twisting my body just enough that the barbed fingers came just shy of clipping the overly flowy training shirt Suzumi and I both wore. Out of the corner of the Hollow’s vision, there was a flicker of movement before Suzumi’s fist came smashing into its back with a resounding sound like beating on a muffled drum.

While it didn’t pierce through the skin, it was easy to tell from the Hollow’s movements that the blow had hurt it bad.

The green-skinned thing quickly turned to seek Suzumi as she retreated to look for another opportune moment, but I made sure to give the thing a few hard taps on the edge of its mask, making the bone-like structure crumble slightly. It whipped back around to attack me again, not smart enough to prioritize a target over what was putting it in the most immediate danger.

As I danced around the Hollow, letting it come just close enough for me to give it some paltry blows to its attacking limbs, and a few to its body, I began to categorise the Hollow as I did, finding exactly where it fit in the rankings of the Hollows I’d fought.

It took another blow at me and I dodged flawlessly further into its space, tantalising it with how close I was. As I spun into its guard, I slammed a fist into its arm with a crack of its bone. It made a bellowing scream that was cruelly cut short but Suzumi coming down on the thing’s back again with both hands clasped and swinging with a hammer-like motion.

The Hollow was momentarily flattened to the ground, its limbs not enough to hold itself up underneath the force of the blow and its weight with the one mangled limb I’d given it.

I capitalised on its down state, giving it a few powerful blows to its mask, though before I could land the final blow its more powerful hind legs found purchase and pushed from the ground with a blast of raw strength, sending its rotund and bloated green body into the sky.

“I’m chasing!” Suzumi called clearly before she zipped away at high speed through the urban landscape to follow, leaving me behind to contemplate. I didn’t need to interject myself into that fight, Suzumi had it in the bag no problems.

Though, that didn’t change how… weird that Hollow was. So weird, in fact, that it could fire a Cero.

That might not be strange, seeing as Ceros are part of the Hollow move set after all. Yet, that Hollow wasn’t an Adjuchas. It wasn’t even a strange sort of Menos Grande. By my quick look into its dark, discordant soul, it was only just at the peak of a regular Hollow’s power, destined to become a mindless Menos Grande.

It shouldn’t be capable of firing a Cero, not at least until the next stage of its evolution.

When I looked into its soul, I found myself looking at a jumbled mess that wasn’t too dissimilar to my own soul from not too long ago, though the waters were heavily polluted by half connected functions firing at random intervals in the vain hope that they’d someday connect and properly create a soul in the process.

However, this Hollow’s soul was different. It had taken most of the fight for me to realise the strange discrepancy amongst its peers, but when I noticed it I couldn’t possibly unsee it.

It had a core, a module within its soul that was unnaturally uniform in comparison to its ultimately chaotic surroundings. It would be the equivalent of seeing a pristine, perfectly functioning heart within the chest of a mangled, rotting corpse. The strange module sat within its soul, subtly influencing the surrounding components in a way that escaped me, though at minimum it gave the Hollow access to abilities you’d consider only available to an Adjuchas.

I heard a set of soft footsteps return to my side after a sharp sound of movement cutting through air.

“All dealt with!” Suzumi said cheerily, though her voice was ever so slightly warped by the vibrations of her spiritual energy, something that was generally unique to Hollows. I turned to her with a worried expression, though it had nothing to do with the single side of a Hollow mask covering her lower right cheek, as if she were growing a second skull entirely.

“What?” Suzumi’s cheer dropped out of her voice, raising her hand to her face, and touching at the mask piece, “It doesn’t hurt or anything, it feels kinda weird though.” She said placatingly, but I shook my head with furrowed brows, brushing my hands against my dark blue, baggy training pants nervously.

“No, I’m not worried about that. It’s the Hollow.” She creased her own brow for a moment in confusion, though she seemed to come to the right conclusion before she replied.

“The Cero, right? Wasn’t it only Adjuchas that could use it?”

“Menos Grande too, but that Hollow was neither.” She made a ‘go on’ gesture, something she’d perfected as a weapon against my overly complicated explanations. “I think it was edited.” I summed up hesitantly.

Suzumi’s eyes narrowed, “You think…” I grimaced at the implication but shrugged.

“Kisuke himself has said that Soul Reapers do testing on Hollows, so it could technically be anyone, but…” I shrugged again, helpless against the scrutiny. It was a possibility I didn’t really want to accept, but had to take seriously, nonetheless.

“But what?” Another feminine voice called as Ururu appeared near us at an extremely high speed, her hair swaying with the movement, though the massive rectangular rocket launcher she was casually holding with one arm certainly drew more attention. It probably wasn’t heavy enough that Suzumi or I wouldn’t be able to carry it but seeing such a weapon be actually wielded was pretty impressive.

“We were talking about the Hollow we fought, the big green frog one.” Suzumi filled her in. Ururu nodded deeply.

“I killed a crab one that could shoot small Ceros out of its claws. Yours could do the same?” We nodded simultaneously, “I didn’t know that Adjuchas could be so weak–” She began, but I cut her off.

“They weren’t Adjuchas, they were peak regular Hollows.” Ururu’s gaze turned to meet my own, pulling me from my three-dimensional vision and into the standard eyesight. Her dark blue eyes were dead serious, burning with a warning.

“This needs to be told to Kisuke. You tell him, or I will.” I nodded with a note of subservience to the woman. I hadn’t ever bothered to truly gauge my strength against Jinta, but I could only assume that Ururu was similar in strength. However, under her gaze, I could tell that I was lacking something that would put me above her.

“Time to pay the piper, I guess.” I muttered as I took off from the ground without a word, launching myself gracefully to a nearby multi-storey building’s rooftop. Ururu followed without a thought, streamlined in comparison to Suzumi’s somewhat messy movements.

I homed in on Kisuke and Tessai’s ribbons, both of which were visible to me within the massive spiritual interdiction field. The field was frighteningly powerful, capable of stopping me from sensing ribbons or any spiritual presence at all. If this became a common ability, I’d have to find a whole new way of sensing that couldn’t be obstructed by it, something likely to be a difficult feat.

The path we took across the rooftops abruptly ended as we came to what seemed like an abandoned building site for multiple apartment blocks all right next to each other. I dropped down to the ground, running across the dirt ground of the unfinished buildings, making my way towards the two crimson ribbons that hid in the mess supporting beams and concrete.

“Nice of you to join us!” Kisuke’s voice called jovially as we approached their forms, marvelling at the sight before us, though Ururu seemed unconcerned. The sight in question was a massive Hollow’s body slumped against a half-completed wall, sliced cleanly in half by the blade that Kisuke held in his hand, the cane he carried around everywhere having converted its length into a blade.

“Was that what was creating the barrier?” Suzumi asked, pulling the attention of the two Soul Reapers, both went from a casual expression to one of stoic shock as they looked at the part mask resting on her cheek. Ururu did a double take, somehow only just realising the thing, then all of them turned back to me.

“Later, Grayson.” Kisuke intoned heavily but moved his eyes back to Suzumi as if nothing were different, “No, that Hollow wasn’t. It was housing what was.” With a grin, Kisuke gestured towards Tessai dramatically, like a magician to his assistant that he’d just ‘sawed’ in half.

The massive, stoic man blinked dully, before gently unfurling a closed hand, revealing a little bug within. Its entire body was bone white, only small lines of black across its form, and a large hole through its carapace to clearly designate it as Hollow in nature. Its wings seemed to rub together at an insane speed, waves of spiritual pressure coming off in sync.

Without a single word, something I’m told is important when it comes to Kidō, Tessai formed a little barrier around the insectoid Hollow. The instant that he did, I could feel the watery sensation of the interdiction field slowly begin to dissipate as the ribbons from outside the barrier began to flicker back to life in my senses.

“That little bug was it?” I said, a little stupefied. I had expected something a little more powerful and maybe a good fight to go along with it. Kisuke waggled a finger in front of my face with a grin.

“Not just! The little ‘sucker’,” he winked gratuitously, “needs to be attached to something with large reserves of spiritual power,” he flicked a hand back at the big Hollow that was slowly dissipating, “and then it can make the barrier. It’s the closest thing to a living spiritual tool I’ve seen from the Hollows. I’m surprised they could make it something like this at all, aside from with Szayel Aporro’s help…”

Kisuke took a look at our expressions, cutting his own little monologue short with a wary glace, as if we were going to spring a surprise attack on him.

“It would be nice if you’d tell me what I’m clearly missing here.” He stated finally, looking between us with a little pain in his face. Ururu turned to me and made it very obvious that I was going to talk now, or she would.

“The Hollows have been edited, I’m sure you realised they were throwing around Ceros?” He nodded, “I think that someone managed to edit these hollows into being capable of things way out of their league. The frog Hollow was the peak of regular Hollow at best but could fire Ceros anyway.” Kisuke took a deep breath in, staring at me with frustration, though instead of unleashing on me he turned to Tessai and spoke quickly.

“See! I told you ages ago that I had a hunch and now we’ve got a possible legion of soul editors running around messing with things!” Kisuke rubbed his face, wearier than I’d ever seen him, Tessai mirroring the expression to a point.

“Alright, simple plan, then.” He piped up with a clap of his hands. “Keep all of that in mind, but don’t think about it too much otherwise we’ll be here theorising all day while people are being taken and Phantom comes ever closer to becoming the Hollow equivalent of a nuclear bomb.”

“I can help track down where the other interdiction fields are,” I interjected quickly, ready to embrace any other conversation than the one where Kisuke lambasts me for thirty minutes, “I can just search for where there aren’t any ribbons.”

Kisuke nodded quickly, giving me the go ahead, letting me delve into the sense and widen it to cover almost all of Karakura Town. Within moments we were racing off towards each of our own barriers, with Kisuke, Ururu, and Tessai both taking two each and Suzumi and I taking one each by ourselves.

I sped across the rooftops towards the uncertain future, suddenly filled with even more things to worry about. I clenched my fist, pushing my body even further and moving even faster towards the dome I’d designated myself.

Hopefully, a good fight will calm the nerves.

I grinned in anticipation.