Waking up was a struggle, but Suzumi’s mind came to consciousness far faster than her body did, struggling against her eyelids as if they weighed hundreds of kilos alone. She felt her body shift slightly as something underneath her moved, then a hand pushing against the back of her head to tilt it more upright as the rim of a cool bottle pressed gently against her lips.

Without the mental function to deny the offered liquid, Suzumi took large gulps of the liquid, finding the taste to be relatively nice. It travelled down her throat and assumably into her stomach, she felt a spreading warmth in her chest before suddenly she was able to take a massive breath in, opening her eyes to her surroundings as if she’d broken the surface tension of her consciousness.

“Calm, my dear.” A soothing voice said firmly, “I’ve fixed you up and given you a powerful medicine to aid your energy, but you need to breathe with me now, okay?” Suzumi nodded rapidly, her mind racing needlessly as the medicine worked whatever magic it was imbued with.

The voice, now feeling closer to her, breathed in a continuous loop of breathing in, holding, breathing out, holding, over and over until Suzumi could return to a somewhat regular state. The frantic mindset still dominated, her stomach in a shamble of butterflies, but she could now properly focus on any one thing for long enough to actually recognise it.

The obvious one was the owner of the voice, which Suzumi half remembered even in her state. Orihime Inoue sat above her, Suzumi’s head resting gently on the woman’s thighs, a nostalgic position for Suzumi. The older lady smiled cheerily.

“You did quite the number on yourself back there!” Orihime’s brightness was almost like her own portable sun, an inescapable quality that simply came along with the nature of her being. Suzumi smiled weakly, coming up with a snarky answer before another thought intruded into her head roughly.

“The kid!” She yelped, commanding her body to sit up, but Orihime’s hand clamped over her forehead, holding her down with a surprising strength.

“He was quite alright, my dear. He and the ten others.” Suzumi immediately felt guilty about her relief, with their safety being something that she wasn’t really all that important in securing, but with the child and whoever else being safe, she could at least feel slightly guilty instead of horrifyingly so.

“I’m sorry,” Suzumi said, relaxing for a moment until Orihime took her hand away from her forehead, “I almost died, didn’t I?” The question resounded just a little more within the mostly empty factory space, Suzumi’s eye catching on the last resident besides themselves, the massive corpse of an arachnid Hollow, now lacking its accompanying bug.

“Not quite, my dear.” Orihime grinned sunnily, “They are collecting powerful spiritual sensitives, after all, unfortunately many are young children. You likely would have been tied up for later. I believe you would have found a way, if I had not come to your rescue.”

Suzumi snorted, taking it onboard, but letting herself be disappointed and guilty, nonetheless. She, and the rest of their little group, didn’t have time to spare on this little skirmish. Real lives were at stake, and if this succeeds once, then it’ll just keep happening. Instead of being able to focus on saving Karakura, Orihime was sat here playing doctor with Suzumi.

“Enough!” Orihime said sternly, a little pout in her cheek while rapping on Suzumi’s forehead with her knuckles, “Moping isn’t helpful. Onwards and upwards!” The older woman slowly rose from the ground, carefully bringing Suzumi up with her as well until they were standing, Suzumi’s arm hanging over the other woman’s shoulders as she sorted out her footing and pulled away.

“There we are, much better!” Orihime walked around Suzumi, lending a critical eye as she did. The training shirt that she was wearing was totally ruined, a hole going straight through her side. Suzumi had thought she’d been hit straight in the chest, but apparently not. It was a wound that was likely to kill her in time, but she’d have likely managed to live for quite a while longer.

“Well, as good as I can be after having a hole blown in me.” Suzumi said dryly, though Orihime chuckled with bright humour.

“Of course! But now–” Orihime’s sentence was cut off by a massive wave of spiritual pressure billowing over the building. The effect was immediate, with Orihime losing all her humour, turning her head towards origination point. She leapt with a blast of spiritual energy in her legs, slipping through a small hole in the roof of the building for a better view.

Suzumi waited another second to warm up her spiritual energy but followed right after, thankfully nailing the somewhat precise movement. She landed on the beaten and weathered roof gracefully, turning to Orihime to get a good idea of what was going on.

The expression on her face was something that Suzumi may never forget, not for her whole life. The determined fire in her eyes was something so revealing to Suzumi that, for just a moment, she could see Orihime’s past. The struggle and the iron will she’d created to face against the things that terrified her on a level no normal human should ever experience.

Suzumi was almost scared to turn to her head to view the sight with Orihime, but the need outweighed the mental stop, her eyes jolting with the sudden nervousness as she realised that the spiritual pressure was a mix of new and familiar.

The sight she beheld was almost unthinkable.

A silver length, reaching towards the heavens; a rip in the sky, its depths dark and black; a dome of crimson red, darker than even blood; the powers of many, clashing in a war of might.

The next wave of spiritual pressure came, a darker, more sinister power first, then another right after. The power was pure and intense beyond what she’d even felt against Kisuke’s own spiritual pressure, somehow possessing a qualitative difference in its essence.

It washed over her like the rivers of the divine, caressing against her with a loving touch meant for only her. Her soul sang with the resonance, a song of power and might, hardening her mind against the actions she must take, but also reserving her humanity, keeping it safe from its powerful song.

It was Grayson’s power, his spiritual pressure and his energy. It was Grayson. The experience brought her back to the moment that he’d plunged that blade into her chest, and the feeling of euphoria as it rebuilt her into what she now was… but now the power was more excited than the calm, analytical thing that had rebuilt her. It was excited and ready, clamouring to test its worth and power against something more.

“That’s him, isn’t it?” Orihime said from beside Suzumi, having turned to look at Suzumi’s own face without her realising. Suzumi nodded gently, enamoured by the feeling it provided her.

“It begins.” Orihime whispered, something that Suzumi had heard being said again and again over time. But now she realised that it was more than just true. As she looked at the stream of silver power, she realised that it was reality, and it was undeniable.

It was without thought that she leapt from that roof, racing towards her boyfriend.

It was a future that she’d be a part of, she decided. No matter what.

The wave of spiritual pressures battered against Kisuke as he was moving towards Tessai’s location. Immediately as he felt it, his eyes widened as he tapped a small stone on his wrist.

“Do you feel that?” He asked quickly, the voice being transmitted to the owner of the other stone bracelet. There was a moment of pause before a voice was sent back to his own, filtering into his ears easily.

“Kisuke. I don’t just feel it, I see it.” Tessai’s deep bass thrummed in Kisuke’s ears, making him whip around to scan Karakura’s skyline.

Sure enough, in the interdiction field furthest from his own, a spire of silver stretched into the sky, along with a kūmon gate to the Garganta. Kisuke could barely believe his eyes, the levels of power on display here were far greater than even he had realistically projected.

“Tessai, what do we even do?” Kisuke intoned, and he wasn’t asking about the Hollow whose fingers were slowly prying apart the sky with its kūmon.

“Nothing, Kisuke. Just as we did for Kurosaki. We watch and wait as fate takes its course, protecting the world from its wake.” Kisuke looked bitterly at the sight before him, the clear sequence of actions lining up too perfectly for a random collection of Hollows who wished to stick their fingers in the honey pot of the Human World. With the editing to souls that Grayson talked about the Hollows receiving, it was just too much evidence to possibly believe that this wasn’t part of something much larger.

Not with the past being all too present in his mind.

“Damn it, Grayson.” Kisuke muttered as he pushed his body forth with extreme speed, seeking the source of that spire of silver, to save the man who had found himself within the thick of yet another mysterious plan that fate has.

“Damn you, fate.” Kisuke growled against the whipping wind, “Damn you.”

They lurk in the shadows, as they have always done. Such was their way of life.

Their identities forever hidden, able to possess any of a thousand different faces at a moment’s notice, whispers in the night; haunting the dreams of those they oppose. Very few of their kind can show their true face, the power required to do so with the way of life they have, is almost insurmountable.

Comrades were only yet another tool to complete a mission, their deaths a steppingstone that must be used to further their progress. Friends were a commodity that didn’t exist amongst their ranks, emotions being yet another pitfall that they were disallowed from falling into.

Each moment was a passionless pursuit of a goal, filled only with the order and the objective and nothing else.

They were individuals, but they were more than that. They were all one and the same, none more valuable than the rest. Thus, they pursued their goal with as much fervour as they could, as the ones with the weakest resolves were the ones to die.

So, when they had first felt the disturbance, like a shadow’s whisper on the wind, they were the first to react. They were the first there, within the city landscape, racing atop and between the buildings, accounting for their sectors in an extremely efficient pattern born of thousands of repetitions.

Yet before long, it had faded. Leaving them unable to capture the source of the power, the disturbance that had consumed the spiritual energy in the area like air. They were sent back to the darkness, to wait for yet another order.

Then it came once again, but much stronger this time, with a power accompanying it that surpassed anything they’d ever felt. The two powers together were beyond reckoning, intermingling with an intricacy that struck them all to the core of their being.

But it faded again. They had failed to capture it, even as the order had told them to do so. It was a failure that wasn’t to be accepted.

Who was it that had the resolve to stand before her and the guillotine hanging over their necks? None were sure, and the one who had done so was unlikely to ever reveal themselves. But it had stayed her hand, if just for a moment.

But it wasn’t just a moment. It was days of waiting in the darkness of thought, their minds no longer capable of the fear someone might regularly experience, yet they worried in their own cold, logical ways.

Their minds were relieved, however, when the power came once again. They awaited the order patiently, but prepared. The seconds and minutes passed by; some even coming to believe that the order may never be issued.

But it did, and they all read and understood it in its entirety, just as they had been trained.

‘Find them, report their whereabouts, include any other information. Collect the owner of the weaker spiritual pressure. Mission approved by Central 46.’

Then their mission had begun, and in moments they were there, right where they needed to be.

They never expected the sheer power as they arrived on what amounted to a battlefield, the rawness of it, but they pushed on regardless. Their minds were completely set on the orders they had been given. They homed in upon the weaker presence, even as the other power swelled beyond that which many of their ranks had experienced within the Human World for many decades or at all.

Even as the mighty power boomed with a wave of spiritual energy that almost hurt their skin, they continued on their journey towards the target.

Earlier.

I came into contact with the interdiction field quickly, my heart racing with the anticipation of the fight within. My spiritual energy roared to life inside me, bubbling over the top and adding more and more power to my spiritual shielding and an entire third layer to my spiritual enhancement with ease.

I knew that the grin on my face was borderline manic, but I couldn’t help it, the fire within burned at a temperature that I couldn’t contain in such a cold way, without expression. In the moment before I surfaced on the other side of the interdiction field, I wondered if this was how the legendary warriors of the Human World felt as they launched themselves into battle, their mind racing with what they would learn, and the heads that they would take.

But as soon as I reached the other side of the barrier, my mind was filled with the information I had been lacking before. As the flood of information came in and the interdiction field that surrounded me went down, being replaced with something else entirely, I saw this incursion for what it really was.

A guise.

They weren’t here for Phantom, not truly.

They were here for me.