Its emergence from the void was unexpected.

It wasn’t within the parameters of the mission, nor had Karakura Town been a significantly patrolled area for decades at this point. Not with the advent of the Kurosaki family and their effect on Karakura as a whole.

In fact, Karakura has almost been the safest area in Japan after the Blood War, and to many of Soul Society it had remained that way. It was a falsehood, of course. They weren’t allowed to speak on politics, it wasn’t their place, it wasn’t even their mistress’ place to do so. However, even they could see that Karakura Town had been effectively abandoned, left to the few Soul Reapers unfortunate enough to be sent to a unit in the area.

Once again, the status quo was being replaced, even as things changed within Soul Society itself. It seemed that Karakura would always be a place that Soul Reapers underestimated.

They watched the thing emerge from the shadows of the Garganta, the void between worlds, and every one of them knew that they’d never seen anything like it before. It almost didn’t even look like a Hollow at this point, yet it was.

Its presence was overwhelming, but bloated in the way that they sometimes felt from those born with extreme spiritual power and no control. It didn’t suffocate them underneath the weight of its power like a Captain-class being could, or the famous feeling of being within the pure, unadulterated spiritual pressure of Captain Zaraki.

No, it was nothing in comparison to the famous Moment of Death, the spiritual pressure powerful enough to convince many that they had truly died. It wasn’t powerful, but it was something else.

The word that they found was ‘volatile’. They were not experts on classifying spiritual pressures, with it being more an art than a science from a personal perspective, but this was undoubtedly that. Volatile.

When it showed its visage to the world, it was hideous and impressive all at once. It was an amalgamation of parts, mismatching and dissonant, all stuck together with massive metal stiches that lined its body and, most impressively, its mask. The mask was split into four uneven parts, part of a tusked mouth, then part of a wide grin, topped with one massive eyehole and a patched over socket that was much smaller.

The body itself was no better, each limb being slightly different than its partner, two legs, two arms, a bare body oozing with the sickening black blood. And it stood tall, taller than a building, rising into the sky with its menacing stature, staring down at what laid below it like a child standing over an anthill.

They knew that they needed to get out of Karakura Town as fast as possible, and any moment sooner would save a life of their comrades, if they could be called that. But the mission came first, not their lives.

So as they raced forwards, to what may very well be their demise, they steeled themselves against future and the possible sacrifice that they may be required to make for the whim of those that stood above them.

Their forms blurred across the landscape, many of them being limited in the speed they could move by the limiters on spiritual energy within the Human World, but still they moved quickly.

The Menos in the distance began to walk around, as if it were confused and without clear directive, but they watched on as the gargantuan thing slowly began to bleed more and more vile blood from the seams at which it was stapled together.

They didn’t talk about the dread that they could feel, as if every drop of blood were a moment of time, forever lost to the ground it spilled on.

Then there was a wave of spiritual pressure int eh distance, not the same as the silver energy that had been so extremely potent only minutes before, but a more refined, more distinguished spiritual pressure. One that none of them knew, but could have sworn was so familiar, as if it were…

It was a Soul Reaper’s pressure, they determined after a moment. An extremely powerful one at that, easily a Captain-class, and that was only confirmed when a sound reached their ears from too far away for it to be anything but spiritually conveyed.

“Awaken, Benihime.” The voice was almost morose as it called the name of it’s Zanpakutō, the accompanying wave of spiritual pressure washed over them with a power that was almost like their body was being sliced apart, layer by layer, and then put back together once again.

Benihime. The name of a Zanpakutō that they’ve been told hundreds of times, the fury of the mistress was always punctuating its importance. Kisuke Urahara, a man that they had been unable to track for years, with no spiritual presence within Karakura town for at least three decades, they had since assumed that he had moved on to other areas.

Yet, now he appears once again, standing as a black dot against the astounding bulk of the hollow before him, meagre sword in hand. Yet they all knew that the sword he held was anything but meagre and was instead a terrifying blade of almost boundless potential. The Shikai of a Captain.

“Bind, Benihime.” The words rang out, and the spiritual pressure screamed with glee as a massive net of red and black spiritual energy covered the Hollow like a spider’s web. The net covered the massive thing, trapping it and completely halting any movement it could make. It struggled against its bonds, but found itself uselessly trapped, dwarfed underneath the power that a Captain possessed.

If he wasn’t at least this powerful, then there would be no reason for him to have ever been a threat within their mistress’ eyes.

“Benihime…” Kisuke Urahara’s quiet voice said again, carried by spiritual energy, “play with fire.”

The sword was placed in a corner of the net that had covered the Hollow, and the first explosion across the net told them that the fight was over. There was no surviving that blow for a Hollow of this power. Every single one of their comrades would perish underneath such a power, evaporated with the sheer density of the spiritual energy being commanded at will.

Yet the chain of explosions never reached the Hollow. It was a pure silver flash of spiritual energy that stopped the chain, cutting the net and halting the energy from flowing further along and towards the energy that covered the Hollow’s body.

They all shared a moment of silence as they watched on, the possessor of the silver energy now standing next to Kisuke Urahara himself, the form not distinguishable from any other from this far away, even with sense enhancements.

They paused for a moment, trying to locate their quarry amongst the overwhelming plethora of power that radiated from almost every part of Karakura Town at present, and when they found them, they realised that their target was nearest to the man in silver, the interloper between Urahara and the Hollow, standing on the ground below.

So they waited, their minds in constant analysis, their ears hearing and their eyes seeing, trying to discern a path forwards as they hid in the urban landscape, all of them desperately hoping that they would not be found, neither by the Hollow or the others that had seemingly made Karakura their stomping ground as of late.

They watched as the man in silver lowered himself down to the ground, from standing in the sky like those of true power could, and they saw the man pull their quarry into a gentle hug, one that quickly became more than that—as if they were both clinging to each other for dear life.

They observed the tenderness with a cold heart, many of them having long forgone romance and friendship, but for one of them, it sparked a fire in their heart. They found themselves staring at a tenderness that they’ve never once experienced, and it was only now, while they stood on the battlefield, that they found their first genuine moment of emotion.

But the mission meant more, in the end. They would die for the mission.

And so, as the man and the woman kissed, the silver energy burning between them with a passion and a love made only more tangible as their energies clashed against each other, mixing, intertwining, and reacting to one another in such a way that only began to describe how they felt about one another.

It was an understated love it seemed, yet they were two parts of a whole.

Even the most callous of them found it disappointing that they must be separated, to cut from each other by distance and time. Possibly forever.

So when they parted, and they saw the beginnings of a plan emerge from between the man of silver and the hidden Captain, they could see it on the faces of their quarry that they weren’t involved in the plan. They were simply too week to fight against such a thing, though they weren’t sure why the silver man had prevented the Captain from ending it earlier.

It was when the Hollow began to break free from its restraints, the remaining power behind the netting of Urahara’s Benihime finally dissolving, that the plan was put in action.

The team split immediately, leaving Urahara and the silver man to occupy the Hollow, with the silver man quickly pulling a long, thin sword from his chest and whipping it forwards. The blade extended, and continued to do so, until the entire Hollow was wrapped somewhat haphazardly with the length of fabric-like metal.

The Hollow was stuck still, and they watched on as the silver man and the Captain slowly began to work together on an unknowable process. The silver man glowed with power as the Hollow screamed, only using his voice periodically to call the Captain to leap onto the Hollow’s body and release one of its many staples lining its body.

They moved away, leaving the two powerful men to their devices, instead choosing to follow the girl towards her destination. They followed along far, trying to find the optimal moment to strike and to take the girl back to Soul Society, where she was required.

However, they were left to wait longer, as she was suddenly reunited with three others along the way. A man and his daughter, both with hair colours too distinct from one another to be anything but, and the presence of a woman that everyone knew, even the newest of Soul Reapers.

Orihime Inoue, or Orihime Kurosaki if they were to disrespect her wishes to keep her last name despite her marriage. One of the most dangerous human spiritual energy users within Japan, possibly the most powerful healer alive as well.

To go head-to-head with Orihime Inoue would be folly. They would be trapped within a barrier and be useless, though they would likely live through the ordeal. They followed the group, being masters of spiritual stealth was their only advantage here and loosing that advantage would be sure failure at this point.

That was only further punctuated by the burst of spiritual energy that another man used, a man that none of them knew of. All they could determine was that he was intensely powerful and had a formidable figure.

They were left to wait, to bide their time as the group moved forwards throughout Karakura and cleared areas of Hollows at breakneck speeds, but they were not swayed in their conviction to complete their mission, with severe punishment being the result if they were to return without.

They refined their plan further and further, aligning themselves correctly to take action.

Then the initialisation of the plan appeared, where the quarry moved one to many steps away from her group, and the plan was immediately put into action. They had surrounded the group, like predators on prey, and they leapt from the shadows, all of them drawing their Zanpakutō as they ambushed the team.

They didn’t expect to prove a challenge for them, not with the powerful man at the team’s helm and the Kurosaki Ichigo’s wife, but they had strategized around them.

The first attacker to go after both Orihime Inoue and the tall man were instantly put in barriers and disabled, which then prompted a second wave of attackers to launch from the shadows to attack them. The group shouted and discussed with worried squawks, but they were no match for the teamwork that they relied upon to survive.

The next wave was successful, not in disabling those combatants, but tying them down for just a second, maybe even a moment. The other two, the father and daughter, were completely unable to compete with those sent to combat them, with the father unable to spread his attention between his own safety and his daughter’s efficiently enough.

Which left only the quarry.

They had given the quarry to the least imposing looking member of their group, the hardest to see and find threatening. So, when she appeared behind the quarry, grabbing her by the throat with a blade up against it, then jumping backwards and dragging the quarry even further away from the group, she was instantly in a position of power.

“Wha–” The quarry said, and the woman tried to shut the quarry up with the threatening of her blade, but the word had been heard.

“What is this?” A powerful voice called, from the towering man positioned furthest away from the quarry said, “Why are Onmitsukidō here and why are you fighting us?” The powerful voice rang in their ears, but most in the team member who had positioned herself behind the quarry.

Then came the wave of spiritual pressure, one that began as a slight weight, and quickly became like wearing clothes made of iron, to a suffocating experience like being deep underwater, crushed by its weight.

“Answer me.” The man said, his voice brutal and commanding, severe in the essence of the word. But the woman did not falter under the weight of the man’s commanding, letting her voice ring out like a bell chime.

“We will take the girl, and she will not die here.” The proposition was simple, enough to give the man some pause, and the woman desperately tried to push away even further, clamouring to open a door to Soul Society before he could truly react, but the man was not the one to react first.

“Get your blade off of me!” The quarry yelled, her voice filled with a strange distortion, struggling against the underlying, more natural voice. A hand whipped up from the quarry’s side, grabbing a hold of the woman’s sword arm and twisting brutally, succeeding in keeping the blade away from her throat but not quite pulling it away, the woman’s determination being borderline fanatical.

The man took advantage of this, pointing a solitary finger at her, and suddenly she felt a burning hole in her shoulder. She didn’t need to check what it was, as her mind finally registered the flash. He had used Pale Lightning without a word said, with seemingly no difficulty.

The quarry pulled the Zanpakutō from her throat, and it was then that the world slowed.

The woman realised that her death was coming, as the quarry’s face turned to hers with a rage in her eyes, a pained but wild grin gracing her lips. She knew that she was going to die, and there was nothing that she could do to stop it, with her shoulder destroyed and her blade arm disabled.

‘W…’

She heard something, in that slowed time. A whisper from beyond, the cycle of reincarnation calling for her time, perhaps.

‘What is y…’

It called again. The whisper more powerful this time as the quarry plunged her hand forth toward her stomach, the spiritual energy bleeding off of the blow, ready to disembowel her for good measure.

‘What is your name, little one?’

Yet the voice appeared again, this time even more powerful within her mind as the blow came closer and closer. In a trance the woman replied to the matronly voice, a voice that sounded ages old, as if it had lived through generations innumerable.

‘Chiyo Sone.’ She responded in thought. The blow from the quarry slowed further as the matronly voice once again crept into her head.

‘Sone… it has been many years since I’ve heard that name. It seems that I reside within the descendant of an old friend.’ The voice vibrated through her being, but there was no time for her to think as the voice spoke again. ‘It is time, young one, for you to know my name. Call it out with all your power. My name is–’

“Maledict, Chi no Noroi.”

She understood what she’d done as soon as she’d called her Zanpakutō’s name, and it had unsealed into its new form. It came with a certain understanding and as soon as blade had changed forms into a small, beaded bracelet, snug against her skin, she knew how she should use it.

With a slap of her hand, her newfound physical power let her swat away the blow that the quarry had sent towards Chiyo. All it took was an extension of her hand towards the other woman’s throat and to cut with the new, dark purple fingernails she found herself with, and the preparation was complete. She steeped back just in time for a lance of Pale Lighting to pass through where her torso had just been, allowing her time to lick the blood from her fingers and call the words.

“Blood truth.”

With the simple word, she placed a nail against her throat and scraped down painfully, leaving a wide cut, glistening with blood. Something that would be seen as insanity, if it did not then appear on the quarry’s own form.

The battlefield froze. Watching Chiyo as she held a nail to her own throat, willing and capable of using her own life to threaten her quarry’s.

“Come.” She said quietly, with a confidence she felt deep to her bones. And the quarry was forced to come, under the threat of her life. Chiyo flicked a hand, opening a door to Soul Society behind her and walking back into its light slowly, keeping eye contact with those she was stealing her quarry from.

She looked to those that she had called her comrades, though now she was above them, having performed Shikai. Their eyes now no longer included her as a comrade any longer, just another superior that they would one day answer to.

The quarry shifted next to her, restraining her visceral need to go for Chiyo’s throat. What she’d have expected from some unholy mix of human and Hollow. The quarry turned to look outside of the doors, towards those that stood outside, unable to move or do anything to stop her, lest she kill herself and kill the quarry along with.

“Can you–” The other woman’s voice cracked, unable to hold the emotion, “please tell Grayson and my Mother that I love them. I’ll be safe.”

Chiyo didn’t allow for another word to be said as the doors closed in front of them, her eyes locking with those of the tall man that had sent Pale Lighting through her shoulder. She wouldn’t allow for that slight to go unpunished.

No more slights would go unpunished.

Ever.