Time to Rise

"Shimizu?"

Hu's voice trembled. He could hardly believe his eyes.

The Hollow before him had a twisted figure, a body riddled with deformities, and a white octopus mask covering his head. Yet that morning, he had been a perfectly normal young man preparing to confess his feelings.

A wave of sadness and anger rose in Hu's heart. He knew full well that souls in the Soul Society did not turn into Hollows so easily; otherwise, the Soul Society would have fallen into chaos long ago. Although he did not know what point in time he was in, he knew that in the original story, only one item could easily do something like this: the Hōgyoku. Two people had created one, but only one of them would do such a thing...

The Onmitsukidō member looked at Hu's face, twisted with sadness and anger, then turned to the Hollow behind him.

"This Hollow is strong enough to be your assessment target, but judging by your reaction, did you know him? In that case, this would be too cruel for a newcomer like you."

With that, the Onmitsukidō member reached for his short blade, ready to deal with the Hollow himself. But as soon as his hand touched the hilt, Hu reached out and seized his wrist.

"Please leave this to me!"

The Onmitsukidō member looked at Hu's face, so twisted he could not tell whether it showed sadness or anger, and said comfortingly, "Don't push yourself. The process of becoming a Hollow has always been irreversible. No one can turn a Hollow back into a Plus. If you're just hoping he has a chance to recover, that's wishful thinking. Let me do it, and he'll suffer less when he goes. Besides, we can't afford to delay in a situation like this! Don't be stubborn!"

"Then go turn in the information first!" Hu said, staring fixedly at the Onmitsukidō member before him. "I'm here to take an assessment, and this is my assessment! I want to—if you deal with Shimizu, I have a feeling I'll never be able to become a Soul Reaper."

Seeing how determined Hu was, the Onmitsukidō member could only sigh. "The Onmitsukidō puts orders above all else... And the orders I received earlier were to leave you a few Hollows of sufficient quality to test the results of your recent training, and to prevent a Gillian from being born in Sizhuzhai." He surveyed the street and the Garganta overhead. "There aren't enough Hollows left to give birth to a Gillian... This Hollow is strong enough too. I'll clear the area for you, then go fetch Mr. Cilian. You must defeat this Hollow in front of Mr. Cilian. Don't go killing it before he arrives!"

"I understand." Hu released his wrist. "Before Instructor Cilian arrives, I won't draw my sword to kill this Hollow."

The Onmitsukidō member flexed the hand Hu had been gripping. This kid's got one hell of a grip. After that thought, he used Shunpo to deal with the other Hollows roaming nearby, then leaped onto the eaves. "I'll go find Mr. Cilian first. Prepare yourself mentally before he gets here."

With that, the Onmitsukidō member used Shunpo to head back the way he had come. Behind him, a shout rang out: "Shimizu!"

A fierce wind swept up dead leaves, sending them swirling through the ruined street. Hu stood at the end of the street, his clothes whipping in the wind. The gauntlets formed from azure energy around his arms flickered in and out of sight, humming faintly—it was Beowulf's call, proof of memories turned into power.

The hem of Shimizu's dark-blue kimono fluttered gently in the wind, but it could not conceal his inhuman eeriness. His enormous crab claw scraped with a sharp metallic sound as it opened and closed, while the octopus tentacle wrapped around his left leg writhed restlessly. Most unsettling of all was the white octopus-shaped mask: countless sucker-like bumps gleamed coldly in the moonlight, and two clusters of pale-blue flame burned in its hollow eye sockets.

"Sou... souls... eat..." The Hollow's voice seeped from beneath the mask, like countless sheets of sandpaper scraping together.

Hu gritted his teeth and slowly took his stance, drawing back his right fist as energy gathered on the gauntlet into a dazzling sphere of light.

The Hollow Shimizu had become struck first. His crab claw snapped open, firing a pale-blue blast of light straight at Hu. Hu sidestepped, and the stone steps beneath him were blasted into a charred crater, sending fragments flying. Almost as he dodged, he closed in on the Hollow's right side—a blind spot the crab claw would struggle to defend.

"Ha!" Hu threw a punch, its energy-clad image hurtling toward the Hollow's ribs like a meteor.

But the octopus tentacle was faster than he had expected. The tentacle wrapped around the Hollow's leg suddenly stretched out, blocking the attack. His fist struck its soft yet resilient surface with a muffled thud, but failed to do any real damage. At that same instant, the crab claw swept back toward him.

Hu jumped back. The crab claw grazed his chest, tearing the edge of his clothing.

"More agile than it looks," Hu murmured, steadying his breathing. Beowulf's energy flowed through his body, strengthening every muscle and every nerve.

The Hollow gave him no chance to catch his breath. The tentacle lashed out like a whip while the crab claw struck repeatedly. Hu wove through the net of attacks, sometimes blocking with his gauntlets, sometimes deflecting them with kicks. His movements were precise and graceful; every dodge narrowly avoided a deadly blow, and every counterattack targeted joints and connections.

This was the fighting philosophy revealed in that man's memories: observe, analyze, then break through.

Hu saw through the Hollow's attack pattern.

The crab claw was immensely powerful but slow to turn; the tentacle was flexible but lacked strength; the body beneath the kimono retained human movement habits. More importantly, there was the mask—whenever the Hollow prepared to fire a blast of light, the suckers on it contracted slightly.

Seizing an opening while the Hollow gathered energy, Hu burst into action.

His figure suddenly blurred, three uses of Shunpo leaving afterimages behind. His first punch knocked the crab claw aside, his second strike kicked away the lashing tentacle, and his third—a full-powered uppercut—slammed into the Hollow's jaw. The mask cracked with a crisp snap, and the Hollow staggered backward, the pale-blue flames flickering in his eye sockets.

Hu gave his opponent no chance to recover. He unleashed the Beowulf style in full, his fists and feet tracing arcs of blue light, every strike shrieking as it tore through the air. Forced onto the defensive, the Hollow barely managed to parry with his crab claw and tentacle, but the energy had already torn several gashes in his kimono.

"Wake up, Shimizu!!" Hu said coldly, sending the Hollow flying with a spinning kick. He crashed into a house by the street, bringing it down.

Just as Hu was about to follow up, something changed.

The Hollow did not get up. Instead, he drove his crab claw deep into the ground.

The earth around them suddenly split open, and dozens of translucent tentacles burst out, instantly binding Hu's limbs. These tentacles were not solid, but made of Reishi; the more he struggled, the tighter they held.

"Damn it..." Hu frowned as energy gathered on his gauntlets, but he could not break free immediately.

The Hollow slowly stood. Blood ran from the cracks in his mask, and a mixture of saliva and blood dripped from its half-open mouth. "Hurry... no... if I don't eat the next one, I'm going to die... If I die... I won't... be able to protect... her..."

He raised his crab claw and began gathering a blast of light, this one far larger than the last.

"Protect her? What can you protect when you're like this? If you really want to protect something, then take off that disgusting mask!"

As the blast gathered, Hu closed his eyes.

He was not giving up, but remembering.

The Zanpakutō spirit's voice echoed in his mind: "Beowulf isn't just a fighting style. It is the embodiment of the Beast of Light. When you resonate with it completely, even space and time will make way for your fists and feet."

The energy no longer gathered solely in his gauntlets, but flowed throughout his body. Hu's body began to glow azure, and the Reishi tentacles binding him began to shake and break apart.

The blast fired.

But Hu had already vanished.

No, he had not vanished—he moved faster than the eye could follow, leaving seven afterimages along the blast's path. Every step cracked the ground, and every step brought him closer to the Hollow.

Seven attacks landed in an instant. The Hollow's crab claw was broken, his tentacle torn to shreds, and his kimono reduced to ragged strips. For the final blow, the energy on Hu's fist was compressed to its limit, the air warping under the pressure.

"Grit your teeth, Shimizu!"

Then the energy erupted.

The mask began to crack from the center, fissures spreading like a spiderweb as white fragments peeled away one by one. The first things revealed were a pair of eyes—human eyes, weary and filled with relief. Then came the nose, the mouth, the whole face. It was Shimizu!