Hu vs. Hollow

With a blue slash from Hu, Shimizu and the white Hollow were completely separated and sent flying to either side of him. After rolling across the ground several times, Shimizu and the Hollow got up in almost symmetrical poses and looked at Hu.

Hu flicked his blade and turned to look at the Hollow and Shimizu at opposite ends, as well as Cilian, who stood between them with surprise still on his face. Then he sheathed his sword.

After that strike, Shimizu felt a power being stripped away. He looked down at his body. His hands were normal, and his feet had not changed either. The tentacles that had grown from his body had vanished as well. He turned to look at the Hollow to his side. It had crab claws and sucker-covered legs, several tentacles writhing around its waist, and an octopus mask on its head...

"Shimizu! Your nightmare is about to end. You're about to get married, so stop trying to kill yourself so casually." Hu spoke to Shimizu as he walked toward the middle. As he passed Cilian, he said, "I'm going to pass the 'slash' test today, so watch closely."

When Hu reached the center, he faced the Hollow. Ever since it had been separated from Shimizu, it seemed to have been in a daze, and it was still in the same position it had assumed when getting up.

Hu gripped the hilt in his right hand and the sheath in his left. He turned slightly to the side, shifted his weight onto his back foot, and assumed an iai stance much like that man's:

Has the Hollow I separated still not figured out what's going on? Then I'll slay this thing right here, right now!

Hu shot forward with Shunpo, and Jiku'a swept across the Hollow's neck, leaving a line of blood. But its head did not fall.

Damn! Was the cut too shallow?

Hu thought he had made a mistake and meant to follow up with a second slash, but the Hollow caught his blade in its crab claw!

Hu felt a tremendous force clamp down on his sword. The Hollow finally raised its head, and black liquid began to seep from the line of blood Hu had left. It gradually formed a black cloth that began covering the Hollow's body. The Hollow turned its head toward Hu, and a ball of red energy, utterly different from the one before, began to gather in its mouth.

Cilian saw the movement and cried out in alarm, "It's a Cero!! Get out of the way!"

The red light shot forth, destroying buildings in its path, but Hu had vanished...

"Hu!" Shimizu called, looking around for him. He could not find him anywhere and was deeply worried.

Cilian, however, relaxed as soon as the Cero was fired.

The Hollow was already clad in the black robe unique to Gillians, and its body had begun to grow. The mask on its head was still shaped like an octopus, while its crab claws and tentacles were hidden beneath the robe. The Hollow had now completed its transformation into a Gillian-class Menos Grande!

"How did it feel to experience a Cero at close range, Hu?" Cilian teased, stroking his chin with his one arm. A rift in the void opened behind him, and Hu stepped out, cold sweat still on his face. "Isn't Cero something only Menos Grande can use? How come this thing I separated from Shimizu can use it too? That was this close! If I hadn't cut open space and hidden inside, I would've taken that full-on! Scared me half to death."

"A Hollow's transformation into a Menos Grande is a process in which its power gradually becomes purer. By separating the Hollow from Shimizu, you accelerated that process to begin with. Besides, a Hollow that survived a day of devouring others has most likely consumed a considerable amount of power from other Hollows. It's not particularly strange..." After explaining, Cilian looked at Hu. "But your Zanpakuto can cut through space and even separate a soul from a Hollow's power. Can't it cut through a Cero?"

"How could I just slash at something when I don't know whether it'll explode or split apart? Besides, I went up and slashed its neck, but I don't know why its head didn't come off. Then it blocked my follow-up, so of course I panicked!"

Cilian sighed. All the Onmitsukidō members who had come on this mission gathered around when they saw the Gillian.

"Although you've activated your Shikai, your control over its power is still unstable. The Reiatsu coating your blade grew stronger when you cut Shimizu apart from the Hollow and when you cut through space. But although the slash you aimed at that Hollow's neck was fast, there was no sense of that increase in Reiatsu. That gave it the chance to transform. Now that a Gillian has been born, leave this to the Onmitsukidō. Although you haven't slain a single Hollow today, you achieved your Zanpakuto's Shikai, which meets the requirements for the 'slash' test, so your goal has been accomplished. Watch from the sidelines from here on."

"No."

Hu's voice was cold and clear, leaving no room for argument. He did not look at the Onmitsukidō members surrounding them, his gaze fixed on the Gillian the entire time. The empty eye sockets beneath its octopus mask seemed to be staring back at him.

"What did you say?" Cilian's one eye narrowed.

"I said I don't want you to interfere." Hu tightened his grip on his Zanpakuto. "It's my prey! I told you to watch closely. I'm going to kill it myself!"

He released the sheath with his left hand, letting it float beside him. At the same time, he bent his knees slightly, and a heavy, condensed blue wave gathered over his left fist, carrying the aura of a savage beast. It was the rudiment of Beowulf's power, drawn from instinct and combat memory, which he had only begun to master.

"That's a Gillian!" an Onmitsukidō member beside Cilian shouted.

But Cilian raised his one arm, stopping his subordinate. He gave Hu a long look. He did not much like such headstrong students.

"It's rare for a young man to want to show what he can do... Very well... Everyone, spread out and put up a barrier. Don't let the damage spread to the entire settlement. Anyone not needed here, continue the elimination mission. Capture any Hollows visibly wearing Rukongai clothing alive where possible!"

The Onmitsukidō quickly withdrew. Only the transformed Gillian and Hu, standing alone in its enormous shadow, remained in the field.

Its massive body exerted a heavy pressure on the surrounding air. It seemed to sense instinctively the threat posed by the tiny being before it. Without hesitation, a blinding red light flared once more at the octopus's mouth—a Cero, larger and more concentrated than the last!

The red light surged forth like a torrent of destruction.

But Hu moved.

He stamped down hard! The ground cracked, and blue Reiatsu burst beneath his feet, propelling him forward in a nearly straight line at an overwhelmingly forceful speed, directly toward the Cero! It was a Beowulf-style charge, savage and direct.

Just as the Cero was about to swallow him—

"Hah!"

He swung the long blade in his hand upward in a rising slash!

There was no earthshaking collision. The blade touched the leading edge of the Cero's red light, and the destructive torrent of energy, as though it had encountered an impassable, invisible divide, was neatly parted down the middle! It was not cleaved apart or dispersed, but "separated" on a conceptual level—the Cero's energy stream was forcibly "separated" into two currents, which surged past either side of Hu, struck the barrier, and dissipated. Hu himself traveled against the flow through the gap between them, completely unharmed!

The Gillian seemed stunned for a moment.

Hu had already closed in to point-blank range. He clenched his left fist, the heavy blue Reiatsu compressing to an extreme, and drove a punch into the massive sucker-covered leg supporting the Gillian's body!

"Boom!"

With a deep, resounding impact, the Gillian's massive body actually tilted slightly. The "weight" and "impact" contained in the blue Reiatsu briefly disrupted its balance.

Using the recoil from his punch, Hu leaped lightly back a short distance while slashing with Jiku'a in his right hand.

"Judgment Cut: Thin."

Several fine, almost invisible blue linear slashes appeared out of thin air. Rather than flying toward the Gillian, they appeared at different points around its body—its knees, waist, and shoulders. The slashes were fine but sharp, precisely cutting the points where the Reiatsu on its surface was most active. They inflicted no large wounds, but made its black robe ripple violently and caused its movements to falter again.

The Gillian was thoroughly enraged. It stopped firing Ceros from a distance and instead swung its enormous crab claws, striking at Hu over a wide area as several tentacles suddenly stabbed out from beneath its robe! The attack was immensely powerful and covered a vast area, seemingly impossible to evade.

Hu's gaze remained cold. Faced with the giant claws and tentacles closing in, he advanced instead of retreating.

"Running Iai."

His figure instantly became a blue afterimage, darting back and forth at extreme speed within a tiny area rather than moving in a straight line! With each flicker, he passed precisely through the gaps between the attacks of the claws and tentacles, as though they were making way for him. This was not mere speed. On a minute scale, he used his Zanpakuto's power to briefly sever the "spatial connections" along the attacks' paths, creating fleeting passageways.

In an instant, he had passed through every attack and appeared directly in front of the Gillian's octopus mask, almost touching it.

The mouth beneath the Gillian's mask tried to gather red light once more.

"Too slow."

Hu gripped Jiku'a in both hands, holding the blade upright before him as its deep blue light flared.

"Try this!" His voice was like ice striking the ground.

"Judgment Cut End!"

His figure vanished, and a ring of blue Reishi containing a profound trajectory appeared, centered on the point where he had disappeared.

The ring expanded without a sound.

The Gillian's movements froze. The red light gathering at its mask went out. The giant claw it had swung stopped in midair.

Then, centered on the octopus mask, countless crisscrossing blue lines of light appeared from nowhere and spread, covering its massive body in an instant. Every one of those lines represented an activation of the Zanpakuto's power.

Space was cut to pieces.

The structure of its Reiatsu was destroyed.

The Hollow essence that formed its existence and the condensed form it had taken were forcibly split apart!

There was no explosion, no scream. Amid the interweaving flashes of countless blue lines, the Gillian's enormous body began to dissolve from the edges, like a pencil drawing being erased from paper. Inch by inch, it became the purest dust of Reishi, with no connection remaining between its particles, and dispersed into the air. The last thing to disappear was a point at the center of the octopus mask, as though a core had once been there and had now been utterly destroyed.

Hu landed and slowly sheathed his sword. Jiku'a returned to its sheath with a clear, low ring. The blue Reiatsu around his fist also faded away. His heavy breathing and flickering vision showed that the series of precise, forceful attacks and the final killing blow had taken a considerable toll.

The street was deathly silent. The Onmitsukidō members present were speechless. That fighting style, that ability to "disassemble" and erase an enormous Gillian, went beyond their conventional understanding of "slash." As far as they knew, the only person who could possibly do such a thing was Soi Fon, captain of the Second Division!