If she had to describe the girl before her, Yuko would say she looked passable at first glance. But the longer you looked, the less human she seemed.
At a glance, her spiritual pressure did feel like a Soul Reaper's. But under Yuko's finer perception, it was like an image assembled from countless pixels, one that couldn't stand up to a closer look.
Beneath that spiritual pressure lay a dense cluster of countless mottled points of Reishi.
They weren't merely gathered together. They were packed so tightly that even Yuko had almost missed the truth.
The moment she returned to the Human World, Yuko had spread out her senses. She had indeed detected plenty of unusual spiritual pressures in Karakura Town, including the Blanks wandering its streets.
Come to think of it, those Blanks had been wandering remarkably close to here.
What Yuko hadn't expected was for souls stripped of their memories and powers to look so hard to describe.
With a tuft of fluff atop each head, they looked like crosses between penguins and chickens. There was nothing human about them anymore.
The Memory Rosary, on the other hand, looked rather sweet.
At some point, Ichigo had stepped in front of Yuko. He bent down and waved a hand before her face. "Aunt? Are you listening to me?"
Yuko instinctively grabbed his index and middle fingers and gave them a gentle twist.
"Ow, ow, ow!"
Tears sprang to Ichigo's eyes as he doubled over in pain.
"Oh, sorry. I was thinking about something."
Yuko came back to herself and let go.
"Thinking? I thought you were trying to kill me." Ichigo straightened up, rubbing his fingers with an aggrieved look.
"Did you say something just now?" Yuko asked.
Ichigo sighed and moved aside, letting Yuko see the purple-haired girl