[Seireitei, Upper Levels]
The corridor was silent except for the faint rustle of leaves drifting through an open window. Shadows curled lazily along polished stone, the air thickening with tension.
Byakuya Kuchiki's crisp footsteps echoed, his white captain's haori flowing like a ghostly banner. Standing directly in his path was a man in black Shinigami robes, a white captain's haori billowing gently around him. His posture was calm, polite with a little bit of playfulness — yet his sharp blue eyes hinted at something coiled beneath.
"Captain Kurozume Akio," Byakuya's voice was cool, precise. "Are you obstructing my path?"
Akio inclined his head, lips twitching with faint amusement. "Captain Kuchiki, are you truly going after that intruder? Will you allow Rukia Kuchiki's execution to proceed without question?"
Byakuya's gaze hardened, Reiatsu flaring cold. "Justice is clear. No one is above the law."
A shadow flickered at Akio's fingertips as his own Reiatsu — dark, almost ethereal — flared in reply. "Is justice always clear? Or do we sometimes mistake law for righteousness?"
The air between them hummed with invisible pressure. Their Reiatsu clashed. Both being unable to push each other with their power seemingly almost equal.
Byakuya's fingers brushed his Zanpakutō. "This conversation is over."
Akio raised his hands, smile widening. "I am not here to fight you, Captain Kuchiki. That task belongs to someone else."
Turning on his heel, he walked away, his steps light yet purposeful, leaving a trail of flickering shadows in his wake.
Byakuya's eyes lingered for a moment — just long enough for a trace of respect and curiosity to flicker across his stoic face.
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[Somewhere in Rukongai]
The night air in Rukongai's outer districts was still. Too still.
Akio crouched on a rooftop of warped, sagging beams, breath slow, eyes locked on the dirt street below.
The market stalls were shuttered, lamps long dead. The silence carried a weight that pressed against the skin.
Then he felt it — a faint, wrong vibration in the air.
A whisper of killing intent.
A tremor beneath his feet.
From the corner of the alley, something emerged.
Tall. Gaunt. Mask white as bleached bone, its jagged grin stretching too far.
A Hollow.
Its eyes burned like twin embers, sweeping the street — until they landed on him.
Akio's muscles coiled. He wasn't ready for this. Not truly. But his body moved before his mind caught up, Reiatsu curling under his skin like a held breath.
The Hollow tilted its head, as if listening to his pulse. Then, with a rasp of claws on stone, it lunged.
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Author: "Oii, narrator, what the hell are you narrating? We just jumped from fancy hallway staring contest rooftop to a Hollow hunt!"
Narrator: "The above scenes were for Dramatic structure Look, just— let me explain."
Author: "Explain that to me later For now start the story and from the beginning please. Readers are still here… for now."
Narrator: "Right, right. Let's go back. To the beginning."
— — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — — —
[Two Years Before the Hollow chasing thing, Rukongai]
A cold wind whispered through a narrow alley, carrying the scent of dust and rust.
When consciousness returned, he was lying on cracked stones. His small hands trembled as he pushed himself up, brushing away grit. His clothes — tattered, threadbare — clung to a thin frame. Hunger gnawed at his stomach, deep and hollow.
"Where… am I?"
The alley opened to a dirt street lined with sagging wooden houses. No cars, no neon lights. Just silence.
A shard of broken glass caught the morning light. He crouched and froze. Staring back was the face of a boy, maybe eleven. Black hair falling over sharp blue eyes.
Pain exploded in his skull. Not physical — mental. Memories slammed into him: nights in abandoned rooms, stale bread stolen from a stall, the sound of running feet in the dark.
When the dizziness faded, he knew.
This wasn't Earth. This was Rukongai.
The memories had a name: Kurozume Akio.
An orphan from the farthest districts — where life was cheap and Shinigami rarely walked.
Here, survival meant running faster than the gangs, stealing before someone else did, and never trusting a stranger.
Now, somehow, he wasn't just in the boy's body — he was him. In soul and spirit.
A hum under his skin drew his attention. Spirit energy. Reiryoku. His very body here wasn't flesh, but condensed spiritual matter.
He stared at the grey sky. "The past owner of this body had a strong will for survival. If I'm here in his place… then I will survive. And I'll never be prey again."
Days turned to weeks.
He learned the rhythm of the streets — when the markets were busiest, which alleys trapped you, when gangs passed through. He stole only when eyes were elsewhere, never from the same place twice.
At night, he listened to gossip. Words like Seireitei, Gotei 13, Hollows. Tales of captains who could split mountains.
Once or twice, he had to run. A thrown bottle here, a shove there — enough to slip away. He avoided fighting. Weakness was an invitation to be hunted.
But his mind never stopped whispering: Strength. That's what I need.
So it started small. Push-ups at dawn. Sprints between ruined walls. Climbing crumbling beams until his hands bled.
Then meditation. In a half-collapsed shrine at the district's edge, he sat still, seeking the hum inside him.
The first time, it surged uncontrolled — a faint wave that made birds take flight.
Over time, he learned to contain it. Inhale four counts. Hold two. Exhale eight. Imagine the energy sinking to his core, coiling like a shadowed serpent.
Sometimes a shimmer rippled around him, unseen by most, but enough for sensitive souls to glance his way. He learned to pull it back — to vanish in plain sight.
"Reiryoku is like steam," he murmured. "And I need a lid."
Two Years Later
The boy in the glass was no longer thin. His frame was lean, his movements sharp. The restless energy that once leaked from him was now invisible unless he chose otherwise.
Some avoided him. Others nodded in quiet respect. Even gangs that once chased him now stepped aside.
One winter morning, near the market's broken fence, he overheard hushed voices.
"…Three people vanished last night."
"…Hollow. I saw it. Mask like death, eyes like fire."
"…Shinigami's been sent to deal with it."
From the shadows, he listened, a slow smile forming. A Hollow here…
The night air in Rukongai's outer districts was still. Too still.
Even the wind seemed to have fled.
Akio crouched on a rooftop of warped, sagging beams, breath slow, eyes scanning the dirt street below.
The market stalls were shuttered, lamps long dead. Every shadow felt heavier than it should.
Then — he felt it.
Not just a faint vibration in the air.
This was weight.
A crushing, suffocating weight that made his lungs hitch and his skin crawl.
The narrator cleared their throat: "Dear readers, allow me to inform you — this was no ordinary Hollow. This was a Gillian. One of the Menos Grande. If Akio knew, he would have kicked his idea of being chased by the monstrosity and ran the other way without a second thought. Sadly… he did not."
From the far end of the street, a silhouette emerged.
Towering. Its head scraping the upper edges of the buildings.
Mask white as bone, jaw stretched into a permanent, jagged grin. Its elongated limbs moved with a terrible slowness — the slowness of something that knew nothing here could threaten it.
Akio's muscles locked. Too big…
Every instinct screamed to hide. But his Reiatsu was already leaking — fear making it spike.
The Gillian's burning eyes shifted toward him.
It tilted its head, and the pressure doubled, shoving against his chest like a physical force. His vision blurred — spots blooming at the edges. Then something inside him snapped.
Without conscious thought, his own Reiryoku stirred — a faint ripple, leaking out from him in uneven waves. The pressure on his chest didn't vanish, but it no longer crushed him flat — as if an invisible shell had formed just above his skin, holding back the worst of it. He didn't understand it. Couldn't control it. But some part of him — something deeper than instinct — had flared his Reiatsu for his survival. And it was keeping him standing.
Then it roared — a deep, resonant bellow that rattled the entire district.
The sound nearly made his knees buckle.
I… can't fight this. The thought was cold and sharp.
But running blindly would get him killed faster.
When the giant mask dipped forward, he moved — springing off the roof into the alley, landing light, boots barely touching stone.
A massive claw gouged into the rooftop where he'd been standing a heartbeat ago, splinters raining down like deadly hail.
The Gillian's massive frame should have been slow. It wasn't.
Each step made the ground quake as it followed, its long arms tearing chunks out of walls when they got in the way.
Akio darted through the alleys, making sudden sharp turns, forcing the giant to squeeze its bulk through tight spaces.
Every time its mask swung into view at the other end of a street, a fresh spike of fear stabbed through him.
Think. Terrain. Distraction.
The ruined shrine. Only open space wide enough for its bulk, but narrow enough for him to move freely.
He reached the shrine in a dead sprint, lungs burning, legs screaming.
The Gillian loomed after him, ducking under the broken gate — its shoulders scraping stone, raining dust.
Akio let his Reiyorku flicker just enough to lure it forward.
Then, at the last second, he dove aside. The Gillian's massive head smashed through one of the supporting beams, sending half the roof collapsing onto its back.
It roared in fury, thrashing.
But before Akio could move again —
Another presence hit the air.
'Finally.' he thought.
It was like a blade pressing against his skin, precise and controlled, yet so immense it dwarfed the Gillian's crushing aura.
A figure landed between him and the monster, the moonlight catching on a flowing white haori — the mark of a captain.
The newcomer's Zanpakutō was already drawn.
There was no hesitation. No words.
Just a flash of steel — and the Gillian's roar cut off mid-bellow.
Akio stayed watching.
He knew power when he saw it.
And this man's presence was a reminder of the gap between them — a gulf as wide as the sky.
The man turned around and looked at Akio, "Well, aren't you a strange kid. Withstanding a gillion's Reiatsu and having such abnormal Reiatsu yourself huh."
[End of the Chapter]