Night had fallen over Seireitei, but rest remained elusive.
After the mirror's destruction, the Twelfth Division immediately secured the blast site. What little remained was sent for analysis, but every instrument—spiritual or scientific—returned the same result: unknown composition, unidentified reiryoku structure. Whatever that mirror had been, it didn't belong to this world.
Lanran, frustrated, paced the archives of the Twelfth Division. His knuckles were white from clenching too hard. His mind turned over equations, sigils, theories, anything that might match what they'd seen.
"Brother," Lan Yan said calmly from across the room, leaning against a reinforced pillar. "You're going to burn through your reserves at this rate."
"We need answers," Lanran snapped, eyes wild behind his cracked glasses. "Someone pierced Seireitei's innermost wards and watched us. Watched you. We can't treat this like some random anomaly."
"I'm not."
Lan Yan stepped forward, his voice quiet. "I'm treating it like a war."
That made Lanran pause.
They both knew what war looked like. Lan Yan had fought Vasto Lorde hand-to-hand. Lanran had uncovered soul-layer sabotage during the recent Soul Relay Crisis. But this... this wasn't brute force. It was surgical.
Suddenly, the ground beneath them pulsed.
RUMBLE!
A wave of spiritual pressure rippled from the under-districts beneath Seireitei—deep, old tunnels sealed for centuries. Wards flared to life, alarms howled across the compound.
"That's near the Hollow storage vaults," Lanran muttered.
"I'll go," Lan Yan said. "You call it in."
Before Lanran could argue, Lan Yan was gone, shunpo cracking the air.
The ancient tunnels beneath Seireitei were damp with time and forgotten battles.
Lan Yan dropped silently into the first chamber, his eyes instantly adjusting. Pale torches flickered with blue kido flame. He pressed two fingers to the ground, feeling for vibrations.
Something moved. Not one thing. Several.
He advanced, quiet as a shadow. Every step down took him further into the heart of the spiritual vaults. He passed murals from the founding days of the Gotei 13—depictions of primordial Hollows sealed beneath the earth.
Now, those seals were failing.
In the chamber ahead, the air throbbed with reiryoku. Six hooded figures stood in a circle. Robes of ink-black silk, their faces masked by bone-white porcelain.
"You're late, Lan Yan," one of them said, turning his head. His voice was neither mocking nor surprised.
Lan Yan raised an eyebrow.
"I don't recall receiving an invitation."
The figures did not move.
"This place is beyond your command," said another. "Leave now, or be made to."
Lan Yan took a slow breath. Zhuoyin hummed at his side, eager.
"You're drawing energy from the vaults. Those seals are there for a reason."
"Yes," the first speaker replied. "To keep power from those unworthy to claim it."
Then the chamber pulsed again.
One of the vaults cracked.
A claw burst through the stone.
Lan Yan reacted instantly, flash-stepping across the room as the wall exploded in a shower of debris and darkness. A Hollow surged forth—twice the size of the Vasto Lorde he had faced, its body blackened like obsidian, its eyes stitched shut.
But it screamed with awareness.
Lan Yan's blade was already drawn.
CLANG!
The impact shook the entire chamber. Sparks rained down. The masked figures vanished into the shadows, dispersing like ink in water.
Lan Yan's gaze followed the Hollow as it stalked forward. It didn't just attack.
It watched.
And then it spoke.
"You shine brightly, child of Zhuoyin. Let us see if your light can survive me."
Lan Yan's grip tightened.
Zhuoyin flared in his hand.
"I don't need to survive you," he said.
"I need to end you."
He shot forward, blade a beam of sunlight in the underground dark.
Author's Note:
Underground seals broken. Masked intruders. A Hollow that speaks?
Lan Yan isn't just fighting monsters anymore. He's fighting history. And something beneath Seireitei is awake.
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