Sense

Each step took me further up the pit, the endless climb stretching before me, every moment I moved felt like an hour.

Now I could feel Kisuke's spiritual pressure raining down on me from above, beginning only after I'd started moving up the pegs from the fourth platform. The night instant kill that I'd managed to perform on the bulky Hollow had been unexpected, and only told me that I was using my head too much still.

I could feel the instincts humming within me, clamouring in my head to be let free to take control. It was something I'd let happen a few times, the instincts that seemingly come from nowhere only to evolve the way I do things in only moments, yet I still had a hesitation to simply give into them.

I didn't want to become a beast entirely made of instinct, fighting on it, or even going so far as to live forever in that state. It lent me power and innate understanding, but if I didn't actually learn to understand what I was doing, then I'd never truly progress.

My current example was my movement, the appearance of the technique I was currently using was so… mundane and anticlimactic that it actually made me suspicious. But when I simply gave into the pattern of movement, each step placed was true, mistakes being few and far between. Maybe I was overthinking it, but I didn't trust myself to just 'know' how to move, and I realised that it all started with the shielding technique I'd pulled from a long-gone memory.

So instead of giving in to the intoxicating flow of movement, I analysed, prepared, and understood. It made me fall a few times, even as I raced forwards to be at Suzumi's side, but I felt that it was necessary. It was important that I understood what I was doing, rather than just using the formula I had been given, otherwise I had never gained anything at all.

The movement, after I had broken it down, was actually quite simple and lacking the esoteric base that I thought it would possess. It was all about controlled movement, focusing entirely on control rather than the intense speed that was so tempting to push. As far as a movement technique went, it was almost intentionally slow.

But why? I asked myself as I bounded up the metal pegs with the barest thought. Thus, I found my answer. Simplicity and control, speed came later. It was the age old saying, the tortoise beating the hare. If I could just control every step, be sure of its exact landing, then I could go any speed my body allowed.

What was a technique that created more speed in comparison to the speed that a being such as a Captain-class Soul Reaper could naturally move at? I'm sure there are Soul Reapers that don't even bother to learn to move at great speeds, simply because they can already move fast enough to do roughly what they would have gained with those techniques.

This technique simply used that natural speed to its fullest, controlling and shaping the speed into pure accuracy, rather that unnaturally heightening it with complicated and fragile movements imbued with spiritual energy.

That is when I gave into the instincts, understanding blooming in my mind in truth. The steps were easier now, less troubled as I handed over my speed in full. I was bounding up the pegs at the same speed that I might have been able to produce by simply running on flat ground, my movements a collection of unerring foot placement and kinetic optimisations.

The pegs were easy now that I understood their purpose. They were meant to be a challenge of movement, forcing me to create something to deal with their posed difficulty. However, I'd created a solution much earlier than I would have been required to, so I blazed past the first few sets of pegs without difficulty, once again reaching the pegs ascending to the fifth platform.

Kisuke's spiritual pressure was nothing special at this layer, and I had no difficulty as my feet placed them solidly on each and every peg, using a similar technique to how Suzumi had first anchored herself to the ground months ago.

It was only a few moments until I reached the fifth platform. I let out a little wave of spiritual energy and received a picture of a hunched over Hollow, its form almost bat-like, complete with large wings that had chains attached to them to stop it from flying away.

I rushed towards the Hollow, hoping to get another chance to instantly kill it like I had the last Hollow, but I felt something slam into my gut, then another in my chest. Coughing, I slid backwards while I scrambled to retain as much ground as I could. I wasn't able to see the mundane stone with my spiritual senses yet, and so I had no choice to be conservative with my movement.

"Do they sting?" The Hollow said, its voice warbling along with the uncomfortable quality of it. I could hear a smile in its voice, a manic one at that.

"A little yeah." I said distractedly, trying to get a better hold on the environment, "But they serve as a pretty nice massage if you're looking to be a masseuse." There was a deep growl from the Hollow's direction, and I moved out of the way as best as I could without falling off the platform, only one of its projectiles clipping me on the arm. Obviously, this Hollow wasn't all that interested in having a chat.

There were no good ways for me to combat this Hollow with the tools I had. I could see where it was with my botched spiritual senses and with my ribbon sense, but I had no real way of knowing where the edge of the platform was—I could even be standing right on the edge of the platform and I wouldn't even know.

Not to mention the projectiles the Hollow was shooting. I heard what I could only assume was an intake of breath and I dodged quickly, sliding towards the Hollow's form, and hearing at least a handful of projectiles whizz overhead with much greater speed than the ones that had hit me. I wasn't close enough to actually hit the Hollow yet, being a few metres away, and I could already hear the intake of breath that seemed to signify the Hollow preparing another round.

I needed to think of something new, and fast. My first course of action was simple.

Pings everywhere.

As the Hollow sucked in its breath, I focused almost entirely on sending out ping after ping in as regular a pattern as I could managed as quick as I was forcing the waves of spiritual energy out. My surroundings lit up like a Christmas tree as I was able to see the spiritual energy pollution that the incessant pings caused, but I was able to get some extra definition in my pseudo sight that I desperately needed.

It was a moment later that I heard the volley of projectiles scream through the air, but even with the intense number of pings I was sending out I only managed to catch two or three momentary glimpses of them before I had to move to save my body from being punched full of holes.

My left arm, however, was not so lucky as to escape injury like the rest of my body had. I felt the strange projectile, a teardrop shaped thing made of a bone-like material, blast through my training shirt's sleeve and tear a hole in my flesh, much of the force already mitigated by my spiritual shielding.

It was like being shot with a musket ball, or if a musket ball was enhanced with spiritual energy. I held down a growl of pain as the fiery sensation swept over my body, but the pain was worth it. I had gained myself an idea.

At the moment I was doing the spiritual sense equivalent to a bat's echolocation, which was almost ironic considering the bat-like Hollow that was trying to punch me full of holes. Echolocation sounds great on paper, especially with something as controllable as spiritual energy, but really it was only good outside of combat and in specific situations. The echolocation method was prone to polluting the surroundings with spiritual energy, and if you or your opponent do anything using lots of spiritual energy, the residue will effectively make any vision you have whiteout.

So, if my 'ears' aren't sensitive enough, what about my 'eyes'.

I had a rudimentary understanding of how eyes worked, especially with having gone from specialist to specialist to find a reason for my 'degenerative blindness', yet it was still something difficult to translate into a spiritual technique.

I dove out of the way as I furiously pinged my surroundings, seeing the Hollow's form heave as it spewed six projectiles in a fanning motion. My body slipped on the rock, and within only a moment I realised that the top half of my body was no longer contacting the platform, my lower body sliding to follow.

In a grand movement I used the toe of my sandal to hook onto the edge of the platform, making my body swing precariously off of the edge. In a smooth movement you'd only be able to see from someone with superhuman strength, or with the incredibly trained muscles of a rock-climber, I pulled myself upwards so that I could grab the edge with my hands and flip up from there.

The Hollow had barely moved, its stubby legs clearly not its main method of movement beside it's massive wingspan. Now, though, I was seriously starting to lose my ability to see at all along with any hope I'd have of defeating the Hollow, the bright blue fog of spiritual energy in the atmosphere obscuring my pings. I needed to change tactics now.

Immediately I started to rapid fire test my theories, including adding discs of spiritual energy over my eyes to potentially act as a pair of glasses that showed me spiritual energy activity, though none of this actually did all that much other than earn me a new hole in my shoulder and a few other wounds that weren't quite that bad.

One thing that did intrigue me, despite the pain, was that the glasses idea had given me something. It wasn't what I wanted, and wasn't remotely eye-like, but it was something to work with. Kisuke had talked about the 'regular' spiritual sight that Soul Reapers used, doing the equivalent of enhancing their eyes to be able to see stuff in combat, but it was a weak in comparison to true spiritual sense that Tessai had spoken of as a possible solvent to my effective blindness.

Now it was coming down to the wire, and I had played on train tracks for long enough. If I couldn't get this right now, then I'd have to retreat, and waste God knows how much time trying to figure this out before I challenged platform give again. This was my last chance.

While I dodged my last volley of projectiles, I gambled.

For the first time in weeks, I messed with the structure to my spiritual shielding. Instead of leaning further into its strengths, being sleek and slippery, I changed its form internally, making it thicker and heavier—almost as if I were legitimately trying to solidify spiritual energy into physical, tangible matter.

Immediately, I started to see some payoff. It was creating a constant and recognisably distinct spiritual pressure in comparison to the messy and imprecise spiritual 'pings' that I had been using before.

With this process being blazingly fast, I still had at least another second to work before the next volley would be sent and I'd be forced to dive off of the platform to do this elsewhere. But there was that hankering within me again, the instincts clamouring at an understanding I was only barely scratching with my conscious mind.

I pushed ahead, even as I heard the Hollow take in its deepest breath yet in slow motion. The spiritual shielding became a thicker barrier, an invisible wall that projected the stream of spiritual pressure in all directions equally. Outside that I quickly formed what you'd almost assume was simply a preliminary piece of shielding but was in fact a sensitive and extremely thin skin. It was like an eardrum, yet even still it allowed spiritual energy and pressure to pass through it, almost entirely unimpeded.

But just enough that it can register that it'd been touched.

As the Hollow spat out its small projectiles, my mind flicked on and the entire world was bathed in the white and blue of spiritual pressure and energy. In that moment, I could see the projectiles moving towards me, and without even noticing my newfound ability to see the ground underneath my feet, I moved.

The Hollow was dispatched in only a few blows, unable to defend against me after I gained the ability to dance around it like it and dodge any of its projectiles, the only real advantage it had was its ability to see in the suffocating darkness and its projectiles.

After that, I sat, looking towards Suzumi's still flickering ribbon, the anxiety eating at my stomach, but I needed to understand this new sight, or else I'd never make it all the way back to the surface.