Hueco Mundo had no seasons.
No rain, no sun, no spring.
Only sand, wind, hunger.
And silence.
But something had begun to change. It started so subtly that even the Arrancar didn't notice.
A breeze that felt… softer. A dune that refused to shift. And then, one night, a flicker in the sky.
Not reiatsu.
Not light.
A glow.
Tiny.
Moving.
Alive.
A firefly.
Nelliel stood atop a crumbled pillar, her hair tied back, her robes tattered but clean. Her eyes followed the glowing speck as it passed.
Behind her, Dondochakka gasped.
"Nell-sama! Did you see that? That little glowing thing!"
She nodded. "I thought it was a dream."
Pesche appeared beside him, dramatically holding his chest.
"A dream in this wasteland? Impossible!"
But it wasn't.
By morning, there were more.
Fifteen. Then thirty.
By nightfall, the sky over Hueco Mundo shimmered with quiet, flickering lights.
They didn't burn.
They danced.
Word traveled quickly.
Grimmjow didn't believe it until one of the fireflies landed on his hand. He watched it sit there, glowing gently, before it lifted away.
He didn't say a word for hours.
Starrk, wandering through the emptier sands, opened his eyes for the first time in days when they passed over his sleeping form.
He didn't chase them.
Just watched.
And whispered, "So it begins."
Back in Soulnest, Ichigo heard of the lights through a message sent not by paper, but dream.
It came from Nelliel herself, her voice soft and full of something rare.
Hope.
"They're dreaming again," she said.
Ichigo sat upright, eyes wide.
Because Hollows didn't dream.
Couldn't.
It was the price of what they had become, memory stolen, hunger constant.
Until now.
In the Archive's northern chamber, Noa unrolled a scroll etched in Hollow script, barely legible, ancient.
It translated roughly to:
When the sky dances, the hunger ends.
She looked up at Kairo, who stood in the doorway, one hand pressed to the wall.
"We thought it was prophecy," she said.
Kairo shook his head.
"It was memory."
Orihime arrived at the Hollow Quarter, a new space within Soulnest, once forbidden, carrying herbs and water.
Not to heal.
To grow.
A Hollow child watched her pour water into the cracked ground.
"Will it do anything?"
She smiled.
"Let's find out."
The child returned the next day to see a sprout.
It was real.
He touched it.
Didn't eat it.
Just watched.
In Hueco Mundo, the lights grew denser.
Lilynette perched on Starrk's shoulder, arms crossed.
"They're annoying."
Starrk didn't answer.
She added, "But they're warm."
He blinked slowly. "Like old dreams."
"Do you even remember yours?"
He didn't answer.
But he closed his eyes.
And one of the lights settled on his chest.
Nelliel sent another message.
This time to the Circle.
"We don't want to come back. Not yet. But we want… something else."
Kairo read the scroll aloud.
"They want a bridge."
Ichigo nodded.
"Then we'll build it."
The Bridge Project began the next week.
Not of stone or magic.
Of trust.
One step at a time.
A messenger.
A healer.
A shared story.
No walls.
No weapons.
Not even names at first.
Just questions.
And slowly, answers.
Noa met with a group of former Arrancar in Soulnest's eastern field.
They were quiet. Suspicious.
She didn't lecture.
She listened.
One of them, Rin, who wore a cracked mask across her shoulder, finally spoke.
"We weren't born to be monsters."
Noa looked her in the eye.
"No one is."
Rin didn't cry.
But her shadow grew smaller.
As if it had exhaled.
In the Circle, Kairo presented a new stone.
It had no carving.
No seal.
Just light within.
"This is not a record," he said.
"It's a window."
The others gathered.
One by one, the Hollows began to tell their stories through it.
Not just of hunger.
Of what they remembered before they became what they were.
A sister.
A tree.
The sound of rain on stone.
Tiny moments, flickering like fireflies.
In Karakura, children woke from dreams of gentle sandstorms, soft winds, and glowing skies.
Orihime taught them to paint the lights.
Ichigo taught them to listen.
Not for Hollow screams.
For Hollow songs.
In the deepest part of Hueco Mundo, beneath the shadow of the throne Aizen once sat on, a garden bloomed.
No one planted it.
But it grew.
Quietly.
Softly.
Between cracks.
Rin found it first.
She didn't tell anyone for days.
Then she brought water.
And let others see.
The Hollows didn't become Shinigami.
They didn't shed their masks or change form.
They remembered.
And that was enough.
In Soulnest, the night Ichigo saw the first firefly drift in from the Hollow Quarter, he didn't speak.
He simply caught it in his palm.
And smiled.
Not because it was magic.
Because it was real.
That same night, a stone in the Archive pulsed once.
A single word etched itself across it.