Chapter 1
Beneath the black, starless sky and amidst endless dunes of pale, lifeless sand, Riku gazed upward and saw only desolation—true, haunting desolation. He had wandered through this barren expanse for what felt like an eternity, never encountering another living soul. This stark, white sea of sand stretched endlessly, as though it were his final destination—an afterlife stripped of hope.
"Is this… the world after death?" he murmured.
His memories remained frozen in the dim, suffocating confines of a hospital ward. On the cracked ceiling above, stained with years of dust, he had breathed his final, aching breath—quietly leaving the living world behind.
He had been just an ordinary man from a small town. After over a decade of relentless study and hard work, he had finally achieved the impossible: breaking free of poverty, graduating from a top-tier university, and securing a coveted position at a major corporation.
Years of sacrifice paid off. He bought his own car, a comfortable apartment in a bustling first-tier city, and for a time, Riku became a hometown legend—a model of success, the kind of son other parents wished they had.
But just as he prepared to enjoy the fruits of his labor, fate struck cruelly. A diagnosis of advanced-stage gastric cancer shattered the life he had built. The disease had progressed too far by the time it was discovered.
He endured a round of brutal chemotherapy, but the prognosis remained grim. His parents, desperate and heartbroken, sold everything—his car, his apartment in the city—and brought him back to a small county hospital near their rural hometown, opting for so-called "conservative treatment."
Within two months of being transferred, Riku's condition plummeted. His body failed him, and he quietly slipped away.
"The past is gone," he whispered to himself.
As fragments of his former life flashed across his mind, he gradually let them go, one memory at a time.
…
Standing amid the endless white dunes, Riku moved his body on instinct—but suddenly heard a dry rustling from the sand behind him. The sound sent a chill through his spine. Something massive was shifting beneath the surface—bulky shapes cloaked in pale bone emerged from beneath the sand. Limbs, long and blade-like, pierced through the ground, and a hulking form began to writhe into view.
"What… what the hell is that thing?!"
Then, he froze.
"…Wait. That's me?"
"No way…"
He stared at his monstrous reflection in the sand's shallow contours. He had a human torso fused grotesquely to the chitinous lower body of a centipede. His entire body, from his chest to the very tips of his claws, was covered in a thick, bone-white carapace. His arms—still humanoid—were wrapped in hardened bone, powerful enough to crush a man's skull without effort.
And there, at the junction where his human torso met the insectoid lower half, was a circular hole—punched straight through his abdomen.
"This… this form… the hole, the white sand, this twisted desert—this is Hueco Mundo… I've become a Hollow!"
Hueco Mundo. The nightmarish world between life and death, a realm of eternal dusk where Hollows—the corrupted souls of the dead—roamed. The white desert. The endless darkness. It all matched the descriptions from the manga he had loved in life.
He raised a pale, clawed hand and touched his face. The mask was real—hard and cold beneath his fingers. It clung tightly to his features, adorned with strange, jagged patterns. There was no denying it now.
"I really… crossed over into Bleach?"
He laughed softly, half in disbelief, half in bitter awe.
In his former life, Riku had been an avid fan of Bleach, following every arc from Soul Society to the Thousand-Year Blood War. Never in his wildest dreams had he imagined he would end up here—reborn as a Hollow in the sands of Hueco Mundo, wearing the mask of the damned.
Seeing that he had transformed into a grotesque, monstrous creature, Riku wasn't overcome by fear or disgust. Instead, to his own surprise, a sense of excitement bubbled within him.
"Come on… this is actually so cool!"
But as the initial rush wore off, reality began to settle in. Hollows—known as Jibakurei or Kakushitsu before degeneration—were among the most hunted spiritual entities in the Bleach world. In the eyes of the Shinigami from the Soul Society, he was now a threat, a target to be purified. If killed by a Zanpakutō without malicious karma, his soul might be cleansed and sent to the Rukongai for reincarnation. But if judged as sinful in his former life, he'd be dragged directly to Hell—as described when Ichigo witnessed the Kushanāda take a soul in Karakura Town.
Even worse, if a demon from Hell or other hell-bound entities discovered and destroyed him, he'd be denied even that chance—his soul reduced to nothingness.
And then, there was Aizen.
During Aizen's dominion over Hueco Mundo, countless Hollows were sacrificed for his twisted experiments—forced into Arrancarization, used as cannon fodder, or discarded during failed Hollowfication attempts. If he'd arrived during that timeline… things could've ended before they even began.
"Damn. If only I knew when I am. If I'm early enough, I might have time to evolve before the major plot unfolds. But if I dropped in mid-arc or post-war… then I'm basically a corpse waiting for the reaper."
"ROOOOAR!!!"
Before Riku could finish piecing together his timeline, a low, guttural roar echoed from behind him. A reptilian Hollow—green-scaled and nearly three meters long—charged through the dunes. Its mouth foamed with dark-yellow mucus, teeth bared and mask cracked with jagged horns.
BOOM!!!
With a surge of instinct, Riku's massive tail—previously buried beneath the sand—whipped out like a hammer. It struck the lizard Hollow mid-charge, slamming it into the dune with thunderous force.
As the stunned creature tried to stagger upright, Riku lunged forward and launched a brutal punch straight to its mask.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
"WOO-uhhh…!"
The beast's agonized howls were swallowed by the dunes. Under Riku's relentless barrage, the lizard Hollow's bone-white mask cracked into three jagged fragments. Its claws snapped one by one, torn apart by sheer force. It collapsed into the sand, twitching helplessly, blood seeping in dark green streams, its cries turning into a low, pitiful whimper.
Dark fluids sprayed across Riku's bone-plated arms and chest. He didn't flinch. He kept striking—again and again—until the creature was nothing but broken flesh and shattered bone, silent and still.
"Haaah…"
He exhaled slowly, surveying the crater where the Hollow had once stood. Though physically it hadn't been much of a challenge, Riku—who had never even killed a chicken in his thirty years of human life—found the act deeply unsettling. His heart pounded from more than just the adrenaline. But he knew this was only the beginning.
He calmed himself after a moment. Now that he had fully confirmed he was reborn into the world of Bleach, this wasn't just a second life—it was survival. He needed to adapt his mindset quickly. In this world, where power meant everything, hesitation equaled death.
The timeline was still unclear, but that made it all the more important to grow strong as fast as possible. Hueco Mundo was dangerous—but also full of opportunity. If he moved carefully, he could claim the kind of strength that transcended death itself.
Riku's gaze returned to the shattered corpse in the sand pit. He remembered what the manga had explained about Hollow evolution—how they could grow stronger by devouring one another. Those who rose above the rest eventually became Gillian (Menos Grande), Adjuchas, and ultimately Vasto Lorde, the pinnacle of Hollow evolution—some even stronger than many Shinigami Captains.
With a grim nod, he reached down, ignoring the bile rising in his throat. He grabbed one of the lizard Hollow's severed forelimbs, dark green blood dripping from the exposed muscle, and brought it to the mouth beneath his bone mask.
"Crunch… crunch…"
He chewed through the limb in just a few bites, expecting nausea, maybe horror. Instead—shockingly—it was delicious. Whether it was some strange biological effect from his new Hollow form or something unique to the creature itself, he couldn't tell. But there was no denying it: his tastes had changed.
As the last chunk slid down his throat, Riku felt it—the faint but unmistakable surge of Reiryoku. His spiritual power had increased, even if just slightly.
His eyes widened, glowing faintly with hunger and realization.
He turned back toward the pit, where the rest of the mangled Hollow body remained, and without hesitation, dove in to feast.