"Huh?" Karin murmured. Her voice echoed back, an auditory mirage in an environment devoid of tactile substance. She was caught in an equilibrium of nothingness, suspended in stillness.

Karin's surroundings were a void of emptiness, an expansive canvas of whiteness so overwhelming that it seemed like a sea of infinite nothingness. She felt like a floating wisp of consciousness, a single soul suspended in the unmarked realm of her inner world.

Her voice broke the silence, reverberating like an echo chamber, shattering the stillness. "What? Wasn't I just in the Menos Forest?" The question came instinctively, the aftermath of her sudden dislocation from Hueco Mundo to this barren expanse setting in.

As she looked around, the monochrome world seemed to envelop her, binding her in place yet leaving her untethered. The paradoxical feeling of simultaneous wholeness and brokenness created an unsettling contrast, like two sides of the same coin in a twisted reality.

"Where am I?" she called out again, her voice tinged with desperation. Yet as the question slipped from her lips, she expected no answer. This realm felt too empty, too void-like for another presence.

Then came the voice, distorted yet eerily familiar, like a ghostly double of her own. "We are within you, this is your soul scape. Or what's left of it."

The phrase "what's left of it" hung in the air, heavy with foreboding. The world shifted, transforming into an oceanic dreamscape. Light danced on the water's surface, as if illuminating hidden depths. The ethereal beauty of the luminescent waters almost seemed to mock her confusion.

Now she could stand, and as her gaze fell upon her own form, she found herself unchanged from her human days. A sense of nostalgia clashed with her current reality, forming a dissonant chord that unsettled her further.

I look like me… What I looked like when I was alive and human, Karin didn't know the emotions she felt, mass confusion drowned most of her state of mind.

Then, she materialized—an inverted reflection of herself, a ghostly twin bearing the same face but with jarring differences that were almost otherworldly. This doppelganger had eyes that were hauntingly beautiful, black sclerae rimmed with blue irises, skin that looked like white paint.

"Who are you?" Karin's voice quivered slightly, her eyes locked onto the face that so closely resembled her own.

The entity shook her head, a ripple of sadness playing across her features. "Of course you don't recognize me."

Karin felt a surge of frustration. "Well, you look like me, but we've never met. And what is this? I don't even know what a soul scape is."

Her inverted reflection seemed to weigh her words, as if contemplating how much to reveal. "A soul scape is the inner world that reflects the soul's true nature, this is yours, or what's left of it," she began, "and I am a part of you, I always have been since your birth. I always protected you from harm until the moment you died, but you shouldn't have, I'm sorry."

In the distorted mirror of this new world, questions multiplied like ripples in the ocean, each answer merely deepening the mystery. And Karin, caught in the undertow, struggled to find solid ground.

Karin looked at the inverted version of her with confusion "you always were with me and protecting me? How?" Karin asked, her voice trailed off into the waves of the everlasting expanse.

"That's a long story, but basically I was created the moment you were born, in a way, we are like twins, soul twins, not like the way you and Yuzu are." The inverted Karin said calmly, she looked at the empty expanse that resembled an ocean of waves. She continued "you weren't supposed to die. The moment that you did, an overwhelming force had stopped me from helping you, and even you going to Heuco Mundo right after your death is a mystery in itself." the being said while sighing.

The weight of the inverted Karin's words sank in, manifesting as a tear that traced a path down Karin's cheek. The emotional synchronization between them was almost poetic, a shared sentiment rippling through the ethereal fabric of their soul scape.

"Soul twin...overwhelming force? But I was just a kid going to school, living a normal life," Karin's voice wavered, her words tinged with the bitterness of a stolen youth too soon.

The inverted Karin stepped closer, her own tear glinting like a fallen star as she tenderly wiped away her counterpart's tear. "To me, you've always been my brave little princess," she said, her voice a melancholy whisper. "It saddens me that we both ended up like this, as for the force that caused this to happen, I'm not sure. But it's a very sinister force that even gives me chills."

Karin's eyes fell downward, a heavy mist of sorrow clouding her gaze. Her voice, tinged with a vulnerability that she could no longer contain, broke the silence. "I wonder what Dad, Ichigo, and Yuzu would think of me—now that I'm a monster." Her words were like fragile vessels, carrying her tears as they cascaded down her cheeks. Her heart pounded painfully against the walls of her chest, as if attempting to break free from the reality that imprisoned it.

The inverted Karin's eyes locked onto Karin's. The weight of her next words was palpable, held together by an intensity that seemed to transcend their shared soul. "You are NOT a monster, Karin."

Shaken, Karin looked back at her, her voice rising in a shout that seemed to pierce the tranquility of their surreal oceanic world. "What do you mean I'm not?! I've killed those...those Soul Reaper people things, and I can't even count how many hollows I've eaten!" Her tears, now unburdened by any pretense of control, streamed down her face like rain on a desolate landscape. The emotion in Karin's outburst resonated within the inverted Karin, causing her own soul to ache, as if a single nerve had been struck between them.

"That wasn't you," the inverted Karin responded, her voice a whispered echo in a sea of quietude. In response Karin gave her a dumb look, as if asking "are you serious?"

Inverse Karin chuckled at the look she was given "Let me clarify, I don't know what transpired during the attack on the Soul Reapers, because I also felt as if I had blacked out as well."

The labyrinth of Karin's emotions became even more confounding, and she asked softly, "So then what was it?"

The inverted Karin gazed down at the luminescent ocean beneath them, as if hoping its enigmatic depths would provide an answer. "I believe it has something to do with why you ended up in Hueco Mundo as a hollow in the first place, and the need to consume hollows is biological, your body thrives power to evolve to fill the void that's within you. All hollows experience this." she spoke, each word heavier than the last, as if pulled downward by the gravity of their shared dilemma.

Karin crossed her arms in protest. "This all makes no sense. And it doesn't mean that I like it."

Her voice softened, gaining an ethereal quality that seemed to ripple across the liquid expanse around them. "Be very careful, Karin. You need to find allies, people you can trust. Otherwise, you'll end up lonely, adrift in a sea of despair and regret."

"How am I going to do that? All hollows ever want to do is eat and betray each other." Karin responded with a sigh.

Inverse Karin smiled. "Not all hollows are devoid of all humanity."

The moment hung suspended, like a droplet on the edge of a leaf, ready to fall but clinging for just a moment longer. In this realm of duality, where light and dark coexisted in a tense harmony.

"But sadly that's not all." Inverse Karin's tone dropped an octave as she became more serious. The atmosphere felt dense, saturated with the emotional gravity of their circumstances. The inverted Karin's hand found its way to Karin's shoulder, gripping it lightly as she met her eyes. "Right now, our consciousnesses are in a tug-of-war for control over your body. This shouldn't have happened under the current circumstances. But somehow, you've pushed your limitations as a hollow and evolved into a Menos Grande, or rather to be specific, a Gillian. Perhaps my presence within you is an anomaly that allowed this transformation."

Karin's eyes widened, her face a canvas of disbelief and horror. "Wait, hold on—you're telling me I'm one of those towering skyscraper things that shoot Ceros like they're going out of style? Are you serious?!"

The irony of her transformation was as startling as it was horrifying. The revelation swept over her like a tide, its impact as disorienting as the shifting landscape of her soul scape. Here, in this abstract dimension of her inner self, Karin grappled with the inconceivable truth—a far cry from the girl she used to be, yet a transformation that somehow emanated from within her. She imagined a humorous scenario where she would accidentally step on Ichigo because of her height.

Ugh those things are so freaky! And now I'm one of them!? Ichigo and Dad would be so freaked out! Karin internally struggled with that fact, thinking she would always be like that now. Her silly facial expression mimicked the physical state of her thoughts.

The laughter of the inverted Karin reverberated through the luminescent ocean-scape like an echoing chime, uncanny yet hauntingly familiar. It held the multiple octaves of Karin's voice, woven with an ethereal resonance that seemed to stretch across dimensions. She then looked at Karin and regained a look of urgency.

"We've been like this for some time now. Our consciousness hadn't awakened till now. All hollows experience evolution, however, usually hollows have to combine into a singular soul to become a Menos Grande - many hollows don't because it destroys everything they used to be, creating a new soul entirely. That's not the case for us, and don't worry, there's also more evolution to a hollow than just a Gillian. A Gillian is the first stage, then Adjuchas, and finally Vasto Lorde." The inverted Karin announced her voice laced with sorrow. She continued. "And there's only one way to restore consciousness."

Karin's eyes, usually so defiant, flickered with a momentary hope. "What do we have to do?" she asked, almost breathlessly.

The inverted Karin's eyes dimmed as she looked downward, casting a fleeting shadow across her features like a shroud. "You must... fight me. Assert dominance over my soul and absorb my soul so that we may become one. If you don't, our souls will collapse, and we'll be forever lost," she said, her voice quivering as she stepped back, putting distance between them. Another tear escaped, this time falling into the iridescent ocean below, where it disappeared like a lost wish.

The words landed heavily on Karin, shattering her fledgling hope into fragments of despair. She swallowed, realizing she'd been holding her breath as if hoping to preserve the moment before her reality cracked open. "But I don't want to fight you, or absorb you. I just found out you're my soul twin!" Karin's voice broke, a dissonant chord in the symphony of their complex emotions.

"In a way, I'll still be with you. Our souls will be one, and you'll still be yourself." the inverted Karin tried to reassure her, but her own sadness undermined her words.

Karin's hands clenched and unclenched as if grappling with an invisible force. Her eyes misted, and her voice wavered, "I...I don't know why, but I feel a deep attachment to you, why should we have to do this it's not fair!"

The words hung in the air, heavier than any silence. It was an inexplicable bond, like the tether of two celestial bodies locked in a gravitational dance. They were two sides of the same coin, bound yet separated by the thin veil of their current existence. Fused by fate but split by circumstance, each felt the gravity of the decision that lay before them—a unity that promised completeness but at the cost of a profound loss.

"I know you do, Karin. But we must. Otherwise, both of us will be gone. I'd rather be completely one with you than not exist at all," the inverted Karin asserted, her words imbued with a resignation that edged toward resolve. Her pale lips curled into a fragile smile, a muted glow in the eerie, radiant landscape.

I wish there was another way. But sadly, it's the only option available, Another tear escaped the eyes of the Karin inversion.

As she extended her hand, a katana materialized from the mist of the surreal ocean, manifesting with an ethereal clarity. It was a mirror image of Karin's own sword, yet strikingly opposite, embodying the stark polarity of their existence. Where there should be black, there was white, and vice versa. Another version, the one Karin recognized as her own, floated before her, its hilt practically beckoning her grasp.

"Isn't that the sword I found?" Karin voiced her bewilderment. "How is it here?"

The inverted Karin shook her head, a touch of weariness clouding her eyes. "Took." She corrected. "You should pay more attention. You've been imprinting our souls into the weapon, and the blade continues crafting a blueprint from our essence with each passing moment that you spend with it and use it."

Gripping the hilt of the familiar katana, Karin drew it toward her, her other hand instinctively reaching for the scabbard. Her eyes met those of her inverted twin, and a wordless grief hung in the air between them.

"I don't get it entirely. But I also don't want to do this," Karin's voice trembled with an emotion too complex to name.

The inverted Karin appeared to wrestle with her own blend of sorrow and resignation. "I know. Me too, Karin. But you must come at me with the full intent to kill. It's the only way you can best me," she said, her voice balancing on a knife's edge of calm and heartache.

Karin's breaths grew deep and deliberate as she steeled herself, "Okay. But you better not be lying to me about still being with me somehow."

"I would never lie to you, Karin," came the haunting assurance from the inverted Karin. She unsheathed her mirrored blade with a swift pull, letting go of the scabbard which disintegrated into motes of light that dissolved into the void. Her form steadied, blade poised for the inevitable clash.

Karin hesitated for only a moment before pulling her own blade free from its sheath. As it emerged, the blade hummed—a haunting melody, as though the steel were not just singing, but yearning for the communion of battle. It was a sonic requiem for what was to come, an audible testament to their sorrow, and the irreversible gravitas of their choices. The two figures, mirror images in a surreal tableau, steeled themselves for a battle that was as much metaphysical as it was physical, a combat where the stakes were nothing less than their own existence.