Rukia gives a tip!

After nearly an hour of sparring, Rukia's mask hadn't so much as cracked against Hiyori. "...okay, I gotta ask, how are you doing that?" Ichigo finally asked after he started taking a break from sparring with Love, having only gotten his Hollowfication time to six seconds at a time.

"Doing what?" Rukia asked, pausing her own spar with Hiyori, and looking at Ichigo innocently, or at least as innocently as she could look while wearing the Hollow Mask.

"I think he's referring to the fact that you're basically doing the Hollowfication thing as easily as Mashiro did," Hiyori stated dryly, huffing at the spar being paused.

"Yeah, that," Ichigo replied. "Actually, how long could she maintain her Hollow Mask from the get go?"

"Four hours~!" Mashiro replied cheerfully from where she was lounging.

"... seriously?" Ichigo gaped at her.

"Yeah, she apparently had some kind of insane talent at it, much like Rukia here," Shinji remarked.

"... actually, I don't think it's talent," Rukia replied, shrugging as she fingered the mask idly. "I just told my Hollow to give me her power, and she obliged, so it's not difficult to draw on it at all."

She paused as everyone just... Stared at her. "...I'm... I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" Love asked slowly. "You just... Asked? And it obliged?"

"I didn't say asked, I said told. You know, like giving an order?" Rukia tilted her head.

"Same for me~!" Mashiro replied. "...you guys didn't know you could do that?"

"No!" Hiyori snapped at her, stomping over to her. "You didn't think to say anything while we were wasting our time, learning how to just pull it out ourselves?"

Mashiro puffed her cheeks out as she met Hiyori's glare. "I thought it was obvious!" she replied defensively. "They literally talk about who the ruler and servant is, and we have to establish dominance to control their powers! I just figured yours were being particularly stubborn assholes or something!"

"... unbelievable... Months of our lives, gone, and never coming back," Hiyori groaned, face palming.

"...and that, is a wonderful example of why communication is so important," Rukia sniggered, still wearing the mask. At this point, Ichigo was pretty sure she was just rubbing it in.

Regardless, he decided to try it, and closed his eyes. "Hey, White!" he shouted into his mind.

"Oh? Feeling chatty all of a sudden, King?" White cackled in reply.

"As your King, I command you to lend me your power!" Ichigo got straight to the point.

"Hahaha, see, you're starting to get it! Done!" White chuckled, and Ichigo felt the spirit energy flow into him, and he put the mask on again. This time, there was no difficulty in keeping it on.

"What do you know? It worked," Ichigo remarked. "Guess we can skip that form of the training then?"

"Yes, yes, render our whole damn process obselete, why don't you both?" Hiyori huffed.

"Hey, don't beat yourselves up too much. Not like this shit came with a manual, you guys were breaking new ground," Rukia tried to placate her.