042. Princess & Dragon Part 2: The Majestic

Tatsuki flattens the puppet students with contemptuous ease, but the Hollow soon turns the fight, letting the restrained boys hold her long enough to lodge a seed in her shoulder. Numb Chandelier relishes scripting a humiliating death for the girl who spoiled her fun, only for Tatsuki to sink her teeth into a probing tentacle in defiance. Enraged, the Hollow riddles her with seeds, dismisses her as unworthy of control, and forces the newly possessed Tatsuki to kick a horrified Orihime to the ground.

Pinned by pain, Orihime remembers cutting off her cherished long hair years earlier after a bully attacked it, how her brother's death left her isolated, and how Tatsuki's outstretched hand pulled her back and let her grow the hair out again as a symbol of trust. Thanking her friend for three years of protection and vowing to return it, she watches her flower hairpins split into six shafts of light that swirl into a shielding gale, slicing a tentacle away and leaving her upright as she warns the Hollow that she shows no mercy to anyone who harms Tatsuki.

Numb Chandelier possesses Tatsuki and turns her against Orihime. Tatsuki resists by biting the Hollow before being overwhelmed with seeds. A flashback recounts how Tatsuki befriended and protected a grieving Orihime. Orihime's hairpins awaken, manifesting six spirits and severing a tentacle.

Adapted within Episode 13, Flower and Hollow, the chapter is part of Volume 5's Agent of the Shinigami arc. It marks the awakening of Orihime's Shun Shun Rikka, and its flashback features her late brother, Sora Inoue.