How to Get Shikai in HOLLOW: Squad, Spirit and Release

Start as a Soul Reaper and follow Officer Riku’s tutorial until you receive Join a Squad. If you have not reached that instruction, complete Riku’s starter quests first.

1. Continue Riku’s dialogue to read the travel instructions.
2. Press U to open World Travel.
3. Select Soul Society, then walk into the portal.
4. Follow the quest marker to the Head Captain in Seireitei and choose your service Squad.

The quest lists Squad Membership as its reward. Squad Three is one choice used on this route; follow up with the captain of whichever Squad you join. For help navigating with markers, see locations and World Travel.

Find your Squad Captain and press E at the Talk prompt. Continue until the captain confirms your Officer status and directs you to contact your Zanpakuto spirit through meditation. The key dialogue begins, “You’re an Officer now.”

Once you receive that guidance, press N to meditate and wait for the challenge transition. Use the captain’s instruction as your progression checkpoint; choosing a Squad alone does not complete this step.

If you remain in meditation without entering the encounter, use the waiting and transition advice below.

Wait for the entrance sequence to finish in the blue grid arena. Your opponent is a white-haired, white-robed sword wielder with a SHIKAI SPIRIT health bar across the top of the screen.

A practical approach is to keep the spirit within sword range and maintain pressure:

• Chain close-range sword attacks. Use your Asauchi as the foundation of the fight.
• Mix in Diving Impale and Blink Cut if equipped. Watch their hotbar cooldowns and return to sword attacks between uses.
• Pursue the spirit when it moves away. Close the gap and resume attacking instead of letting the fight remain at a distance.

Diving Impale and Blink Cut are useful options for this approach, not mandatory unlock requirements or a prescribed stat build. Check the skill requirements and equipment guide if you want to prepare them before meditating.

Continue until the spirit is defeated, then stay in the arena and read the dialogue that follows.

The post-battle dialogue gives you your weapon’s name and release phrase. Read both before closing it.

1. Remain in the challenge arena after the fight.
2. Read the dialogue through the instruction to say the release words.
3. Open Roblox chat in the upper-left corner.
4. Type and send the phrase given to your character.

For a character whose dialogue says “Scatter... Ginhime!”, the successful chat input is Scatter Ginhime, without the ellipsis or exclamation mark. Use your own dialogue’s words and name if they differ; Scatter Ginhime is not a universal Shikai command.

Send the phrase here before waiting for the return to town.

After sending the release phrase, let the sword movement, seated animation, and screen fade finish. Your character returns to town.

Check for these completion signs:

• PARTIAL SHIKAI UNLOCKED appears.
• The first hotbar slot changes from Asauchi to the name learned after the fight—for example, Ginhime for the release phrase above.

This completes the Partial Shikai unlock. Press G to activate your weapon form once available. To look up the ability options, their moves, or the reroll menu, continue to the Shikai list and moves guide.

First, check that you have reached your own captain’s Officer meditation guidance. Then allow time for meditation to progress.

Treat about an hour as a rough waiting estimate, not a fixed timer. The requirement may be met earlier.

If you are still stuck after waiting, try changing servers. Changing servers may allow entry to the Shikai encounter with meditation progress retained.

For the shared meditation controls and further transition guidance, see how meditation works.