It had been a few weeks since the captain's meeting and the declaration of war. The Soul Society was on a constant state of full alert as preparations for the coming battles were made. Places that should have been places where one could relax and take a load off became training grounds, and that included the clearing by the Squad 13 barracks Torin and Rida were now training in
"You're open!" Torin grunted as he swung his practice sword and nailed Rida in the side "that makes 10 wins for me today, 0 for you, you really need to work harder if you wanna survive."
Rida grimaced "It's not my fault, I was never that great on using only zanjitsu, I'm better at hakuda and kido." He said in an attempt to salvage some pride.
Torin put his sword away "ok then let's do some hakuda then, you're no challenge in zanjitsu so it's not like I'm getting any real practice in that style against you." He said as he put a leg back and brought up his arms to guard.
Rida smiled "you're winning streak is about to end!" he cried joyfully as he launched from standing still into a 360 roundhouse kick. Torin managed to block right before he connected, but he let his leg bounce off and shifted his weight into a spinning kick from the other side.
Torin stepped back from the second kick "when did he get this fast?" he wondered as he was forced on the defensive for the first time in all of his battles with Rida.
Rida smirked as he put his leg down and moved into a step-behind side kick towards Torin's retreating form. Torin used his right arm to knock the kick aside and throw Rida off balance, seeing an opening he brought his left arm around for a reverse punch. To his shock Rida gave a slight chuckle and fell forward to land on his hands and dodge the punch. Rida then brought both legs up to launch a flurry of backward kicks from a handstand position.
Torin had never seen a move like this before, he got kicked three times before he recovered enough to guard, grabbing one of Rida's legs he attempted to throw him over his back, but then Rida, in midair, grabbed Torin's robe, twisted in the air, and landed on his feet while he threw Torin to the ground instead.
Torin grunted on the impact with the ground, but recovered instantly and scythed his legs around to try and trip Rida, again his attempts were thwarted as Rida jumped back out of range.
Torin continued his motion and pushed off the ground with his hands, in doing so he barely managed his feet back under him, then he dashed at Rida before he fell from his awkward position. Torin let himself fall forward, put his hands on the ground, and used his momentum to bring the rest of his body up and over into an axe kick.
"Who's open now?" Rida said as he knocked the powerful but predictable kick aside and used his other arm to throw a punch at Torin, who now had fallen flat on his back. His blow stopped an inch from Torin's throat, his hand shaped into a spearhead, if he had continued he would have crushed Torin's windpipe.
Torin stared cross-eyed at the killing blow that would have finished him in a real fight. "Who are you and what have you done with Rida?" he asked with a slight laugh as he got to his feet
"Not talking smack anymore are ya?" Rida smirked, he was about to continue when an explosion over by the barracks interrupted him.
Torin and Rida shot a glance at each other, grabbed their zanpakto, and ran to the site of the explosion. When they got there, they saw their comrades fighting a desperate battle against three huge hollows. One of the hollows noticed Torin and Rida's entrance and started to move towards them. It looked like a cross between an armadillo and a porcupine, it had scales covering it's whole body and spikes on it's back. Its mask was covered in bone spikes curving backwards and it had two long devil horns that curved forward along the sides of it's head like those of a bull.
"It's huge!" Rida exclaimed "I didn't think they came this big!"
Torin drew his zanpakto "I'd call it a Menos Grande but they're supposed to be more like skyscrapers, this thing isn't that big."
The hollow charged with speed that no creature it's size should possess, it aimed it's horns to try and impale Rida, but Torin knocked it's charge aside with a swing from his zanpakto in the nick of time.
The hollow landed on all fours and it's spikes shifted to face Torin and Rida
"Uh oh" Torin and Rida said in unison as they both turned to run. The hollow fired a hailstorm of spikes that, despite their best efforts, Torin and Rida could not dodge.
Rida collapsed, the tendons in his legs had been severed by the attack. Torin had fared just as poorly, he sank to his knees, spikes protruding from his arms, he had realized he couldn't dodge at the last moment and crossed his arms in front of him to guard his organs. Unfortunately one spike had pierced through both arms and trapped them together, making it so that he couldn't move them to attack.
The hollow turned Rida and opened it's mouth and began to charge a red ball of energy
"Crap! A cero!" Torin said, gritting his teeth against the pain "Rida get up we need to move!"
Rida tried to push himself up, but with severed tendons he was unable to stand "I can't, my legs won't move!"
Torin struggled to his feet as the hollow fired the cero. Acting on impulse he threw himself in front of Rida to take the cero himself and save his friend. He closed his eyes and waited for the end.
"Bakudo 39! Enkonsen!" Aurora said
Torin opened his eyes to see Aurora in front of him, she put out her hand and a rod of light appeared then it spun like the blade of a fan and blocked the cero.
"Aurora! What are you doing here?" Torin asked "oh and sorry about the date, I didn't know I'd be sent on patrol like that, can we reschedule?"
Aurora shook her head "the first thing you should say is 'thank you for saving me,' THEN ask what I'm doing here, and save the date for after we all survive this! But since you asked, yes, we can reschedule." She said "when do you think we should try for?"
"well now I have patrol duty on Saturday, and I usually don't get back till Sunday night, so Monday maybe?" Torin said after some thought.
"That day I'm on duty, how about Wednesday?" Aurora replied
After a bit of working out the day and time, they agreed on Friday, then started talking about what to do on the date. The hollow looked like it was about to have a stroke. "I'm RIGHT HERE, stop ignoring me!" it snapped.
Torin and Aurora looked at it disapprovingly "we're talking about important plans here, you need to wait, and since when do hollows talk anyway?" they said in unison, then when back to their discussion.
"Important plans? You're rescheduling a date! How is that more important than fighting me?" the hollow yelled in almost comical rage.
"You're just a regular hollow, we've all killed so many of you that it doesn't matter when we kill you." Aurora said
"r-r-regular!?" the hollow sputtered "I'm a Adhuchas level Menos Grande! I'm no lesser hollow!"
"Adhuchas?" Torin asked "never heard of it, you're just making it up to make us fight aren't you?"
The hollow fell silent for a minute "you know what? F*ck you." It said, then it fired another cero, more powerful than the last one.
Aurora cast Enkonsen to block the cero again, but this time her shield gave way and the cero exploded in her face. Aurora got back up and dusted herself off "fine then have it your way, it doesn't matter what you are, the moment you attacked Torin you sealed your fate."
The hollow laughed "oh so scary, I'm gonna get killed by some guy's girlfriend, what is a girl like you gonna do?"
Aurora put one hand out in front of her "this… Hado 33! Sokatsui!" she said as she fired a large ball of blue energy into the hollow, the energy exploded and hurt the hollow, but it's scales protected it.
Aurora frowned, she'd need a concentrated attack to crack the armor before she could kill the hollow. She changed her hand from facing palm out to pointing with two fingers at the hollow "Hado 4, Byakurai." She said, this time a concentrated ray of lighting shot from her fingertips and drilled through the hollow's scales, through it's armor, and out the other side. The hollow screamed in pain as it's broken scales began to fall off and expose tender skin underneath.
The hollow's screams turned into a roar of rage as it began to fire yet another cero, again increasing it's power.
Normally one would think that when the attack broke her guard once and now it was stronger that Aurora would be concerned about the cero. This was not the case however.
"Hado 73, Sonen Sokatsui" Aurora said without emotion. From her hand erupted two blasts of the same energy as her Hado 33, but much more intense. The first blast met the cero and canceled it out, the second reduced the hollow to ash in a huge explosion.
Meanwhile Torin and Rida were staring at Aurora slack-jawed. "when… did she get so powerful?" Rida asked, awestruck "she just kicked that thing's ass into next week without even trying!"
Torin was no less shocked, he had never seen such powerful Kido, even Aurora's low level Byakurai spell was exponentially stronger than any he had seen before.
Also during this time the other squad members had overcome the other two hollows with some difficulty, wounded soul reapers lie everywhere, and the barracks had seen better days. The attack wasn't large scale, but the barracks would take weeks to repair at best.
Aurora's serious aggressive attitude dissipated as she turned to Torin and Rida "are you two ok?" she asked shyly
Rida and Torin blinked, then said "uh yeah, just a few scratches, we're fine."
Aurora went over and proceeded to use Kido to heal their wounds. For all the damage they received, none of their injuries were life-threatening.
Fully healed, Torin and Rida went to help clean up the mess and treat their injured squad-mates as best they could.
That night Torin, and Rida sat down on cushions to eat dinner and rest up, they had been working all day and we're exhausted. Fortunately, despite the fact that many soul-reapers had been injured, there were no fatalities.
"Ugh I'm beat, that battle went horribly for us!" Rida groaned "and if Aurora hadn't stepped in we'd be dead! It makes me feel really useless!"
Torin was silent, a event so odd that Rida had to speak up again. "What? Not taking the bait and insulting me? You're no fun!" he whined.
"Sorry" Torin said "I'm just not in the mood."
This made Rida frown "hey what's wrong? This isn't like you." He asked, his concern clear in his voice.
Torin sighed, "it's just that you're right, we were worse than useless back there, Aurora had to come in and save us because we were so weak. We need to get stronger, much stronger."
Rida smiled "Oh is that all? Not a problem! One day we'll both get our Shikai and then we'll really kick some ass!" he said
"exactly" Torin agreed
"huh?" Rida asked, confused by Torin's statement
"Tomorrow, me and you, we're both going to train and get our Shikai, even if it kills us." Torin said ominously.