Shikai Prequel: Stand In The Rain
Nowhere to run.
Seconds after her cry had shattered the unnatural stillness that heralded catastrophe, the blast thundered a large path across the earth. It was impossible not to get caught up in it. Her body lifted, flying back, torso hunched over. Shreds of red then white cloth spattered red flew in a myriad path outward.
Such immense power. Kei shut her eyes against the cresting waves, gathering the scattered remnants of her own reiatsu in an attempt to counterbalance the pressure. Push. Harder. Harder..now! Letting out a wild yell that was immediately swallowed up in the roar of the surge, she shoved back, throwing every ounce of strength she possessed in a single burst. Like a flame that grows into a raging wildfire, the tiny spark swelled, until it exploded in a cylindrical coil, twisting faster and faster around the darkness.
Kei at once able to draw breath into her lungs, thrust her palm forward. Sending off a powerful blast of pure reiryoku. To her surprise, she felt another wave-no, something else. Kagami! She thought with sudden renewed vigor, her reiatsu flared, burning brightly. Forcing her eyes open, she stared wildly ahead, catching full sight of the red and blue auras colliding-meshing together.
Fire and Water, she thought dazedly. The perfect tempering of the devouring flame and the passive roar of living water. Their combined attack wiped away everything that stood within its path, carving a deep trench in the earth as it pounded toward the Vasto Lordes. Strangely she saw it did not move, rather lifted its mane of ragged auburn colored locks to the sky, howling piercingly. Once. Twice. Three times. Almost like it was calling..
Moments later it was engulfed by their Reiryoku.
Throwing her arm over her face, Kei shut her eyes against the luminescence that imploded over the field. Glittering red embers gusted away from the center, burning darkly until they gave way to ash. Kagami half a field away, heaved his shoulders, exhaling deeply. Sazanami was in his hand, lowered but still glowing a pale blue like the sky. Kei then slid her gaze over to the crater left behind, eyes widening then with stunned realization.
"I-It's gone-?"
(*~*)
When Kei's warning had first broken over the field; Kagami had yelled at Kazeatari to take Takara and go. Swiftly she had complied, wrapping an arm about the uncertain blonde's waist and setting off in a burst of Shindou.
They had traveled far, passing the border between the South and West in a moment. The current of the Wind kept them at an even, steady pace, the landscape of dreamlike ruined cityscapes and open grassy fields became an unending blur.
But in the brief space of a heartbeat...
The world tilted.
The air became poisoned thick with vile malaise.
Kazeatari had half turned, the ornate folds fanned out over her shoulder. "Kami-!"
Takara had only a second to realize the blood flowing in thick, viscous streams belonged to the woman carrying her. "KAZE-!" Light exploded all around them. Momentarily blinded, Takara felt the scream rip from her mouth, her side erupting in unbearable pain. Once she thought she heard Kazeatari call her.
Faintly.
Before they collided heavily into something.
Then silence. A long moment passed before Takara's head stopped spinning, the world seemed like a myriad of black spots each shimmering and fading into themselves before the world righted itself again. "Kaze-!" Takara whispered, her legs propelling her torso forward until an aching throb made her gasp aloud.
It had been an unconscious gesture, pressing her left arm to her stomach, but now she realized what it had been. My arm..my arm is shattered-! Her horrified gaze took in the splintered and gashed state of the skin of her forearm. She felt nauseated just looking at it.
Then she heard a step. The grass bending beneath a footfall.
Another one~!
Her eyes traveled up to the bull-masked creature with great curved horns the color of aged ivory. It was terrible, so horrendously frightening that Takara hadn't seen Kazeatari lying there, until the Hollow's humanoid formed leg viciously kicked her unconscious body forward.
"Kaze!" The pain she felt melted away into the distance, scrambling to her feet, Takara ignored her spinning head, spacing her shaking legs apart, her eyes defiant on the creature. It was true..she was scared, facing the ancient Hollow. Briefly she thought of the story Keiko had regaled to her. Generations twenty to sixteen were Vasto Lordes. She had never seen one save for in Soul Society textbooks. Gritting her teeth, the grating sound they made filled her eardrums as they scraped together.
This wasone.
The fear that at first Takara had refused to give into, came hurtling back full force. Digging deep into her psyche, tearing at the foundations of her shaky courage. What am I..to face this? her mind cried in terror. I'm nothing! Nothing but trash from the Rukongai-! I should have died-I should've...
The scabbard stuck through her sash pulsed demandingly. Hareto..sora?
"..Haretosora isn't lacking in capacity of spirit, I should know since I wielded your sword once a long time ago."
That's right. Takara's good hand slid around the pommel of the blade. This sword...once belonged to the Element of Fire. Her trembling fingers curled around the slender blue hilt. And now it's mine. "Sashikomu, Haretosora!" she slashed outward, her right hand folded around the hilt withdrawing it awkwardly out. A wave of light erupted from the blade's edge. Like its name, the clear night emitted no darkness, rather...cut it away.
(*~*)
It was gone-? As Kei's mind quickly, though numbingly processed this. She soon realized whom was missing. "Where are Kazeatari and Takara?" she demanded, more sharply than she had meant to. Kagami sheathed Sazanami after a minute scan revealed the Vasto Lordes had fled. "I told Kazeatari to take Takara away and she did just that. Why? ..Is something wrong?"
"You fool!" Kei snarled."You played right into its hands! That's what it wanted to do all along! To separate us!"
"What?" Confusion swam in his sea-blue eyes.
The ground shook deep beneath the surface, resonating with the sheer enormity of the power being unleashed miles away.
She spun around, looking sharply toward the West. "That's-!"
Kazeatari's spirit pressure and that's not...the same one.
It was another...another Vasto Lordes.
(*~*)
The sword clanged and was repulsed violently. Takara's good arm absorbed the shock, equilibrium lost, she stumbled back a few steps. Wincing as she was forced to counter the Vasto Lordes advance. Strange..keeping her eyes on it warily, she moved as one would in a sparring match. It could've annihilated us both in an instant and yet...it's simply repelling my attacks. What is its true motive?
Her mind distracted, left an opening.
She lost her grip on Haretosora, the blade flying from her hand. Takara let out a muffled yelp, her slashed hand curling, blood gushing from the thick swath the Vasto Lordes had dealt to her flesh. Breathing hard, she crawled back. Eyes locked with fearful comprehension on the hideous man/monster. For that's what they were. Hollows were once human too.
Once upon a long time ago..she saw the sunlight cast a wicked glint along the jagged edge of the tarnished kama sickle. This thing was a human who was forced to tread the path of darkness. Losing its humanity to wear the mask. Takara felt tears spring up at the injustice of it all. Was it true? Had the original intention of the Shinigami been to cross every single spirit onto their next incarnation? Why then! Why! Her heart ached within her chest for the souls of the Hollows they had seen. They were condemned to this! Why did Soul Society fail them?
The shadow of the misshapen creature fell over her, Takara raised her scraped and bloodied face upward, tears shining in her eyes. No was going to save her...blue eyes widened. A silhouette blocked the sun out. A slender figure in billowing robes slashed sideways, a long narrow linked chain shot out, wrapping about the sickle, yanking it violently from the creature's grasp.
Who-
"Takara!" The figure cried.
"Keiko!" she glimpsed the chain bending to dip and shimmy in the air before being crooked sharply back, the shining silver blade of Getsu-ten flew forward, its sharply angled dive plunging it deep into the jugular of the Vasto Lordes. The creature screamed, muscular body writhing, clawed hands ripping at the glowing tang. Keiko landed behind her, jerking the blade out in one flowing motion, "First Phase, Mugetsu!" she yelled.
Isn't..
Darkness blossomed from the tip, flowing outward to encompass the Vasto Lordes.
No moon the void of the night of the new moon. But then...
The Hollow screeched in horrific agony as the wave of darkness began to surround it.
Mugetsu is a defensive attack. So how-?
But Takara never got to finish her unspoken thought for the next moment, a dull, reverberating ring of sound blasted apart Keiko's attack. They both turned sharply, Keiko's nostrils flared, Getsu-ten rose halfway. But it was too late.
Freed from the cage of the void, the Vasto Lordes fled, joining the other-the lion.
"Dammit!" Keiko spat, watching them vanish in a crackling blur. "Sonido!" Heaving her shoulders, the Fire Kouseitan'i glanced to Takara, "come on. Let's see what we can do for your wounds."
(*~*)
Resting his eyes against the brightness of the sunlight, Kanzaki Karasu rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. Perched high above the small clearing amidst the rocky plain. They were nearer the sea and could feel it. Smiling he glimpsed the female half of the Retsu twins, chasing the smaller, dark-haired mirror image of herself around the boulders, twirling a stick like a baton.
Hana had nearly caught up to him when Rizu's sharp voice stopped them both dead in their tracks. Carrying an armful of firewood, dark hair pulled high and even darker eyes surveying their guilty expressions. "What is the meaning of this?"
Kanzaki winced even though he wasn't the one being scolded. Gods knew he had been on the receiving end of many verbal reprimands from his former-
"Don't move." The voice was coolly female. Well-modulated so as to waste as little syllables as possible. And he knew it. "Botan?" Kanzaki whispered, feeling the Tanto dagger slide closer against his pulse.
"Don't move, traitor." The Stealth Force officer hissed.
(*~*)
Kagami arrived with the few salvageable items from their campsite. Takara glanced at the charred satchels with remorse, her stomach grumbling moments later. "Sorry." she offered apologetically, her brow knitting together in embarrassment. "Don't be," Kei said easily, kneeling at Kazeatari's side. The Wind wielder had sustained burns to her left side as well as fractured ribs from a Balas.
Kagami ran his free hand through his hair, the other held the straps of the bags. "I suppose it's ridiculous to ask if everyone is alright-?"
Kei wiped the back of her hand across her sweating bangs. "More like, we survived." She added as an afterthought, "barely. What could it mean?" Her lavender eyes drifted down to Kazeatari's sealing wounds. The Wind wielder still hadn't regained consciousness. "Two Vasto Lordes..the lion was from the Twentieth Generation, the other from the Seventeenth. Kagami...it was like they were organized."
Takara looked between them, from one to the other. "B-but, that isn't possible! Hollows don't band together-!"
"So, says Soul Society." Kagami shot her quick look. "There are a lot of things Soul Society doesn't know about Hollows-the Assian ones in particular."
Kei rose from her kneeling position. "They hardly know anything about Assiah period." Wiping her hands on a handkerchief taken from the pocket of her hakama, she looked to Takara, "how are your wounds?"
As wounded as she was, Takara had insisted upon Kazeatari being checked over first. Now, she colored some as even Kagami glanced her way. "Um, no worse...but um Keiko-san, you're hurt too!"
Kei studied the flayed skin of her arms, the blood-caked flesh looking raw, glistened sickly in the afternoon light. "This?" Her sleeves were splotched, torn. "Oh, this is nothing."
"B-but, but-wha-what is...?" Takara's eyes had been drawn to an area farther afield where the air currents rippled, flowing outward as if forming something. Kei reached for Getsu-ten's silver and black hilt, her gaze following Takara's.
The reishii concentrated space began to condense into a set of round shoji doors.
"No.." Kei whispered, her body rooted to the spot.
A group of ten figures clad in the tight black uniforms of Shinobi stepped forth silently from the light spilling outward from the open doors.
"Please, Gods..no." Lavender eyes closed painfully as the slim onyx-eyed leader strode purposefully forward.
"Shaolin!" Kagami cried in recognition and sadness.
Shaolin-now SoiFong, spared them not even a cursory glance. "Lay down your arms, escape is futile."
-To be continued..
AN: submissions for Hollow ocs are welcome now. (Adjuchas and Vasto Lordes) Name, power, appearance, weapon etc. :) Spanish names are a must.
Hollow chart:
Generations 20 to 16 are Vasto Lordes
Generations 15 to 11 are Adjuchas
Generations 10 to 5 are Menos Grande
Generations 4 to 1 are regular Hollows
Thanks for reading! :)
No flames-haters-stupid comments!
Reviews appreciated! ^^
