The Crack of the Other Side
#10: Use the Force, D-Roy!
Ayako yawned, having grown bored of watching the motionless body for nearly three full minutes. She could sense a lot more interesting scuffles breaking out all across the relative ghost town. Takeshi, Tsutomu and Atsushi all seemed to have found Arrancar which they thought were a match for them. The nearest was Tsutomu. The Soul Reaper fluffed her gorgeous pale blue hair and released it from its binds. She had finished with the funny little Hollow, so why not? Hugging her knees in midair, she swiveled her head to watch Tsutomu struggling to fend off the Arrancar he had chosen.
Mmm...Not bad, she thought, primping her hair some more. Could do without that nasty horn, but overall...
A crackling buzz sounded behind her. She stood quickly and jumped back, brushing shiny locks out of her face in annoyance. Glancing up, she came face to face with...Well, actually, she came face to chest with another of the warriors in white. Craning her neck back even further, Shawlong's face came into view.
Eww...He's so old. Doesn't even have nice hair to make up for it either!
Grimmjow's right hand man took the situation at a glance. He drew in a sharp breath upon seeing D-Roy's body, crumpled lifelessly in the splintered wood and aluminum paneling of what remained of the van. A pool of blood had begun to congeal around his head. Shawlong grimaced at the sight of the ghastly wound and looked towards the tip of Ayako's blade. As he suspected, blood was crimsoning it as well. It was unclear to him how long he'd been lying there. Probably not very long, if his body still remained. But that was only if D-Roy was truly dead. The thought gave him a small glimmer of hope for his foolish friend's survival.
But still he struggled to contain the rage steadily building up inside him at the thought of the boy being slaughtered. He allowed some to escape in the form of a frosty glare Ayako's way.
"You seem to have just killed one of my companions." He deftly liberated Tijereta from its scabbard, holding it half-raised already, "You'll find that I am not fond of murderers..."
"Well, you'll find that I don't like Hollows that much, so there." Ayako held up Miryoku Mukidori once more. She grinned fiendishly as the deep blue light spread from its source once again, knowing that no man could escape the secret power of her zanpakuto, "Now, why don't you get comfortable? I don't usually talk to older men, but...I think this time I'll make an exception!"
What the hell is wrong with this one? Shawlong raised one eyebrow as the light spread all around. He was starting to suspect that the Soul Reaper was flirting with him...Flirting and threatening at the same time. Flirting with death? he chuckled inwardly.
A beat passed. Ayako smiled and swung her weapon down at her side, as if a child dangling a soft harmless toy. Shawlong's confused eyebrows switched places. The light her weapon had generated seemed to have had no effect, but she wasn't aware of it. She was either mad, or was in possession of an ability that gave her great confidence.
Except that this ability, whatever it was, had not done a thing to Shawlong.
Shifting his stance, Shawlong decided to end the annoyance.
Ayako was shocked as the fizzle of her enemy's Sonído sounded again, this time by her left ear. Turning, she had no time to raise her sword before Shawlong's strike reached her.
SHHHANG!
Shawlong blinked. A third sword had entered the space between them in a split second.
"It's easy to kill an insect, Arrancar," the owner of the sword said. His voice was low and menacing despite how calm it was. The Soldado glanced up, scrutinizing the dark-skinned face of a second Soul Reaper. His eyes were invisible for the glare off of a pair of thin-rimmed glasses. Shawlong withdrew his sword, stepping back for some distance from the new combatant. "But you shouldn't pick on someone weaker than yourself."
"Hmm...You're right." One look told him that this other Soul Reaper far outstripped Ayako. He had the stance of a practiced swordsman, his zanpakuto never once appearing to be separate from his arm, "And who would you be?"
"I am called Masaru Tenshikira." The Soul Reaper nodded, "I am the third seat of the 2nd Company. This." He pointed out the woman, quivering in place and staring watery-eyed at the Arrancar that had come inches from splitting her in half, "Is Ayako Akashingo, a fifth seat under me. And what might your name be, Arrancar?"
"Shawlong." The Arrancar was tensed like a spring. This Masaru's civility gave him mixed feelings; from experience he knew that Soul Reapers often fought (and killed) for sport. What was this one's motive? He seemed to be stepping in to defend his subordinate from death, but the introductions pointed to the other option.
He shrugged it off. Given that their two societies were currently at war, he scolded himself for even questioning why the third seat was attacking.
"Why...W-How..?" Ayako sunk to her knees, clutching her sword, "Why didn't it w-work..?! Mukidori is s-supposed to work on all m-men who see it..!"
"Shut up," Masaru dismissed her, eyes never leaving Shawlong's but missing the thoughts shifting and moving stealthily behind them. "Go and finish off that other one already."
"But...he's already--"
"No it isn't," he snapped back. "Foolish girl. You ought to know by now that Arrancar disperse, just as any other Hollow would. He's been lying there for four minutes and twenty three seconds. He's either alive, or a freak of nature."
Shawlong slipped a glance D-Roy's way, catching a small movement on the part of the downed Arrancar. He was alive then? It didn't seem possible; he had been pierced through the skull. He had never known any person to survive a wound of that nature.
"A...Oww..." D-Roy came to, blinking rivulets of red out of his right eye, "What...owww..."
Pushing himself up onto his hands and knees, he felt a wave of dizziness and toppled backwards onto his butt. Shaking his head, he pawed at the blood-soaked bandages wrapping the gap in his mask and then stared at his hands, as if wondering how all the blood got there.
His eyes widened as he suddenly got an image of his last recollection-a katana blade disappearing beyond the field of view above his right eye.
"Aughhhh...Again..?" He found some strength and promptly used it to stand, wobbling on his feet a bit at first. Spotting his zanpakuto lying on the ground nearby, he crouched down for it.
WHAPP!
"Motherf--" Ayako's foot sent him careening towards a chunk of brick wall that had survived the Arrancar's cero bombardment. This time, his mask did a fair job of protecting him. A sharp clack rang out, and he caught himself before he fell over, "Ouch! Couldn't ya shee I wasn't ready?!"
He blinked in surprise to see her moaning and clutching her foot on the pavement nearby. He gave a crooked grin as he figured out what happened.
"Hah!" he snickered, using one hand to hold up his sheathed sword and the other to apply some pressure to his skull wound. "Shervesh you right, you mean bitch!"
Ayako's eyes as she looked up from her sore leg were so vicious that D-Roy had a little fear put into him. She limped backwards a step, then lifted her sword. The blue glow began to radiate outwards again.
"No one calls me that," she seethed. "Now take a good long look, why don't you..."
"D-Roy!" Shawlong's voice transformed from soft and subtle to a hoarse roar, "Close your eyes!"
Whether it was to simply obey the other Arrancar's authoritative tone or due to D-Roy realizing what the outburst had meant, D-Roy listened and screwed his eyes shut. He was cast into darkness, completely blind to what his opponent was up to.
Until he felt a sharp pain begin to pierce his chest.
"GYAAH!" Thankfully for D-Roy, he possessed a sharp set of reflexes. And he used them, zipping straight up and avoiding the brunt of Ayako's sword thrust. He hovered somewhere above the ruined part of the building, panting and alarmed.
Ayako turned her fury towards Shawlong, still staring Masaru down.
"Hey!" she shrieked. "You're not supposed to get involved, old man! I'm fighting the little guy and you can just butt out!"
"Old man"...? Shawlong felt his face becoming a bit uglier with annoyance. I'm not...thirty...plus thirty-eight...add ten, maybe fifteen, for time as a Hollow...
"Speaking doesn't count as being involved..." he pointed out, his voice back to one of non-urgency. Masaru chuckled, seeming amused by the banter.
"Indeed." The Soul Reaper glared down at his subordinate, "Well? I still see an Arrancar in your field. Deal with him."
"Y-yes, sir..." Ayako huffed, throwing her head back to remove voluptuous hair from her face. "So." She focused on D-Roy once more, "You're not gonna cooperate for me, are you? Well, that's okay. I can do the hard way."
How am I supposed to fight someone if I can't look at them?! D-Roy's chest was thumping with a heightened sense of peril, She nearly had me back there...If not for my special power-
"W-Waah!" D-Roy yelped as another near-miss raked his back. Before the sword bit him too deep he broke away, swinging an unaimed kick backwards at where he guessed his foe might be. He struck only air, "Dammit! I can't fight like thish!"
"Works for me!" D-Roy jerked in shock at the cheerful voice in his ear. He bolted away, breathing heavily.
I've never used Pesquisa mid-fight before... D-Roy came to a stop in a place that he imagined was behind something. Or rather, he hoped was behind something, I guess I'll have to learn right now.
Gaaaah... He shivered, She's gonna kill meeeee...!
Oh, no she isn't..! He was forced to scold himself. With a snarl pulling at his lips, his thought continued, I ain't getting killed by some Soul Reaper! If I wait long enough, she'll come right to me. And when she attacks, I can tell when she's about to hit me. Besides... He peeked out from a narrow crack in his right eyelids, but then shut them tight out of fear of being paralyzed again, I can hear, and I got Pesquisa...I got this...
"Come out, come out, funny little Hollow~!" Ayako giggled and swished her sword back and forth, twirling it playfully. He had flitted somewhere inside the destroyed end of the theater, but she didn't really wish to follow. It was dirty down there. And as stupid as the scrawny guy seemed she still didn't think him incapable of setting up an ambush.
"I...AM NOT... A HOLLOOOOOOOW!"
A cone of red energy obliterated the roof D-Roy had been cowering under before, zooming straight for Ayako. Letting out a peep of surprise, she stepped swiftly out of the way, feeling a bit faint as the heat on the edge of the blast whooshed by her.
"Oof..." She caught herself in mid-air as she was pushed back by the huge force of the attack. She turned in time to see D-Roy, his bandages shifted so that they formed an improvised blindfold, rushing out of the crater behind the theater and charging in her general direction. Raising her sword, she parried a hand thrust that had found its way to her by sheer dumb luck, then ducked under D-Roy's rapid flailing of his sword.
"Enh! Shtupid...fighting blind..!" D-Roy quickly realized that he was attacking the sky and cast about, his head weaving in the air slightly like a snake trying to lock on to a warm-bodied critter. His field of view was black, and he could at times vaguely sense Ayako as a blueish light. But there were a lot of other blue lights as well, and some greener or whiter or even a few that had hints of yellows. Making a one-eighty, he picked up on Shawlong and Masaru, their spiritual pressures' brightness all but flooding out that area of the sky. He spun right as he noticed that corner of his awareness glow slightly.
Then, he felt a pinprick as Ayako thrust at him again. Expecting it somewhat better this time, D-Roy contorted himself away and threw a hard punch in the direction the sword had come. He was rewarded with a squeak and a grunt.
Ayako staggered, surprised that the Arrancar could figure out her sneak attacks and even respond accordingly. A bruise began to stain the right side of her ribs where D-Roy's fist had glanced off of them. Even a near-miss from one of these beasts really hurt! She shuddered to think of what a direct strike would do to someone without hierro...
"You're...over..." D-Roy swept his head around again, more confident now that the method seemed to be getting him results. A conspicuous light brightened up the space to his left, "There!"
He's just sniffing around for me... Ayako wrinkled her pert nose, Ewww.
Ayako saw D-Roy coming and waited until he had wound back the arm clutching his zanpakuto. As the blade swooshed in, its trajectory a complete guess, the Soul Reaper pounced. Parrying it effortlessly, she gave D-Roy shock as he swept his foot out low expecting some legs to trip up...and felt nothing.
Balancing by both hands on her blade's handle, she swung herself up and over the Arrancar's head. Now behind her confused enemy, she whipped her sword back around and opened a new gash on his back.
"Y-Yoww!" D-Roy scuttled away, his head lowered and crouching defensively as he turned his head all around, "Where did...Unh! You little..!"
"Sorry, little guy," Ayako giggled. "But if you can't fight without looking at me, then you're in a big pickle. It doesn't even matter how strong you are...or aren't."
Breathing heavily, D-Roy lifted his head and "spotted" Ayako's flickering light directly in front of him. As he probed, a thought occurred to him. The Mukidori-or-whatever...hadn't actually improved his opponent's strength, speed, or energy output any. It was so like a cheat code on any one of the games he so loved to play. Maybe it gave infinite lives, or made you invisible to the little monster things chasing you. But one thing it didn't do was improve how you "played".
And real life was not a video game. D-Roy smirked.
"What'sh that about how shtrong I am..?" He held back the urge to cackle. He hadn't won yet; a victory laugh now would ruin the one later. Tightening his grip on his sheathed zanpakuto, he fidgeted with the handle a bit, "Sho...According to you, if I suddenly get a whole load tougher, it won't matter becaushe I can't shee?"
"Pssh, yeah." Ayako frowned, growing impatient and unsettled by D-Roy's shift in attitude. She would have preferred for him to continue flailing, growing more desperate. It wasn't a very fun battle without that, "Not like you can go and get that much stronger all of a sudden. We don't have all day here."
"Nah, no, no, no--it won't take long!" D-Roy grinned and pulled the blade free. It felt a little wobbly in his hand; he wasn't all that great of a swordsman and hadn't practiced in quite a while. But there was one cool thing he could do with it!
"Fly!" He began to glow, "Planaria!"
"Wha...what?" Ayako blinked and sighed, "'Planaria'? Isn't that...a worm?"
"Yeah, so?"
Ayako made a disgusted face as the bluish-green glow around D-Roy intensified, beginning to overpower her eyes. Which was probably a good thing when she thought about it; she didn't want to see the details of the transformation.
Especially when the light died down and she chanced a peek at the end result.
"Uugh!"
"What?" D-Roy was unchanged from the waist up. However, below that point a gargantuan skeletal head, a copy of what D-Roy's mask fragment looked like except with a fully formed mouth seemed to have spawned from his nether regions. And beyond that long coiling lengths of what looked like the armored body of a flatworm-like creature sprouted. Its sides had what looked like reddish spines protruding from them, each one flattened and streamlined. Also, D-Roy himself was proportionally bigger. Even without his legs, he still loomed a full foot taller than he had before. Ayako shuddered: Gross, "I know... Shexy, right? I mean, I can't tell sho much, the whole 'blindfolded' thingy..."
"Wait, wait." Ayako rested one hand on her forehead, rubbing stressed temples, "You said 'Fly'. How in hell does a worm fly?"
"Like thish!"
Before Ayako could prepare D-Roy launched his new mass forward. She just barely missed being plowed over by dropping to the ground. It had been close. A lock of her lustrous bangs was now absent.
"Ooh, what'sh thish?" D-Roy screeched to a halt, leaning over and plucking the missing hair from the whirring spines on his flanks, "Thish your hair or shomething? Kehsheh, damn. I almost got ya!"
For a long while the two leaders of either side stood like statues, deadlocked a few meters away from each other. Each was giving the illusion of paying heed to the fight between the lesser warriors, but in reality they were both planning their first moves. Or figuring out how to counter their opponent's.
Inevitably, one of the two became impatient.
Shawlong was standing poised and calm one second. A quarter of one later he was in Masaru's face, the blade of Tijereta coming around low with a speed that no ordinary human could hope to match.
SHIING!
Masaru parried and immediately parted, slipping sideways and darting in from a different angle. Shawlong stood his ground, knowing that the Soul Reaper was capable of much more. Barely even shifting his stance, he countered Masaru's slashing blows with a pair of thrusts, forcing the third seat to bring his weapon back in order to block.
Masaru jumped back, cracking his neck.
"It's a very good thing I stepped in before you got to Ayako," he said. "You would have cut her clean in two. You're the best of this batch of Arrancar, aren't you?"
"That's a very subjective question, Soul Reaper," Shawlong's tone was dry, if not a little sarcastic. He disappeared with a static crackle and reappeared beside his enemy. Masaru brought his sword up, blocking the downward chop just in time. "If you mean 'best' in terms of fighting prowess... Then yes, I am."
The Soul Reaper's pale eyes spotted the movement too late. Ducking below him, Shawlong swept one leg at his ankles. The Soul Reaper tried to jump, but one leg was snagged anyhow and he fell off balance. Leveling out his sword the Arrancar stabbed towards the unsteady Soul Reaper.
WHOOSH...
Masaru evaded with a back flip, saving his skin but not necessarily his Shihakusho. A shred of the black fabric floated down towards the blasted landscape. Shawlong prepared to attack again, but stopped as the Soul Reaper's shoulders began to shake with laughter.
"Hah!" Masaru grinned, holding up his zanpakuto in a careless hand, "You're not joking, huh? That's great news--you can be the standard to which I hold all of your friends when I've finished with you."
"Hmmm..." Shawlong could begin to feel himself hate the bastard, despite his desire to keep the fight clean, "Soul Reaper... Overconfidence is generally not a desirable trait."
"But I'm not being overconfident," Masaru continued grinning as he responded. "I'm just confident enough. Of course I know you could kill me, just like a poisonous insect or some other small pest can kill a lion if they try hard enough...Or get lucky."
"Which one counts more, do you think--effort or luck?"
"Effort by far. Meaning that you will have to work to beat me, Shawlong."
"I expected as much." Shawlong nodded, assuming a combative stance again, "But this is an egalitarian battle, remember."
"And what do you mean by that?" Masaru sniffed.
The air seemed to distend outward slightly as Shawlong let his full power begin to rise to the surface. His Sonído, now doubly swift, took him right behind the third seat.
"It means that you will also have to work to beat me..."
Author's Notes: ...
D-ROY LIVES! D-ROOOOOOOOOY JENKIIIIIIINS!
And another bad-ass Shawlong moment..! There's... a lot of those... Seriously, that guy was cool.
Kubo, quit making awesome characters and then killin' 'em off first chance you get! X(