Disclaimer: The ideas and concepts used in BLEACH belong to Tite Kubo, as well as any regular characters. Most of the characters in this story belong to me. Thank you.
Natsumo engaged multiple Hollows, all with her arrogant glare and gauntlets equipped. The first to charge on double-kneed legs with a furry mane around its oddly rat-shaped skull made a pounce, intending to claw Natsumo with its sharp nails. She sidestepped it with a flash step and smashed it with a quick motion of her arm. It impacted off the ground, spun around from the motion and landed in a building pool of its own blood. Natsumo jumped over and landed on the Hollow's face, feet daintily curled to fit on the contours of its mask. Another Hollow charged in a rage, head first with arms following, and only received a stern punch to the face.
"Hoooh!!!" Natsumo shouted. She had stunned the mighty-sized Hollow in mid-air and had drawn both her arms back. She let out a sharp breath of air with each punch she threw, and she threw them in such rapid succession that eventually they became blurred together. Then, once her final punch eas thrown, she kept her fist planted on the Hollow's undented mask and grinned. "Kanketsusen!" Suddenly the Hollow erupted with a violent blast of energy, all transferred through her punches, and was torn to shreds. The only part that remained was its mask, which blocked the raining body parts that spread out in all directions, then faded away along with the Hollow's obliterated body. She smiled. "I told you, this force is not a common, blatantly destructive weapon. This is destruction at an elegant level!"
"She just blew him up" one Hollow remarked to another "and she calls herself elegant!?"
"That's ironic" the other Hollow agreed. "I suppose she's also gentle and lady-like too! HAHAHAHA!!!"
"GUAHAHAHA!!!" The Hollows had sealed their own death warrants. Natsumo's thin eyebrows twitched over her steely, narrow eyes. She made a flash step, punched both of them in their faces, and reappeared in a low crouch with her arms crossed in front of her body around her knees. She threw them apart, letting the metal clack against itself, and shouted once more
"Kanketsusen!" The Hollows had their heads blown apart and they dissolved into blackness again. She stood up and looked back with a great, stern glare that stunned the other Hollows. "Anyone else care to say anything about me?"
"No!" a Hollow shouted fearfully. "Spare me! I'm sorry! I don't want to explode!"
"FINE!!! DIE ANYWAY!!!" From behind the strong, thick-headed warrior wielding a detached Hollow's ax-bladed arm cleaved the pleading Hollow in two, crashing the ax into the ground, and then carrying the swing through to flip himself over. Now his blade and the Hollow's bone rested on his shoulder as he dug the blade out of the ground and stared forward with a nasty grin of blood-lust. He shocked a few Hollows with fear, giving Natsumo an opening to engage. She jumped up and gave a fierce uppercut to one, sending its body straight up into the air and its mask cracked and breaking from the chin up. Once she landed and gathered all the wrath of the Hollows around her, she posed and set herself up for a tighter counter-attack defense.
"Kill her!" a Hollow growled. "And him too!" The Hollows still remaining, small and large alike, charged in and away from their other targets, leaving the weaker or injured shinigami time to retreat or regroup and try a better strategy. They'd gone through this before, it was nothing new nor problematic for them. They just had to react quickly. Natsumo channeled her destructive force into her fists and fought the Hollows off with quick and precise punches and back-hands.
When one charged in, diving low for her legs, she grabbed it with her leather-bound fingers and thrust it into the ground, then spun herself around and punched it upside-down until it blew apart and dissipated like the rest. Then she went on fighting, grabbing a Hollow and keeping it under her arm while pounding another over and over. The Hollow she had bound tried to grab for her face but she dug her scaled fingers into its skull and gave it a mighty headbutt followed by a mask-splitting kick.
The soldier, meanwhile, resorted to sheer, brute force tactics of swinging his new-made weapon around as rapidly and dangerously as he could to intimidate and possible cut down as many Hollows as he could. "Come on, come on, CAHM AAAHN!!!" he shouted with spite. "Charge on in and meet your death!"
"Moron" a Hollow mocked. "Not all of us are here because of our physical strength!" That Hollow, lean and thin with a pointy mask of horns ending in a crescent shaped chin, straightened its back and put its arms to its wide chest. It tore open its own chest and revealed an array of small holes connected to organic tubes and veins running over its shoulders to its back and its arms where two more holes were present. "Bombardeo Sinesta has the power to level any structure from up to one-hundred meters! HAHAHA!!!"
"Retreat!" the other Hollows around the soldier's range called. "Go and help fight the girl one! Bombardeo can handle this scrap himself!" The soldier was getting curious now, as exhibited by the slowing of his weapon to a stop before him.
"Oi" the soldier said, "how come you've got a name?"
"Eh?" Bombardeo asked. "Why shouldn't I have a name? Who said I didn't have a name!?" Bombardeo pointed its arms and all the holed in its opened chest forward, right at the shinigami, and began charging them with a strange, dark-red energy. "This is a power usually reserved for only the most powerful of Hollows, the Menos Grande, the Adjuchas and the ranks beyond even that! This is our ultimate weapon! Prepare yourself, foolish shinigami, for my CERO!!!" The soldier, even in his unwise and brash youth, could tell a fatal attack apart from any other one. He was ready to abandon himself and rush in to stop it, but then he realized his position.
Damn he thought. The manor's right behind me...isn't it? Indeed, as he was seeing the broken gate wall beyond the Hollow, which was right across the front courtyard from the main building itself. Now he had no choice. He lifted the massive weapon from the ground and licked his lips. His eyes flashed with a heroic resolve, resonating out as a manic rush of energy. "I've got no choice then, I will stop you, MONSTER!!!" The soldier rushed in with his giant ax above, ready to strike down from the night sky and rend the earth again...
As the fighting up above went on, the infinitely patient and polite Rei Unohana sheathed her sword with a smile. All the Hollows that had surrounded and guarded the regal Adjuchas Radeorul were dead and vanishing swiftly into nothingness. All of them had died at the same time, from the same strike, under the same seemingly uncaring moon. Radeorul had been irked into a seething rage. Her claws were clutched and unclutched with anger, her mouth twisted in a wrathful sneer, her eyes twitching with rage through the slots of her mask, all her anger being directed as pressure at an uncaring Rei.
"You bitch" Radeorul growled. "How dare you!?" Rei simply looked up from the ground with her lady-like smile and widened it to a more welcoming degree. "How dare you strike them down so coldly!?"
"I" Rei began "was simply defending my home, and the many other who live there. You can understand that, can't you? Do you Hollows not suffer the attacks of other on your nest? Do you not defend against those attacks?"
"For the last time" Radeorul lowed, stirring her voice up into a devious growl, "you and I are NOTHING ALIKE!!!" The Adjuchas pounced with astounding speed, reaching out with her flashing, razor-sharp claws to rip Rei's pretty head from her shoulders. The fangs of her mouth under the jaws of her mask parted widely as she roared a distant, hollow roar. Rei's feet parted. Her hand moved to the hilt of her blade.
Without changing her emotions at all she attacked, so quickly that even the light of the sky defied to keep up with her. She simply skipped through space, sheathing her sword gently with one arm, while Radeorul watched her own fingers dissect from her hand and turn inward at her own masked face. She gasped, used her superior speed, and landed before the darts slashed her. Now bleeding from each sliced stub she groaned and flipped herself around, prepared to defend from the ground with her feet.
"You fight to conquer" Rei began "only when you don't fight to survive. We shinigami are no different, for we are all descended from the same source of spiritual energy, the very same species. We are both brought to existence through humans, but through very different means." Radeorul sensed no danger, no immediate attack imminent, and got back up to wait for her fingers to slowly rebuild themselves. "Shinigami represent one side of a human's spirituality, the more empathetic, peace-craving and intelligent side, while the Hollows born from human anger and emotion bear the darker, more sinister animal side."
"...Bitch..." Radeorul lowed. Rei gasped and daintily smiled in shame, turning away with her hands over her mouth.
"Although" Rei said, quickly correcting herself, "that's not to say that all Hollows are unintelligent, nor that all shinigami are saintly." Radeorul's fingers were repaired now and she refused to continue waiting. She charged in with a terrible rage and stomped down just at Rei's own feet. Rei turned, her face still holding its same expression of politeness and feminine grace, and dodged one sweeping clawing swipe after another as the Hollow ripped and tore the air around her.
"DIE!" Radeorul bellowed. "DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE!!!" Rei simply stepped and turned to avoid the random attacks, keeping one hand on her blade the whole time. She was passively avoiding Radeorul, increasing her rage unknowingly, and rapidly enhancing the frequency of her attacks. Rei jumped away, out of her range, and began slowly drawing her sword, unmarred by blood as it had been for so many years. Radeorul jumped forward and threw her whole body into a powerful, driving swipe from Rei's head to her feet. Her claws didn't get to reach their mark.
They just spun around with the rest of her detached arm in the air while Rei sheathed her sword once more. The arm hit the ground with a thump, twitched for a moment, trying to find its own missing shoulder, and then disappeared into the void. Radeorul straightened her back and watched it happen, all while Rei walked many steps behind her up the hill.
"There is one thing" Rei said "that is different about us...and that is that I am much more calm than you are. Please, if you care for the remainder of your forces, call off the attack and tell any other Hollows that attempt to storm my manor to cease trying. There is only sadness and loss in war, and I hate to think of being a part of one any longer..." Rei began her slow walk away, leaving the Adjuchas to look at the space where her arm had been and smile. It was a mad smile, accompanied with mad eyes that curled up with her sharp-cheeked grin. She began to twitch from her scale-coated chest, jittery breaths going in and out, all building up to a laughter that climbed the sky and depressed the earth around her. Rei turned around, watching neutrally, as the Adjuchas' pressure built exponentially. Then, sensing her own crushing demise, Rei retreated at full speed and reappeared in a flash at her own broken gates.
"You think you're stronger than me" Radeorul called "just because you're calm? You think you've won because you shook me a little!? Oh, you weak, foolish shinigami..." Radeorul reached back for her tail, took it in her remaining clawed hand, and tore it off without a second thought of motion of flinching. "Although...I am willing to admit this..." She took the tips of her claws and placed them at her mask, easily removing the upper jaw and cranial area, leaving only the lower jaw that stayed close to her chin as if it were the exposed part of her true jaw. She then threw the mask down and clutched her tail tightly, tearing it apart in a flurry of blood leaving...a blade.
"I too...can fight like you...shinigami..." Rei Unohana, in her infinite patience and calmness, was stunned. Her eyes were shot wide open. She had observed, for once in a recorded century, an Arrancar...
The lesser forces all clashed up above, on the top of the hill, where the Unohana Manor was so precariously built into the flat side of a sloping, rolling mountain base. Natsumo and the eager soldier continued fighting ceaselessly against their foes. Natsumo overcame the endless hordes of Hollows that charged in with such reckless disregard while the soldier, brash and brave, was pummeling the face of Bombardeo Sinesta with his heel.
"Stop that!" Bombardeo whined in between stomps. "You bastard! You sadist! Tormentor!"
"Damn straight!" the soldier shouted. He had finally had enough for now and, with his sword drawn up high, prepared to end the fight with a clean cut to the Hollow's neck. "I guess you've learned your lesson, eh? Don't brag about an attack that takes fifteen straight minutes to charge!" The soldier killed Bombardeo, slicing his mask in half and then cutting off his head. He hopped off the Hollow and stabbed his sword back into the meat of the disarmed ax-arm from the unarmed Hollow down the hill and grabbed the jutting bone as a second handle.
"Well, that was easy" he said to himself. He looked over at the conglomerated mass of Hollows, all scrapping to fight with the powerful Natsumo who continued beating them back with very little effort. Her fists were charged with a nasty energy that poured out from her fists. One Hollow charged in body-first, hoping to surprise her and grab her with its thick, muscular arms. She caught it with her fists, pressing into its chest, and her gauntlets shot forward and sent a destructive torrent of energy into the Hollow. Another Hollow blown to bits. The rest of them were covered in the disgusting, tattered bile and bits of their former comrades blown apart, but they all continued charging in, unrelenting against the ever-calm and disciplined Natsumo.
"HUA-YAAAAHHH!!!!" the soldier shouted. He had caught the attention of one Hollow, a tall and wide one, which had its head severed as soon as it turned to see him. He drove the ax down nearly half-way through the Hollow, stopping after dropping through its hole, and kicked himself into a rapid spinning in the air. The ax blade sliced at the heads of the Hollows as he descended slowly, the force of his rotation keeping him up through a gust of spiraling air. Natsumo looked up with a rigidly flat expression and clapped her hands together. Upon slowly parting them, a bubble formed.
"Suihou-Hou!" At Natsumo's incantation she snapped her hands back together, launching the bubble she formed just past the spinning soldier, who didn't notice it, and let it explode high up in the air. A resounding, shocking thunder from the attack sounded out and shook the ground, which Natsumo grabbed hold of to keep herself up. The rest of the Hollows started to stumble and fall over, some of them being tossed up and down by the shaking force of the ground. "Now..." Natsumo growled as she grabbed at the dirt. She planted her feet, stabilizing a small portion of the ground, and lifted up a huge boulder above her head, straining to keep it there. Her body was being slowly crushed under the very weight she had extracted and her head sank down into her chest. She stepped forward and heaved the rock at the downed Hollows, smashing them as the ground collapsed on top of them and buried them.
Damn it! Natsumo thought as she gasped for breath. I'm still...not nearly strong enough to use such an attack. I just need a little more time to train... Natsumo's thoughts were cut short by the approach of a huge Hollow from behind, wielding solid stone hammers in in place of regular fists.
"Your finished, girly!" the wide-mouthed, small headed Hollow called. Natsumo couldn't argue. Right now, thanks to the strain, her arms wouldn't budge. Still, she was prepared to take her hit and retaliate in whatever manner she could, but salvation finally landed and came to her aid. As the hammer-fists dove down for a head-splitting strike, the manic swinging of the ax-arm wielding soldier finally caught a fortunate target. The hammers, both, were cleaved apart and sent flying, tumbling from the release of blood, far past Natsumo and into two more Hollows who died instantly.
"Phew!" the cocky soldier exclaimed as he approached. Finally, his ax was well worn and useless to him, so he tossed it aside and swung the blood off of his sword. "That was a close one, miss Natsumo."
"Hey!" Natsumo exclaimed. "I don't remember asking for your help! Get out of here! Defend the manor!"
"Oh, but miss" the soldier said, licking his lips, "aren't you aware? There isn't anything to defend against..." Natsumo, surprised and somewhat disbelieving, looked around. All the Hollows were gone, blown away as black dust in an ethereal wind. "We killed them all, just you and I!" There was something shaking about his extreme satisfaction in that fact, something unsettling in his voice that caused her discomfort.
"Then..." Natsumo began, lacking real words to say, "get rid of this one! He's still here, and you haven't disposed of him properly yet!" The Hollow gave a low, deathly groan. Natsumo looked up and saw its face split across the nostrils, perfectly straight, and watched its head separate from itself slowly as it fell down and dissolved into darkness. Natsumo straightened herself up, twitched and individually tested her fingers again, and deactivated her release. She sheathed her sword with shaky, tired hands and looked at the soldier who twirled his sword with a very relaxed, leaning pose and sheathed it as well.
"What is you name...?" Natsumo asked. The soldier turned his narrow eyes under his spiked, untamed hair and smiled at her.
"Katana" he said. Natsumo blinked at his name, such a novel one that she'd never though to hear before. "Katana Netami is my name..." Natsumo just stared at him for a moment, making him uncomfortably draw back with a step. "What?"
"Your name..." Natsumo unclearly began, "...is...katana? As in...a sword?"
"Grrr...." Katana growled. "Yes, my name is a sword, alright!" Obviously a sore-spot topic to address. Still, at its absurdity, Natsumo couldn't help but grin and blush...
The pathway that led out of the dark, deep forest gave way now to a new warrior. A large man, standing as tall as any great warrior with arms thicker than his sleeves would permit, the reason his robe was torn at the sleeves, and wearing a coat of tightly-woven, powerfully crafted chain-mail. He wore not the traditional garb of shinigami over his legs but instead sported a manly skirt of deep red and black interlacing lines, under which he wore plate-mail leggings that covered his legs down to his chain-mailed feet.
Over his shoulders was a billowing mantle made of delicate silk that extended behind him into a cloudy cape of deep lavender. His hair dropped down to his shoulder, black and dull. He did not walk from the darkness, for such a thing for a warrior like this would be unworthy. He rode, instead, on the back of a mighty masked beast that sported a wide, thick skull and smoothly curved horns that extended straight out. A Hollow in the form of a mighty, red-eyed horse!
"HNNNEEEEAAAAHH!!!!" the beast neighed. It bucked up and flailed its bone-white legs and death-blue hooves and hopped forward while its rider stayed on by pulling on the reigns that tied around the beast's powerful, solid chest.
"Woah!" the deep, resounding warrior called. "Waoh, Bucephalus, woah!" The horse calmed itself and dropped to its front hooves again, shaking its head and snorting out smoke. "Hahahahaha!!" the warrior laughed as he brought his rugged hand to pet the beast's mane in calming strokes. "You're just as eager to fight as me! HAHAHA!!! Don't worry. There's plenty of food for you up there..." The warrior grabbed at a crude, leather scabbard around his back and attached his mighty palm to a sword handle. "...and for me, there shall be plenty of fighting!" The man drew his sword with a singing metal sigh and bucked his horse up. Its hollow neighing reached all the way to the sky and the moon, which had already set itself overhead to give light to the battle that had already nearly ended...
Kanketsusen: Geyser
Bombardeo: Bombardment (Spanish)
Suihou-Hou: Bubble (also Nothing) Cannon
Bucephalus: Ox-Head (Ancient Greek. Alexander the Great's horse.)
