Cinematic: Grodd vs Kazura

A lot had been happening recently in the life of a simple, common, barely noticeable billionaire. With his most recent discovery kept under wraps, there was a lot of pressure starting to grow on him. I can't tell anyone about these ghosts... They'd either put me in a white coat that makes me hug myself or freak out and cause worldwide panic... I have to walk this lonely road by myself... Inside his lab, Kazura started to work on secret projects, funds coming out of his pockets rather than out of his companies finances in order to avoid suspicious audits. He wouldn't become like the Batman of the comics, trying to balance buying things through his company and hiding what it was he was buying. No, he'd work through the teeth to afford his research materials out of his own money.

The first item that he felt he needed was a suit that could be constantly worn and protect him, yet still be concealed and comfortable. Kevlar was a good choice for body armor, as it was light in weight and still stronger than steel. So weaving himself a black suit of Kevlar, he fashioned the protective body armor that he would consistently wear if he wasn't going to a social event. With a body armor of sorts, he began to work on other tools. Gloves with built in bronze knuckles, a mask with a deploy able gas mask, and the favorite part of his new equipment; the belt. The small gas canisters were cool, but the cable launchers were even cooler. With some practice, he'd be able to fly anywhere and hang on any wall to listen to the specters that haunted his town, and quite possibly his planet.

Wearing a parachute on his back, he went out to test his new movement device. Standing on top of an abandoned building in a slum, without fear he took a running leap off the building and fired his cables at the nearest building with the triggers built into his gloves. The cables snapped out, and he started to swing in a low arc, but he couldn't get the momentum with the winch of the cable alone to start to pull himself into the ready state for the next launch. He went skidding to the ground, and reset his cable for another try. From the ground, he fired it at the top of a building and activated the winch. His feet gripping at the wall, he quickly ran up the vertical surface and was at the top of the building in mere moments. So obviously he needed to make modifications that would allow him to keep swinging, because the ascension method was fine.

Meanwhile, while Kazura still worked on his equipment, the sands of Hueco Mundo stirred. The patch of sand in question had been stained red with blood, which had become dry many days ago. There had been a fierce battle, in which two Hollows had nearly died, neither of them able to eat the other to grow stronger. So, almost dead, they went into hibernation and healed. The wolf stirred first, and not finding her meal, she limped off into the distance. Soon after, the gorilla stirred, and not remembering why he had been in pain, or what he had been doing sleeping, he shambled on, hungry and looking for a meal. "I eat... I devour... Hunger is great..." The Gorilla, named Grodd, wandered the endless sands, looking for a meal.

While Grodd wandered, Kazura had perfected his movement technology. With an air intake device and exhaust port, he was able to fire large jets of air that gave him the push required to travel larger distances with the cables given enough of a break to retract. He also put two cables per side of him, just in case one was severed or he needed to have two cables retract while he was firing two others. Through practice, he mastered his techniques in moving, and could even punch a pigeon in mid flight. The first time he did that, he was so excited for having hit the stupid bird that he almost plummeted a hundred feet to solid concrete, but he regained himself in time to get down safely and celebrate down there. He felt that he was now ready to go seek out ghosts to hunt them down, once he had equipped himself with a weapon.

He had been noticing ghosts congregating around a certain building in one of his home towns, Karakura Town. He had bought a house there because it was a physically peaceful town, but a supernaturally busy place. Ghosts were in and out of there like crazy, and the Uzaki inventor needed to know why. Finding a time when there weren't many ghosts there, he dropped in to see what it was. One of the half-masked ghosts bought armloads of shampoo, and then left, bottles falling everywhere. So Kazura dropped in. He looked through the wares, and selected a watch and a silver tube. The watch seemed to give him readings on ghost energy, which would be helpful when paired with his glasses, and the silver tube was a red lightsaber like found in the cinema.

The tools would be analyzed further, later, in his lab, but for now he was ready to go hunt a ghost. Activating the Soul Gauge, as it was called, he hunted out a source of small, but in decent number, ghost signatures. He didn't want to bite off more than he could chew with these enemies that he didn't know anything about, so he'd go where he could reliably find a weak creature. While he traveled around, he listed what he knew about the ghosts inside his head. "There are four types, that I see. There are the dead, lingering spirits after someone has been killed. They are harmless, and seem natural. I won't hunt those. Then there are the sword wielding ones that kill the first type. They hit them with the hilt of their sword and cause them to disappear. Those will be hunted. Then there are the big black ones with the white masks. They break things and eat the lingering spirits. These things are fought by the sword wielding ones. Those will be hunted."

"Hmm.. then there was that new one that I saw at the shop. It looked like the sword wielding ones, but it had half of a mask like the big black brutes. I don't know if those will be hunted. But most likely they will, since they seem very unnatural." And that was where his expertise ended. He had no idea what he was up against, and if the sword wielding ones could simply kill spirits with the hilt of their sword, what would they do to him? Yeah, his first target would have to be one of the big black ones. They may have size, but they seemed to be on average far far inferior to both other types of spirits that he would be hunting. The ones that had the half masks he had the least amount of data on, and would have to examine one up close in the near future. But for now, he was itching for the hunt to begin.

Meanwhile, Grodd was wandering aimlessly in the sands of Hueco Mundo. He didn't remember how he got here, who he was, or anything besides he must feed. His appetite gnawed at him, and even though he tried to fill his stomach up with the infinite sands, it did nothing for him but make it harder to walk with the added weight. It wasn't hard to walk, with his strength, but he was only weighed down by the sand and eventually gave up and disgorged it. Across the endless sands, he walked. His senses were still poor, his sight less than awesome, his brain even less so. But he was determined to find food, it was all that he knew, the endless walking, and he'd find it eventually. Forever wandering... Never ceasing... It was the only life that existed for most hollows, and Grodd had a very poor sense of memory. All he knew was that he walks and hungers.

As sometimes happens in the sands of Hueco Mundo, someone leaves a door open. These doorways, Garganta, into the land of the living sometimes are left open long enough for hollows to wander in, and wander in is what happened to Grodd. He wandered into a Garganta and through the reishi walkway that had already been formed, continued to walk straight into the land of the living. The tunnel network underneath Karakura Town would have made Grodd lost forever, but luckily the gorilla came out of the Garganta just below the exit point, where he could feel a breeze coming from, carried with the scent of flesh. Even though he could not smell much, flesh was an unmistakable scent. "I eat... I devour... Must go feed..." And so the gorilla began to climb upwards.

The scent of flesh had been Kazura walking into the abandoned warehouse. It had trace readings of ghost energy everywhere, as if many ghosts had been in and out of here for years. "So... now where is the first victim of my Purge..." The Soul gauge was pretty limited in that it only could give a reading of two numbers, rather than have a radar sense for the detection of ghosts, but that could probably be fixed later. So when he found an actual reading, stating 10 - 10, he was excited. What was slowly coming his way was a weak ghost, hopefully. The numbers seemed arbitrary without measurement, but the half-mask before had left behind a signature of 150 - 300, so what was coming had to be exceptionally weak. His fists ready to put the hurt on this thing, Kazura got in a ready stance from his martial art training.

Grodd made a spectacular entrance, sending rubble flying as he burst through the wall. He wasn't fast, but he shouldered his way through a wall that was in his way, sending a cascade of rock to pour into the room. "I eat... I devour... I am hungry... Soul look tasty..." Grodd licked his lips as he slowly advanced on Kazura. The human had more than enough time to look over the gorilla, examine him. Grodd's arm muscles were highly defined and bulging, denoting great strength, and his legs were lean but small, showing that this was the highest speed that the beast was capable of. It looked dumb and blind, as it squinted to try and keep track of him. But with every step it took, the room shook, so it wasn't an opponent to take lightly.



Grodd moved ever so slowly, shambling around like a zombie would, according to the average meta for the zombies that Kazura had seen movies for. At just 15 speed, he was incredibly slow, and the human started to get extremely cocky. "Slow, dumb, and weak? You'll be a good first start to my Purge." Kazura rushed at the gorilla, aiming a bronze knuckled punch straight for the beast's solar plexus. Grodd couldn't react, couldn't move fast enough, so the attack landed perfectly. However, Grodd didn't move. Didn't even budge. Kazura's pitiful strength had meant nothing compared to the Hollow. But he was still determined to do something. Despite his surprise, he fluidly moved from using his Krav Maga striking arts into working on getting a joint lock on the tall beast.

Kazura slid underneath Grodd's legs, causing the Hollow to bend down to try and see him and putting his center of balance forwards. The Uzaki levered himself against the wall and pushed against his opponent with his legs, causing it to topple over. "Ha! The bigger they are, the harder they fall!" Kazura was having too much fun. His career as a vigilante was ready to begin. He would be a silent protector, stopping the ghosts of all kinds from messing with his people. This is what he had to do, now that he had uncovered the secret. If all of the creatures were as dumb and easy to destroy as this pathetic excuse for an opponent, then he would be able to Purge Karakura Town in a matter of weeks, and move on to all of Japan within a year. It was only a matter of time before the world was Purged.

Two cables were fired into Grodd's shoulders before he could stand up, dragging Kazura into the Hollow's back. The silver tube was in his hand, button ready to be pressed to activate the energy blade, and his arms were raised high in order to stab downwards and cut into the throat. It seemed as though the dumb, slow Gorilla would be done for in a matter of moments, his life snuffed out by an enemy that he could barely see, much less react to. But through sheer pride, arrogance, and naivety, Kazura took his sweet time lifting his arms up for the strike, and hadn't yet deployed the energy blade. "I eat... I devour... Grodd is angry!" Kazura felt his grip slide as the Hollow stood straight up, and only was able to remain on its back because of the cables that were still embedded in its body.

Kazura's pride started to quickly break down as he was subjected to pure horror. The fur on Grodd's back started to lengthen, grabbing his legs and ripping the cables out of the gorilla's back. Spinning around, the Uzaki man was thrown away at an incredibly high speed, faster than he though possible. A quick reaction and expending all of his built up compressed air counteracted his backward momentum enough to come to a sliding halt into a wall. It was uncomfortable, but his Kevlar absorbed most of it. The human was completely baffled at this new turn of events. The beast was slow, dumb, and the ghost energy reader told him that he only had a 10 - 10 score, but this was more strength than a bulldozer that Grodd had used, and Kazura was perturbed by it.

No, he could not be worried, could not let this feral beast simply overpower him with raw strength, his mind was sharp and his wits were clear. Picking himself up off of the wall, Kazura began to walk forwards once again. Slipping the plasma blade into his hand, this time he pressed the green button, lighting up the red beam. "Come and get me, you beast." Grodd roared as an animal in response, and instead of charging, wound up a punch and attacked. Though it looked like he'd miss by a mile, Kazura's skill at Analysis told him that there was something up. Even monsters didn't attack for no reason. But what was Grodd doing?



The ground started to tear itself apart as the shockwave that Grodd had sent forward tore through the air. Eyes wide, Kazura had no time to use his belt to move him away, so he dove to the side. The shockwave clipped him as he moved, sending him into a spiral. Crashing to the ground, this time the kevlar wasn't enough to stop the force completely. A sharp pain erupted in his side and his legs as they took the brunt of the force of skidding into a large chunk of rubble. And as he hadn't yet gotten up, the monster approached him. Grodd had already forgotten how he got here, or what he was doing, but he knew that in front of him was a meal, however pesky it was being at the time. And so the ravenous beast moved forwards.

"I eat... I devour..." "I know! Stop with the eating and devouring nonsense!" What was this pitiful creature talking about? The meal was mocking Grodd, saying that his way of talking was... some word that the gorilla didn't recognize, but none the less it was probably something mean! Well, those kinds of people get eaten... Like all kinds of people... food... I'm hungry... what's for my next meal? Suddenly, the answer to Grodd's question revealed itself as a morsel of flesh picked itself up off the ground. It was already weakened, it seems, so it'd be even easier to eat this weakened fool. But the flesh sack seemed determined, and Grodd was mostly blind to what was happening.

Red plasma blade in hand, Kazura fired his cables past Grodd and tugged himself forwards, arm extended. The saber did its job, slicing clean through Grodd's left leg, but unfortunately cauterizing the wound in the process. A yelp escaped Grodd's lips, but not for long as the fur grew up and grabbed onto the severed part of his foot, reconnecting all the nerves and mental pathways. It had recently become muscle memory to grab onto limbs that had been severed and pilot them with the hairs alone, and the fact that Kazura had cauterized the wound with his weapon only served to make the wound nearly inconsequential. And with Grodd now turning to face the human, and the Uzaki being trapped in a corner, he had once again drawn the short end of the stick.

Grodd's hair began to twist and make thick strands that started to grow increasingly long. With them only a mere five feet apart, the hair tentacles would easily be able to reach him, as well as get around him and below him and anywhere that they wanted to be. Kazura slashed at these tentacles, cutting them instantly with his plasma blade, but never cutting enough. They always started to regrow, straight out of the burnt area, and even though they only grew at a rate of 15 stat speed, there were just so many that Kazura started to become overwhelmed quite quickly. Piles upon piles of hair lay at his feet, and he was doomed as soon as one of the hairs connected with just one in the pile and suddenly the entire pile was attacking him.

Kazura was picked up by his legs, and dragged over to where Grodd was standing, hefted up high and dangled over the Hollow's mouth. "I eat..." "I know, I know, you devour. Shut up and eat this already!" His hands left free, the Uzaki man grabbed one of the capsules from off of his belt and threw it into the gaping mouth of Grodd. Inside the belly of the beast, the capsule broke open, filling his stomach with tear gas and causing it to spread upwards into his lungs and stream out of his nose like the smoke of a dragon. The intense irritation and burning caused Grodd to drop Kazura, sneeze, and wail. Even with a bit of Pain Tolerance, ingesting an entire capsule of highly concentrated tear gas was not a good plan.



So far, Kazura had severed giant masses of hair, to no avail, had tried his hand to hand prowess and failed at that, and even attempted to hack off a limb of Grodd's and was foiled. Knowing that he didn't have enough information on the targets he was up against, and not understanding just how resilient they could be, the man decided to flee with his tail hung in between his legs. In shame he fired the cables of his 3D movement equipment while his target was momentarily occupied with the tear gas and sped out of the building through the open door. By the time that Grodd recovered from the coughing fit and the choking, he had forgotten why he was choking, and had forgotten all about Kazura, and went back to wandering and looking for his next meal.

Noticing that he wasn't being pursued, Kazura slowed down and slowly walked down the empty road with the lengthening shadows. The sun was rising, and this night had been a complete failure. No ghosts had been Purged, in fact, the self proclaimed Cleaner of Karakura Town had fled from a ghost only possessing a combined score of 20 in the ghost energy scale. The half mask before had achieved a 450. If he couldn't stand against a 20, how was he to fight against the higher tiered ghosts? As he walked down the lonely road, he thought long and hard, and when he got home, he still had no answer. Charles asked what the Batman costume was for, and the easy answer was for a costume party held in town. Someday later, Charles would know of the ghosts, but today was not that day.

Going into his study, Kazura pulled at a combination of three books by Nietzsche, which opened up a small drawer at his desk. Keying in the seven digit alpha-numeric passcode and proving that he was human with the captcha, his chair swiveled around and he was moved into a secret spare room underneath his house. It was completely bare, with the exception of a mass amount of cobwebs lining the walls, but now he had a vision for what the room would be. Kazura would make this room into a laboratory. He would keep everything that was related to the ghosts down here, forming a library and research station that was his alone to peruse. Yes, it would be his Ghost Hunter Cave, and it would be glorious. The Purge would continue. Not as planned, but it would continue.