Pushing Off the Starting Line

[Scarlet]

This really was starting to get frustrating, one pull after another, one day after another and yet Hikari really didn’t feel like she was making any sort of progress. It was almost like she had reached a wall and now couldn’t get around it or through it no matter how much time she spent trying. Trying to reach the next stage physically, she needed to acquire a position in the fire rescue service like her father. She had to reach the same level he had been and then push even further beyond that.

All morning like every morning Scarlet made sure to chop enough wood for her grandfather and then start everything else with a jog to clear her mind and wake up her body. Right now, it was still early, the sun only standing high and proud for the last twenty minutes or so. Enough time that Scarlet knew more shops would be opening. More people would start moving and the streets would get louder. Pretty soon it was going to get frustrating to exercise out in the open, the damned eyes of those judging her.

For the moment though she was going to finish her morning exercise with another set of pull ups. Standing with her hands on her hips. The red track pants just gave her a level of comfort that very little could match. Hopping off the cement of the sidewalk once again she grabs the top of the bus stop shelter. A decent place to wait with cover from snow or rain, yet anyone that likes to exercise would take advantage of the structure, something Scarlet was now doing to pull herself up.

Her physical strength at the moment was only average for someone of her age. A regretful turn of events that she now was forced to deal with although improving on her physical strength was a necessity. Chopping just a bit of wood with her ax was nothing compared to what she’d have to do. To do what her dad had done. She’d need the strength to cut down doors or walls, to carry people bigger than her out of buildings without slowing down or falling over.

This damn wall though why couldn’t she break through it. Dropping down onto both feet after another set of ten Scarlet can feel her heart beating with more force than before yet it felt under more control than the last few days. A small feeling that carried a big emotion. Just keep at it day after day and reaching it becomes a matter of time not chance. Jogging off once again the red haired human moves along the sidewalk fighting off the urge to stop for a coffee.

[Ren Akasawa]

"- only belive, people of Karakura! Do any of you have a wish?" Ren stood atop an outdoor table belonging to some cafe or other, the rust-red failure's body concealed by a hooded white cloak that had clearly seen better days, and those days were not recent. Rust red light poured from every cut and tear as the aged garb held back a dying star. "Are you chasing after that shining thing, always out of reach?" By the time the crimson-haired human jogged into hearing distance, the swaying hooded figure had already been midway into this... Speech? Sermon? The few patrons present hadn't reacted, that meant they either couldn't hear the ghost shouting at them or had a truly remarkable ability to tune things out. In today's casw it had been the former. "The holy Emperor exists! If you have the determination to seek a miracle, look for the Vandenreich. The path has already been prepared for you."

What he'd just offered had been far from the usual recruitment pitch, but his sole recruitment tactic was to point people in the general direction of the quincy empire with the promise of an undefined 'miracle' for those who had the resolve to get there on their own. A romanticized dream that proclaimed anyone who couldn't find the path to Silbern on their own was clearly unfit to receive the emperor's blessing, and anyone who endured for long enough to find their way had earned it.

The ragged ghost stepped down from the table he'd been using as a metaphorical soapbox, slightly disappointed by the realization that nothing they'd said had made an impact. He smiled anyway. A failed speech didn't blunt, he'd have the chance to swing it again later. Give it enough tries and plenty of people would run off on their personal quest for Silbern, most would fail and the few made it would have the best chances of making it to captain.

The cloak parted slightly, an arm covered in brands that glowed from within with rust-red light slipping free to fold back the hood and reveal a burning mane of energy matching the brands. Eyes that were nothing more than deeper red spots within glowing bangs swept over everyone present. That was the point where he'd actually noticed Hikari passing by. Weren't unnaturally vibrant hair colors usually a sign of excess reiryoku, or something like that? That or hair dye. "You there, red lady. Have you heard of the quincy empire?"

[Scarlet]

Jogging along the street and then just like that Hikari heard shouting, a voice that was definitely loud and spouting off something that didn’t seem right. It didn’t take her more than a handful of moments to find the individual that was preaching about something or other. Although Hikari didn’t pick up on the fact the person he was looking at right now was spiritual in nature. “Amazing now Scientology is getting spouted off even way out here too.” While actually speaking to herself Hikari spoke in an open manner believing that someone else would hear her remark while hearing the words of this madman as well, but due to the spiritual nature, she was the only one that could hear his rant.

What he was saying though didn’t sound like anything more than fiction so with many other things that had to be done Hikari kept on her way. It wasn’t until the rust red individual actually called out to her that Hikari saw what he looked like. Although she hated it, she stopped moving right away when someone described her as red. She’d been hearing that all her life and usually not in a pleasant manner. It was enough that a spark of anger was lit in the depths of her stomach. Turning and looking at the preacher, Hikari was ready to explode angrily at him. His appearance though left her stunned.

What she saw wasn’t normal, this person from what she could see looked like a torture victim. Someone who had been marked by blazing hot iron over and over again. The red glow though was enough to tell her they were spiritual although what they were she had no clue. “No I haven’t. Are you alright? Have your wounds been treated?” Inside her head Hikari was already trying to formulate how she could get this guy over to the hospital without causing him further pain by touching him. She’d heard about individuals that suffer so much pain their minds break, so she just had to assume that’s what had happened here.

[Ren Akasawa]

Ren tilted his head quizzically, it took a good few seconds before he recognized the concern being directed at him, and even then it confused him. "Wounds? Don't have any. Probably never will." The failure had known with absolute certainty that he hadn't been seriously wounded in a long while, maybe even never? It was hard to remember anything pre-miracle, so there may have been one at some point in the far off past. Sure, there had been plenty of the shallow scrapes that came with surviving as a tragic wandering knight, but if there'd been anything worse it certainly hadn't made enough of an impact to recall now.

He shifted his shoulders, cloak rolling back to show his arms and chest were entirely covered in the same rust-red markings as the rest of him. The brands were much more formalized than the cracked shells of natural failures. In many ways the network of glowing geometric channels were a manifestation of the quincy blut technique, an inverted system that continuously drained his spirit and forced it out into the surrounding atmosphere. Combined with how his hair, the entire upper part of his head was just flowing energy with points of light to indicate eyes, the impression wasn't that far off from a lit candle just beginning to lose its original shape.

"This body was a gift from the holy Emperor, a miracle I can't pay back." He puffed out his chest with pride. The terms 'gift' and 'miracle were a matter of perspective, and Ren had done his best in portraying his own opinion as a self-evident fact. "Why not chase after a miracle of your own now that I proved it's possible? Want to improve yourself, protect someone else, get revenge on the shinigami, something else? All it takes is effort to seek it out." Another iteration of the delusional knight's offer, this time hoping he'd buried the stranger's misplaced concern and gotten his point across. That point being that hard work and determination led to a faerie tale happy ending, but only after earning the Vandenreich's attention with those efforts.

[Scarlet]

Certainly not the response that Hikari was expecting, this loud weirdo spouting off things about something religious just looked like someone that was suffering some sort of mental break. Someone that had been kissed by the body of fire only to be overlooked and left to suffer the wounds that had ensued upon him. Removing the cloak that hid the majority of his body though Hikari looked on in horror which would be fairly apparent as her pupils dilated while she took a half step back unconsciously. She’d seen a lot in a short bit of time, things that she would have believed impossible. What this person looked like though. “How’re you alive?”

Hikari didn’t understand anything about the situation that she was in at the moment now, this man looked like someone that was just in an extreme case of fire. The skin that covered his body looked as charred black as the pavement only a couple feet from her now. The only exception being the strange red symbols that painted his horrific body. Hikari had seen a few different spiritual races at this point yet nothing like what was in front of her now. “That body can’t be a gift. It looks like you’ve been crippled, are you ok?”

When asked if she wanted to have a miracle like the one that he supposedly was blessed with given to her, Hikari shook her head immediately while holding both hands up in front of her. “No no no, I’m fine with how I look. I am figuring out my powers though but I want to use my own, not what someone else gives me.” Hikari wasn’t usually someone to spout off everything about herself, but nothing about this situation was normal. She just wasn’t sure what to do with what was actually going on right now.

[Ren Akasawa]

Ren leaned back on his heels, the failure maintaining a casual positivity that preserved only a fifth of so of the manic energy he'd put into preaching. He felt no sympathy whatsoever for the concern he was getting from Hikari, mainly because it was entirely unwarranted from his very specific point of view. "Crippled? This is what having power looks like, trained my soul until I outgrew my old body." His living body had been fine containing a free quincy's tiny amount of spiritual energy, but becoming a vandenreich quincy had caused that flimsy container burst from excess power on the spot. Nothing unusual about that. Besides, it was just basic sense that gaining spiritual power made people inhuman. That was true for the transformations of vollstandig, the evolution of hollows, and his own branded form, it only made sense in that light. And light was all that large parts of him were by this point.

The failure re-centered his weight, took a half-step back as another mote of his interest faded, and finally shrugged. "There's really nothing you want? Nothing at all? Shame." So that had been another swing and miss for his trusty speech. Someone really needed to do something about the people of Karakura’s lack of ambition or he'd never get anyone to run off chasing their romantic dreams all the way to ever-distant silbern where the power of miracles awaited. And he hadn't been willing to try his other usual tactic, the one that skipped straight to clashing swords in an attempt to communicate through the art of dueling, at least not right that moment. That left keeping the conversation going and hoping the strange young woman either changed her mind or shared information on where he could find someone more open to his particular version of the empire's message.

[Scarlet]

Well she’d just said something apparently really wrong, the way this guy moved backwards as if she’d just offered him in some major way told her that whoever this Emperor was, this guy viewed him as absolute. Hikari thought it reminded her about how the elderly in Japan viewed the Emperor. She’d learned in school and from her grandfather that until recently in history the Emperor of Japan had been viewed as a God, as someone absolute who had the greatest attributes of Japan along with her wellbeing in mind at all times. Although that wasn’t the same now it was what she connected to how this guy reacted.

What he said though wasn’t something that Hikari ever thought about, something that brought with it a bit of fear and worry. How could someone grow so powerful that they change themselves physically in order to handle the power itself. Such a concept was beyond her understanding, knowing only the very basic fundamentals of the spiritual world Hikari having no basis to understand just stood questioning whether or not what he said was accurate. She didn’t have long to ponder over everything rushing throughout her mind though as he spoke once again in a way that seemed to say he was done speaking to her.

“I didn’t say I want nothing, I just don’t want to be given something that’s not my own. I’m new to all this, but I know that whatever I happen to be is part of me. Can normal people see you or are you like Shinigami?”

[Ren Akasawa]

Not her own? He realized the stranger hadn't known that power couldn't come from within, it had to be earned or stolen from without. The branded failure straightened up amd launched into a correction. "Miracles aren't given, they're earned. Rewards for the ones who put in the effort of chasing them." The important part was that you couldn't refine your soul by waiting to catch a fallen star, you had to go on a quest, had to carve your own path to the heavens so that everyone could see you'd earned a seat along the way by the time you'd made it there. He learned that lesson the hard way, and was sent back down with a stigmatic body and a meager blessing to do things right this time. He'd tried to save others who pursued power from that mistake by sending them on their own quests to find their own route to the quincy empire, someday he'd see how many new captains he'd sent on ahead of him. Though he didn't feel like he'd be adding a potential captain that day unless he could get his beliefs across more directly.

Oh, right, he still hadn't responded to her question. "Doesn't matter if they can see me or not, I'm not like the shinigami who force the dead suffer in the slums of their heaven. Hoped the people around here could still hear me in their hearts if they had the ambition for it, even if they're too weak to see me. This world won't be safe until enough people show the drive to beat their plowshares into swords and rise up." One of the Sternritter Ren had shown of during his brief stay among the empire's chosen was fond of telling younger quincy tales of the outermost rings of Rukongai, a false heaven the enemy used to oppress the souls of the dead. Their words had painted a nightmare of poverty and starvation in beaten down villages, one that would not end until enough of the human world united under the Vandenreich's banner and conquered the other realms of existence.

[Scarlet]

Hikari was really starting to wonder if virtually all spiritual aware people just had a hard time agreeing with one another or perhaps conversation programs. The one in front of her right now had started to feel a little bit better with his response at first being fine, it was something she expected although agreeable to hear. She didn’t realize though that what she was hearing wasn’t the same thing he was saying. He meant something else completely. All the same though nothing changed as he continued his rant.

Hikari had met a few different sorts since she’d started seeing everything spiritually and yet this guy just seemed the most caught up in his own belief. She wanted to know about him and what he was yet it felt like every time he spoke he wasn’t talking about himself. He was going on and on about something else that in his own eyes sat above everything. Hikari really couldn’t make any comparison other than a religious extremist. Someone putting the belief or even a singular god above everything else. Despite everything it really didn’t seem like she was going to learn anything new beyond Quincy and this Empire.

Another society from the sounds of it and the way he spoke Hikari had to assume he was trying to recruit others. Nothing she had the patience to hear out nor the interest to listen. Disconnected from the Soul Society and the Shinigami that ran it. Although she may be wrong Hikari unconsciously already compared the two now seeing Quincy as the same as Shinigami. “If everyone believes the same thing though then nothing progresses, everything gets bland, uninteresting. Don’t you have your own interests beyond this Empire?”

[Ren Akasawa]

Other interests? That was a good question. The failure's expression wavered for a few seconds. He hadn't exactly kept the best grip on his 4identity for these past ten years. Part of that was the flood's influence, its deluge had bent every aspect of him into new shape by now. On the outside it was an imperceptible puddle of reiatsu that fawned over anyone and everyone without doing much, trying to draw in an external power from any stranger it saw only to find it had no way to use whatever resource it had sought after. Internally, the situation was different, the foundation Ren's mind and spirit were built on were shifting, sinking. If Ren Akasawa was a tower, he was one that hurriedly constructed new upper floors even as those below were in the process of submerging. But bleak as that situation was, the failure wasn't worried at all. From his perspective he lived a story where the knight suffered for a time, but was ultimately rewarded for enduring.

He tried to dredge up a memory that would have fit the hobby-shaped gap in his past. Something done indoors, wasn't a sport, felt more like it was something he showed off to friends than something he did. Collecting? Something immediate, physical, plastic. Model kits? That's right. He'd spent four nights working on a custom build and finished it right before- That train of thought ran into difficulties when its rails abruptly plunged beneath the surface of a seething red-brown deluge and disappeared. The flood's mental influence drowning out references to his pre-death existence was obvious, and he didn't care to push back against that obstacle. "Collected model mecha, back when I had time for things like that. Been a while since I had time for anything like that."

A smile spilled red light from between his teeth, straining them a darker red. "I enjoy what I do day to day. Walking the city, driving off mankind's enemies, pointing anyone with potential in the right direction." His actual opinion was that he'd been doing too much of the first of those, wandering directionless for hours and even days to find foes worth slaying or anyone he could talk to. The quixotic failure had turned to cutting down streetlights and preaching to crowds that couldn't even hear him out of boredom. If he couldn't convince this stranger to take up a road that led to the empire, he'd atkeep the conversation going for the sake of having it.

[Camila Adaronde]

30 paragraphs counted, meaning 150 TP for both participants~!