Post by Santa Ajora on Feb 23, 2017 22:50:53 GMT -5
Training for SP
The Rukongai was always a jewel. Even if a particularly tarnished one. The Wilderness stretched on beyond unimaginable lengths, and yet this one, big, massive settlement persevered through the middle of it. And yet that gem in the rough had been plagued. In the wake of such things as the recent invasions, and with Captains occupied with other affairs than those they were bound to: The Rukongai was rife with a corpse-like scent. The scent of fear and vulnerability. And like flies to that corpse, the hollows had begun to swarm.
Santa Ajora, was one of many hollows that found themselves drawn to that deep, drenched scent. So many of the rukongai citizens were shuttered up. Sheltered, hiding, grouped together for protection. With what could barely be called weapons scattered among them. It was one of the poorer districts. Area 50. A section that had recently been under rennovation. A few of the families in the area had become successful, some of the members having recently become shinigami and having stood out. With new revenue flowing, the family was going it's best to try and move up. What was once a modest home had the beginings of a much grander abode about it.
And that very quasi-mansion, the place that would have been a symbol of their new status, the new page in their otherwise dull lives: was bleeding. It had just started in a corner. But now, the smell was immediate. The slow spread of guts, flesh, and living viscera that seemed to simply grow it's way out of the wall on the east side, as if some slow horrible plague had spread it's way across one side of the house, and black blood flowed like a creeping monster, a little pool slowly beginning to fill the first floor. The family was huddled in the upper rooms, but several f the young men watched the grotesque spread of gore through what was once their home. Small improvised weapons in hand. and a single Zanpaku'to among them. A shinigami visiting his family.
She could hear them. Those hushed voices that echoed through the area. The shaky tremble of voices that had no experience in any real fight. And of course, that singular clean, clear voice of confidence. A man trying to calm his family. To tell them it was okay. Even as numerous eyeballs, seemingly disembodied as they grew out of the very floor, suddenly began swiveling, and several of them fixated on that black-robed figure. She saw him, and when the man realized tht so many of those 'dead' eyes were pointed in his direction, he suddenly came to freeze up, before a shak hand suddenly rose, the crackle of electricity in his palm.
"BYAKURAI!"
The shout startled the other members of the family as that burst of lightning tore it's way through several of those eyes, and the others did not even blink. Simply staring bleakly at the man as he stared at the hole he had made in the wall, his chest heaving as his family around him suddenly readied themselves, expecting a sudden attack. But what they saw, was not what they expected. The slow, steady, timid press of a hoof gently dipping into the room. The slow, tilting peek of that white, black-streaked mask looking into the home. until at long last the rest of her body slid into view.
They could not even muster a scream at the sight of her. The sight of so many chunks of flesh, dripping black blood, bones, organs, mouths, tongues, and other bits and bobs that sloughed from her body like dry skin. and the slow, dry rasp that slowly hissed it's way from the mouth of that mask, that seemed to almost creep it's way into their ears like some hissing audio parasite. Before she was even completely through that hole, the man suddenly felt a burst of courage, the need t o act. The need to protect his family. Santa watched as the man suddenly screamed out, his face red as he suddenly lurched forward, charging at her.
Three soft, sloppy squishes. Three steps into the range of her garden of cadavers, before suddenly that charge wa abruptly ended by one, loud, punctuated KACHAK! Followed by the sickening crunch of bone as suddenly, the man that had been charging, that new shinigami, not even a seated officer, felt a bone and sinew bear trap lock onto his right shin, immediately tumbling face-first into that flesh-ridden floor. Right onto a second trap, a Ligament Noose suddenly whipping upward, snaring the shinigami around his neck before it suddenly grew taut. Those ordinary rukongai citizens watched as the man they had lived with for so much of their lives suddenly go purple in the face, his hands clawing at his throat as it was stretched between the bear trap and the noose about his neck. Eyes wide, bugging out.
But it did not last long. A disembodied arm grew it's way slowly out of the floor, a hand rising like some sickening flower, fingers twitching, slowly opening as it came to position right over the man's face, terror written on every inch of his features before the ligament-tripped spike in the forearm suddenly shot out, tripped by a twitch of the skinless arm's fingers, the spike sinking with a wet, soppy KACHUNK through the front of the shinigami's face, his body suddenly going limp as he stopped being afraid, forever.
Santa tilted her head just in time to see those family members bolting for the stairs, heading up to the second floor to escape her. Luckily for them, the ceiling was actualy quite tall, high up enough that her gargen had only barely begun spreading upstairs. But she didn't mind. Slowly, arms and claws began pulling the dead shinigami's body apart, carving him up, pulling him to pieces as she casually approached and simply settled down, and began to munch on the body.
It was panic. The news of what had happened to ne of their own shaking the entire family. All of them were shivering, trying to keep it together, unable to believe the sobbing story told by one of their eldest sons. ' We must keep it together!' 'We must be strong, like Kijoshi!'. A sudden peppering of hear-hears peppered the room, and for just a moment there was a spattering of hope. Resolve in the death of their beloved, and the idea that he may not have died meaninglessly. They began to feel confident. Until the soft, frightened voice of one of the women suddenly squeaked out.
They all Turned. They Stared.
And the spreading garden stared back. The slow creep of horror that grew along the ground as Santa moved along the lower floor. Eyes, partial faces, ears, all manner of sensory organs seemed to be spawning, as those items of information gathering began sweeping the room. Eyes locking onto the family's horror-stricken faces. Ears locking in the direction of their heavy breathing. And slowly, arms beginning to reach their way out of the floor, a slow grinding, twisting crackle sounding as bone and flesh and sinew slowly formed long, protruding hollowed tubes of bone from the centers of those palms, almost like little chimneys sprouting from the palms. Little chutes that pointed at the frightened group.
KLAKLAK!
Suddenly several of those members were slumping to the floor, staring at the sharp spikes of bone protruding from theid bodies, among them one of the women screamed as her brother closed his eyes forever, and the smell of sulfur and acid filled the air, several of the family members galvanized into action and suddenly attacked, charging and attacking those disembodied limbs, mowing at them like weeds, at least until the soft squish of hooves was heard, and they all turned to the door leading to the stairway. Completely covered in flesh, slowly sliding wetly open as Santa's head slowly peaked in, and all of those that had charged into the garden screamed out as snares, tripwires, and other traps and surprises sprung onto them, only to reach a higher-pitched crescendo as those traps and limbs began to pull them apart, an even easier task than dealing with the one downstairs.
Santa casually tip-hoofed her way across the room, and one by one, visited each and every member of the family. Normally she would be talkative. She might have asked a few questions, been more...accomodating. But she was starving. How long had she been waiting for a real meal? How long since she'd been able to actually sink her teeth into something real? It was not a question of civility. It was a necessity. She needed to eat. Niceties could come later, with new people she met, with new faces she ran into.
But these.....these few.... received only horror.
1 class 8 Shinigami consumed
5 class 8 'Humans' consumed (Theyre rukongai citizens, more or less human souls, so theyre being counted as such)