Stalwart Protection [Luca] [Closed]

[Wynne Kuchiki]

Staring down at Karakura Town, Wynne let out a nervous sigh. Today she was going on a small outing to slay a weak hollow lurking about. By herself. With no backup. Why her superiors thought this was a good idea was a mystery to her. Sure she knew it was a trial by fire type of thing, but she would've preferred strengthening herself up a bit more. It was a hollow within her power level, but she didn’t even have her own zanpakuto yet! Although even if she did, she would probably rarely use it. Kido felt better in her hands after all.

Closing her eyes, Wynne probed the nearby area with her reiatsu. Her tracking skills were relatively decent. Not great but not that bad either. As long as the hollow was nearby, she’d be able to find it. Hopefully. She hadn’t really tested this type of thing out before, so she was learning as she went. Still, she knew this hollow wasn’t really hiding it's reiatsu. She supposed the creature thought it was the top of the food chain, so it didn’t feel the need to hide. That or it just didn’t know how to. It was hard to tell how these types of abominations thought.

Sadly it took Wynne quite a bit of time before she managed to get on the trail of her prey. Before she could reach it however, its reiatsu mysteriously disappeared. Had it left through a garganta? No, she didn’t think that was the case. If it had, she would have felt it. That meant someone had dealt with it. But who? No shinigami were supposed to be posted nearby, as this was her designation expedition spot. Still there was only one way to find out.

Speeding towards where she last sensed the hollow, Wynne ran on the sidewalks with her senses at the ready. It was somewhere around...here? Standing around in a park, she watched as a kid swung on a swing before redirecting her attention back to the fountain shooting out water nearby. This was the general location that the disappearance had occurred at. This she was sure of. But who exactly was she trying to find?

“Hello? Anybody seen a hollow around here?”

[Akira Hinosai]

The first thing Luca noticed about the new status quo was just how quiet it was. He couldn't bug Ken'ichi to hang out. Luca didn't feel his days structured around Ken'ichi anymore. Now, without Raph, that was another source of entertainment down the drain. Sure, the former split was far more amicable and not as permanent, but Luca still had to find ways to occupy the time they once would have taken up. Luca had hobbies, sure, but video games and working out could only entertain him for so long. Sometimes, they would kill a few hours, but on days like today, nothing seemed particularly appealing to Luca.

He walked around Karakura as he often did, looking for stores to appropriate goods from or hollows to fight. Most hollows were beneath him these days, though. Luca's legs took him to the park. It was oddly poetic, Luca had to admit, but Amare wasn't there to complete the reincorporation. It had been the site of his first big fight in Karakura, and it had been where he'd made his first real friend...Well, maybe friend was a strong word, but Luca did enjoy Amare well enough. It had been forever since they'd last hung out. Still, the idea of going back to him like some kind of rebound friend was disgusting to Luca. The next big scheme in his life would surface soon enough. He just had to figure what it was.

Aimlessly walking through the slice of gentrified wilderness, Luca stopped in front of a tree. Then, a thought raced through his mind like a bolt of lightning. HE COULD CLIMB THIS TREE AND NO ONE COULD STOP HIM Coniferous? Deciduous? Luca didn't give a shit, he was going to climb this motherfucking tree! Fullbringer abilities and upper body strength made the task effortless. A few minutes or so later, Luca was hanging from a branch by his knees, watching the upside down city do its thing. Luca felt the blood rush to his head, and decided hanging off a branch had lost its novelty.

By the time he'd pulled himself up to the branch he sat on, he snesed something. It was a small blip amidst the city, but Luca noticed it all the same. Perched on a treebranch, Luca watched a tiny shinigami girl look around aimlessly. So long as the inner hollow thing didn't resurface, which was super unlikely, Luca may have found the perfect solution to his boredom...

Wynne would see a lanky young man plop down from a tree, utterly unphased by the fall. He wore a black tanktop and mulberry colored shorts. His eyes were hidden behind large orange sunglasses and his long brain hair was tied back in a loose ponytail. He leaned down to be at eye level with the very short shinigami "Hollow, you say? Aren't you a little young to be fighting hollows? Jeez, did the seireitei hire you right out of the womb?" Luca laughed at his own joke before correcting his posture in an exaggerated motion. Wynne might notice he was rather young himself, definitely no older than 20. "Relax, I'm just kidding! I know you shinigami do that elven-aging thing so I'm sure you're old enough to be my grandma. So, what was that about a hollow, uh..." Luca fumbled upon realizing he didn't know this tiny infant child's name. "You got a name, squirt?"

[Wynne Kuchiki]

Wynne’s answer came in the form of a young man falling from a tree before catching himself. What he was doing there was a mystery to her, but perhaps it was an ongoing trend? She knew from her classmates that humans in the realm of the living did all sorts of strange things. Things such as eating something clearly poisonous that they used to help wash their clothes. Something about an ocean and pods? Perhaps getting in tune with nature and becoming one with a tree was just another pastime for them. She wouldn't know though. 

"Hollow, you say? Aren't you a little young to be fighting hollows? Jeez, did the seireitei hire you right out of the womb?" The more words the new arrival spoke, the more Wynne wished he would self combust on the spot. Ah, so funny. What a comedian. Jabs about her height. She hadn’t heard any of those before. Not only that, but he laughed at his own joke. Who does that? Frowning towards the tall sunglasses wearing man, Wynne wished she could blast him with a Kido. Unfortunately for her, such a thing was frowned upon in the Soul Society. Therefore she’d just have to grit her teeth until she got the information she wanted.

“I do indeed have a name. And I was asking if anyone had seen a hollow nearby. But judging from the looks of things, I’m better off finding my information elsewhere.”

Naturally she did not give out her name to this random stranger. Not only was he rude, but he didn’t even give his name first! Did he not know the first thing about politeness? Absolute revolting. Starting a conversation with insults was a good way to get murdered, and if she wasn’t worried about the hollow causing harm to innocents, Wynne would have already left. No wonder her classmates looked down upon the spiritually aware here if this was what they had to deal with.