Beginning Anew

[Sonadora]

Takadanobaba, Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, Japan. It had been a quiet autumn day in the Japanese metropolis. The night sky was cloudy, dark grey, with a hint of black here and there which prevented rain from falling just yet. The trees felt their leaves leave their branches as they felt the weight of the autumn press onto them, and the temperatures were cooling down, preparing the country for the winter that will follow soon enough. Students were heading back home for the day as their club activities and duties came to an end, and workers were slowly heading off to the local bars and restaurants. There were a few exceptions here and there, of course. A few men headed off to other areas of the city away from Takadanobaba, while others instead decided to visit their parents.. However, there was one particular exception that was especially noteworthy considering the recent times: one particular young couple who were both heading home together, hand in hand.

The two of them met during their later school years, a few months before they were able to move on into their professional lives. One was a hard-working man, cultured, who attended mathematics and history clubs each, while the other was a sportive woman who consecrated her body to tennis. Growing inseparable, they bonded over their respective appreciation for their skills and abilities, and so they fell in love. After their school years were over, they soon acquired jobs in the professional market, with the first becoming a lawyer and the other an aspiring athlete, yet this did not prevent their love from continuing to exist. They lived with one another, and although they were both busy, they were still able to meet each other as often as they could. It was at times difficult to properly do so, as Japanese professional standards require that the worker interacts very often with both his office space and colleague, but they were doing their best, and that is all that mattered.

They came home today in their small apartment with happiness in their heart. The man, despite being new at his work, had received a promotion, and the woman was chosen for a particular event which would take place in roughly a month or two. So early in their careers, they had already proven that they best represented the future of Japan: hard-working citizens aiming to both excel and become better at their craft. To celebrate this, they had taken the evening off so that they could spend some time with one another. They ate prepackaged food, unironically their favorite kind, and watched their favorite television show, an American soap opera recounting the lives of detectives and policemen which did not receive many critical acclaims and was more or less forgotten even in its country of origin. It was a miracle the latter was even dubbed by Japanese voice actors to begin with. As one could tell, it did not take very much to make them happy, but ultimately, it did not matter. In their perhaps-old-fashioned eyes, it was enough. They did not need much more, and they did not need less.

Eventually, they headed off to bed, and with brightness gleaming in their eyes, they wished each other good night. Tomorrow would be the beginning of what seemed to be fruitful lives ahead of them, and they were going to spend every second enjoying it.

---

An hour had passed since a lowly Hollow had entered a rather-large apartment complex near Seibu Takadanobaba station. She had reached the inside of the building from a window which had been left opened by staff, uncaring for those which might somehow have been able to see her. Her body, small and frail-looking, allowed her to move quickly and quietly within the hallways of the complex, permitting her to keep the noise she somehow made low and difficult to hear. A sort of cloud somewhat covered her body as she moved, a thick smoke which made her appear silvery, as though one of the clouds that currently covered the sky had fallen and appeared here in this complex. However, it was not powerful enough for anyone to be able to see it normally, and it was not large enough for it to go anywhere but beyond the pores of her skin.

It was difficult for the beast to not go on a rampage. Her stomach was strong, seemingly a mind of its own capable of demanding her many things. She could smell the souls which she currently passed by, imagine their tastes, and many times did she almost repulsively fall against its demands. Despite this, she endured and moved forward, and one of the things that allowed her to do so was her very own mind which conjured these thoughts, these words in her head that kept badgering her to move forward without thinking about the pain in her stomach. Ultimately, she was capable of using them to reach a specific room in the complex, the chamber of a slumbered office worker whom she had watched for some time now buying strange chemicals and a knife out of jealousy for a specific couple who he followed here. Once she was there standing in his room, she unleashed her fog across the entirety of the floor she was currently standing on, then waited. A few minutes later, the man woke in a panicked trance, seemingly convinced to immediately accomplish his evil deeds, and then went to work.

So now, here the Hollow stood, standing above the bodies of three dead Humans who she couldn't give an ounce of care about. She did not care about their past, their present, or their future while she watched them all flail desperately as suffered two subsequent deaths: the first being their physical deaths and the second being the spiritual deaths. Their Humans bodies were all left bloodied with knife marks, and so was her jaw, which had pieces of spiritual skin and flesh still hanging from it. "Adequate," she found herself commenting as she loomed over the bodies, visibly displeased by the blood which covered her own. The taste was fine, as to be expected from pathetic Humans, but she could not appreciate the mess. She hated being dirty. It made her feel repugnant, repulsive. At the very least, the testing of her initial abilities proved to be somewhat successful. Despite this reduced form, she could still hunt fairly well without attracting the immediate attention of the local Human forces. Less attention on her means less attention from the despicable Shinigami, and less attention from them means more Souls to consume. Hopefully, she will regain her former abilities before the end of this decade.

As a conclusion was reached, she brought her humanoid husk out of the room, then rapidly started going from room to room, leaving the couple and their "murderer" behind. This little context should give her enough time to quickly find the rest of the people in here and consume them. Her fog was sensing many other Souls sleeping quietly in their abodes. If she can eat all of their Souls, a great step forward will be taken towards the regaining her power. She had no time to waste.

Souls Consumed: 3x Class 8 Human (NPC)

SPOILER: Click to show

{Technique Used (Reiatsu: 890/900)}

Technique Name: Holy Veil

Technique Type: Custom Hollow Technique | Fog Manipulation

Technique Element: None

Usable by: Hollow

Class: 1-7

Technique Reiatsu Cost: 250 (Vasto Lorde), 40 (Adjuchas), 15 (Gillian), 10 (Stray)

Technique Description and Effects

A basic technique which represents Sonadora's control over her primordial ability. The creature allows minuscule pores present all over her skin to open, causing reiatsu formed in her body to be driven out in the form of a thick fog using her as its epicenter. The fog in question is white in appearance, draping the area in a veil of white that renders everything surrounding a living being difficult to perceive. From afar, it appears as a vaguely-cubic aerosol that is otherwise physically imperceptible from its natural counterpart. Its effects are in hindsight also identical to the latter's, rendering any environment it is present in damp and humid. Should a living being be present in this fog, the Embraced state will be applied to their soul. This allows Sonadora to sense their position in the fog by detecting the shape of the aerosol around the bodies of her targets, permitting her to identify what she may be facing depending on the information available to her, and employ the use of Daydreams against them in order to apply the Slumbered state to their soul.

Although its main supernatural use stops there, the fog can also be utilized in a more advanced fashion by the Hollow should it possess the mastery to do so, notably by using it as a form of camouflage or intimidation. For instance, with focus, she can bring the fog to only drape her body and make herself appear grander than she is with it. Additionally, this same focus can also allow her to forcibly push the epicenter of the fog away from herself for means of distraction or offense.


Drawbacks and Weaknesses

Considering that the fog is composed of Sonadora's own reiatsu, it can be difficult for the creature to keep it active in a certain area for a long period of time. Unless the fog is only delimited to the very pores of her skin, simply deciding to cover an area with it requires an initial amount of reiatsu to be spent depending on her Class. Once this value is spent, half of that value must then be spent again three posts later in order to maintain the fog. The fog's size and the range of visibility available to a being located within it are also rather limited as the both of these factors are as well delimited by the Hollow's Class. The values in question can be seen below:

Class	Maximum Size	Maximum Visibility
Vasto Lorde	100m	35m
Adjuchas	75m	30m
Gillian	50m	20m
Stray	25m	10m

The fog is also not invincible. Like any other normal fog, it can be pushed away by a large amount of hot air colliding with it so long as the air in question is also made with or simply affected by one's reiatsu. This rids any target which was previously located within it of the Embraced or Slumbered state if they are successful, removing Sonadora's influence upon their soul.