Metamorphosis [Closed] [Training]

[Wynne Kuchiki]

“Everything has a price….I should’ve known. The situation had seemed odd from the start, did it not?” Letting out a pained laugh, Wynne gave the hollow in front of her a menacing stare. She wouldn’t back down. Not like before. Picking herself off from the ground with a huff, she gripped her zanpakuto even tighter than before. It was getting harder to think. A haze was starting to form over her thoughts. How long had she been fighting? Why was she fighting? Where was she even fighting? Questions for another time perhaps? When her head was in a better spot. For now she had a foe to defeat.

Diving to the left to dodge the oncoming swipe, Wynne tumbled on the oncoming with a grimace. Ah yes, her bruised ribs. How easily she forgot about the state her body was in. What was going on with her today? Something was off with her, it was easy to tell that much. One moment she was able to think, the next she was throwing herself at the enemy. She could barely hold herself back as well. Just looking at the hollow filled her with rage. It reminded her of how weak she was, what she used to be. What she still remained. She needed to push herself to the very limit. Fight at death’s door to fully push herself to the edge. As she would do now!

Pushing herself off the ground with a burst of strength, Wynne rushed up to the hollow’s face before it could react. Slashing her zanpakuto at the hollow, she watched as the beast raised its arm to deflect her attack. Predictable. Twisting her body to the side, she slammed her left leg into its body, throwing it across the clearing. “Owwwww.” Grimacing in pain at the damage she did to her own ribs, Wynne watched in satisfaction as the hollow collapsed against a nearby tree due to the force of her own attack. Now that she had some breathing room, she could recollect how she got into this situation to begin with.

[Wynne Kuchiki]

The whole Soul Society situation was still dicey, but so far it had been going rather well. People had noticed her absence, but no one had really cared. She had just been given a warning to not do it again. They hadn’t even asked her what her reasoning was, which just showed the incompetence of Soul Society as a whole, but she wasn’t complaining. They did pile her up with busy work though, which included a bunch of paperwork and hunting down hollow. The latter which was what she had just been doing before she realized something was up with her mental state.

There were two options here that could be the cause for her sudden onslaught of battle rage? If that was what she was calling it. The hollow itself or Col’s gift. Every hollow had some sort of strange power that was unique to it, the only problem was that it usually benefited the creature. So far the only thing happening for this one was that she was beating it to a pulp. So the odds of this hollow being the culprit was looking slim. Which left Col as the only other option. She wouldn’t put it past the Arrancar either as giving someone free power just didn’t really make any sense. The question was did he do it on purpose or was her body just having some sort of strange reaction to his power?

She truly didn’t know. It had been days since she had received the power, so it was strange that she was having a reaction now. It might not even be his gift, and she was just blaming him unjustly. But if that was the case, what did that say about her? She just enjoyed fighting and the feeling of being near death? She didn’t before, why now? Because she was stronger and she could feel herself getting stronger everyday? Or was it something else? She just didn’t know. It wasn’t such a simple question to answer. She was changing quicker than someone normally should and it worried her. Was it a natural change or was someone forcibly molding her into something else?

[Wynne Kuchiki]

Before she could think about the situation anymore, she was interrupted from her thoughts by the hollow picking itself up from the fallen tree she had kicked it into. Oh yeah, she should probably deal with that. Unfortunately for her, she was only able to take one step towards it before it opened its mouth and let out an ear piercing screech. Wincing in annoyance, Wynne leapt off the ground with a Shunpo and decapitated it with a single swipe. All for the meager price of her ears bleeding. Closing her eyes and rubbing her temples in annoyance, she kicked the corpse of the hollow. While it wasn’t that strong, its ability set was a pain to deal with. Thankfully it was dealt with and she could finally return home and rest.

As she began to make preparations to make the journey back home, Wynne narrowed her eyes. Something didn’t feel right. Her sixth sense was tingling. Taking a moment to stare at the corpse, she unsheathed her zanpakuto before looking at her surroundings. Currently she couldn’t hear anything thanks to her bleeding ears, but she had a feeling she was being watched. She wasn’t before, she was sure of it. It must have been when the hollow let out that annoying scream. A cry for help? She was sure no other hollow had been nearby, but her senses had never been that good to begin with. Perhaps she had missed one.

Spitting out a glob of blood, Wynne took a moment to look over her body. Currently it wasn’t looking too good for her. She had a few scratches on her face which wasn’t too bad. The most annoying part was her damaged ears. Not being able to hear where her opponent was would damage her combat potential severely. Plus her ribs were bruised, but she was confident she’d be able to push through the pain. The only problem was she was dealing with a hollow that favored stealth, so she needed to make sure she didn’t take on any more wounds than she already had.

[Wynne Kuchiki]

Taking a deep breath, Wynne focused her efforts into sensing reiatsu. Seeing as how she wouldn’t be able to detect the hollow through sound, this was one of her only options in figuring out where the creature was hiding. The woods she was in were vast, but it was also empty. If she was lucky, it shouldn’t be too hard to spot the creature. As seconds ticked by, Wynne put more and more energy into trying to spot the hollow. But before she was able to find its hiding spot, a blast of energy slammed into her chest and flung her off her feet, slamming her into a nearby tree. “Ack!”

“Oh? What do we have here? A little shinigami all by themselves? Even managed to kill yourself a hollow too by the feel of it. Impressive.” With a small chuckle, a lizard-like hollow scuttled down from the tree and revealed himself, in all of his eight foot glory. Glaring at the hollow as she picked herself up, Wynne let out a huff of irritation. If she wasn’t injured from the previous hollow she wouldn’t be having this much of a problem. Luckily for her, this one seemed to be full of himself, seeing as how he foolishly chose to reveal himself when he had the advantage. She’d be sure to make him regret that mistake.

“Yeah and you’re gonna be the next one.” She’d had to be careful fighting this one. While the blast she suffered wasn’t that strong, it still made her other wounds sting. Her ribs were bruised, but if they kept suffering hits, they were going to break. And she didn’t want bone shrapnel in her lungs. Still now that she could see him, his attacks wouldn’t be too hard to deflect. But he’d probably have some sort of trick up his sleeve as most hollows tended to have. But once you learned to expect it, it wasn’t so bad.

[Wynne Kuchiki]

With her taunt thrown his way, all Wynne had to do was wait for her opponent to make his next move. And he did so almost immediately. As he charged her with an overhand swing, she ducked under it and slashed with her zanpakuto, cutting him open underneath his arm. Not enough to take him out of the fight, but enough to draw blood. As the hollow screamed in pain, Wynne continued the assault, slashing here and there, creating more and more wounds without letting up. It was best to keep the advantage that she had while she could due to her injuries. She needed to take every advantage she could.

Unfortunately she only managed to get four more cuts in before being pushed away by the hollow’s tail which she managed to block with her sword. Judging from how the hollow was now only screaming at her, it seemed that the time for pleasantries was now over. Which was fine for her, as the familiar haze was beginning to take over once more, dulling the pain and giving her the energy to push on. This time when the hollow chose to attack, Wynne chose to meet him head on. She was confident in her strength, she had wounded him in her last exchange so even with her bruised side they should be about even in their strength now. It was time to see who had the greater power.

With a low clang, her zanpakuto met the armored side of the hollow’s tail. Pushing her arm and back into her thrust, Wynne put all of her energy into her attack, aiming to slice off her opponent’s tail. On the other side, the hollow aimed to do the same. Whoever lost this exchange would be put at a disadvantage and would more than likely lose this fight. It was an all or nothing attack. With a vicious scream, Wynne took another step and slammed her sword with all of her strength, cleaving through the hollow’s tail with a ferocious grin. “Agghh, my fucking tail you bitch!!!”

[Wynne Kuchiki]

“Oh, I’m a bitch am I?” Pushing herself closer to the hollow, Wynne twisted her body and plunged her zanpakuto inside of the hollow’s chest. Gripping her weapon tightly, she pulled it upwards with all of her strength, splitting the hollow vertically. And unfortunately while this filled her with a sense of satisfaction, it also covered her in gore and blood. Staining her clothes and ruining everything she had on her. Standing still in shock, Wynne stared at herself for a moment before letting out a groan of annoyance. “Why me?”

Naturally before she could return home Wynne had to find a river to wash off in, which was sadly becoming the norm for her. Her hearing had gone back to normal on the way there which was the only good thing that happened to her on this mission. The blood from the hollow had stained her clothes, so that was going to be a pain to get out. There were also tears she was going to have to sow. So that was another thing she was going to have to add to the list. Plus her ribs were aching something fierce. So she’d probably have to get that checked out.

Still she had won. Proven she was capable of fighting even half death and through moderately damaging wounds. Proven that she was way stronger than she had been previously. The old Wynne would have never been able to do something like this. She would have collapsed long ago. Been devoured and consumed. Instead the hollows had been slain and purified. And Wynne had grown stronger. But she still wasn’t strong enough. These were run of the mill hollows. Hollows you could find anywhere. She couldn’t really be proud of defeating them. She still had much farther to go.

[Kitai Yoru]

18 paragraphs, 90 TP awarded