Post by Zauberin on Jul 28, 2022 14:41:12 GMT -5
| - - - | ! ! Alert ! ! | - - - |
| - - - | ! ! Hollow Sighted ! ! | - - - |
| - - - | ! ! Threat Level: Minimal - Unseated Equivalent ! ! | - - - |
| - - - | ! ! Respond: Nawasaki Hayako ! ! | - - - |
| - - - | ! ! Hollow Sighted ! ! | - - - |
| - - - | ! ! Threat Level: Minimal - Unseated Equivalent ! ! | - - - |
| - - - | ! ! Respond: Nawasaki Hayako ! ! | - - - |
”Oh, what now?” Hayako let out an aggravated sigh, pulling her phone away from her ear to read the text she received from the Gotei 13. She flipped the alert notification away and immediately opened the scanner on her phone, looking through its images in order to pinpoint where this impolite intrusion into her downtime was. The voice on the other side of her conversation continued. ”Yeah, just hold on a minute, I’m getting an alert, I can’t hear you.” She grumbled aloud, still scrolling until she had pinpointed where the Hollow was: Birch Aquarium. That’s not too far from where I’m at. And if this alarm triggered early, I should have plenty of time to deal with it. Alright Hayako. You’re three for three, so far. Let’s make it four for four.
Hayako brought her phone back up to her ear, tucking it into her shoulder to continue talking while raising her hands in order to put up her hair. “Sorry about that, got another alert.” She apologized to her conversation partner over the phone. “What’s that? Yeah, no, there aren’t usually Hollow this far out - lot of people out this way, but not a very attractive spot.” She dropped her hands back down, before starting off at a jog. “No, I can stay on the phone at least until I get there. … Yes, I’ll be fine. Look, relax! It’s just one hollow, and I’ve already handled three so far. Darling~, don’t worry about me, okay? Just because you graduated before me doesn’t mean I can’t handle myself, I’ll be fine! Look, I’ll call you back in about an hour or so, alright?”
==
Zauberin sniffed the air around the aquarium, staring at the large structure from the outside. She tilted her head to the left and then to the right with a broad grin across the skeletal structure of her mask. Shimmering violet orbs watched from afar as humans walked in and out - were she an animal and not a Hollow she would have been disgustingly salivating at the thought of the prey inside of the building. It would have been simple enough to get inside through the main entrance - it wasn’t as though there were particularly powerful spirits inside, but there was something about this building in particular that had her attention. She bent all four of her limbs and lowered herself to the ground, before stretching each of them outwards. “ᛗᚨᚲᛖ.”
The runic language leaked from her mask and four associated markings shone a dull violet against her skin. In front of her, spiritual energy began to condense and twist around into an orb, bright violet on the outside and a mixture of dark violet and shimmering silver on the inside, swirling around in front of her, between her body and the aquarium. It hovered seemingly harmlessly in the air, at least until she spoke again. “ᛟᚢᛏ.” Again, the command leaked from her mask and the air around her shifted, as though compelled to answer her command. The orb suddenly flung itself forwards into the lower level of the building, impacting one of the larger windows on the second story of the building, exploding and sending glass, concrete, and raw spiritual energy inwards.
The screams that emanated from the building were music to Zauberin’s ears. Humans in panic - undoubtedly at least one or two of them had been injured in the resulting blast. She knew from a combination of her own memories and a basic understanding of her world that glass would be the weakest entry point - a fatal flaw in most building’s construction. Even if something wasn’t directly behind it when it broke, the shards and concrete must have hit something.
Her legs took her forwards and in the direction of the main gate. Her vision wasn’t spectacular, but she could tell from the general flow of spiritual energy that much of it was being funneled through a specific point. “Stupid… simple… prey. So scared and running right to their demise. ᛗᚨᚲᛖ.” Again, her spiritual energy coalesced in front of her, and again it waited for some resultant command. Before she could utter it again, however, a singular blue arrow came flying through the air from the second floor of the aquarium. It came with a speed that Zauberin couldn’t follow, singing through the air and making contact with the orb, causing it to explode outwards, engulfing the arrow and leaving a small cloud of smoke in front of her. She growled at the affront.
What the hell was…? Another arrow flew in her direction, this time past her mask. Whoever was firing them was getting significantly closer to hitting their target, which Zauberin absolutely could do without. She leaned forwards, taking off at a jaunt towards the ledge of the building she was on, crawling her way down the cityscape until she was at ground level. Every ten seconds or so, another blue arrow would sing through the air and pass her, colliding with the terrain past her. The further she went into the crowds of people running away from the explosions, the fewer and fewer arrows came. Whoever was in there must have known the limitations of their abilities and was trying their best to avoid collateral damage.
She stalked amongst the crowds as they ran in her direction, eyes held on the Aquarium from afar as she continued forwards. She pushed forwards with a jaunt, bringing her right hand up and drawing the symbols for her creation rune with her right hand, causing a violet swirl of energy to build up in her hand until it formed another sphere, which she squeezed in between her fingers. In her grip, it felt almost like she was clutching a perfectly smooth, crystalline sphere, though something deep inside her knew the destructive potential it had. Another blue arrow flew past her body as she flitted in between crowds. It grazed the back of her leg, causing her to let out a loud howl as she spun and turned her attention to the building. There, in the distance, she saw what she was fairly certain was the target of her current hatred.
Her suspicions were confirmed when she saw the dull blue glow of an arrow being charged. She wasn’t sure what these creatures were called, but she knew that they looked like humans, and they were alive like humans, which meant that she could make them dead like humans. While the human charged its arrow from afar, she raised her hand, drawing a set of runes in front of her and speaking roughly, her voice heavily altered from behind her mask. “ᛟᚢᛏ.” The runes she drew in the air solidified and shone on her back just as the Quincy let its arrow loose in her direction. She couldn’t even track it as it approached, but it didn’t matter - not if the Quincy was going to continue to stand still like that.
The arrow flung towards her and, without warning, changed directions. At the same speed that it was shot, it careened directly back in the direction it came, away from her, given that it was fired in a straight line. She likewise held her right hand up, orb held, and spoke the runic phrase again, sending a second, albeit slower projectile in that direction. She couldn’t be sure that either one of them hit, but the sight of the arrow impacting the side of the aquarium followed immediately by the explosion of her sphere was enough to give her the confidence to continue her approach. As she guessed, whoever it was that was attacking her had retreated out of her range for now.
Once she had made it to the entry gates, the carnage began. She stood in front of the large entry doors that most of the people were funneling through and raised her hand, drawing the rune for creation in front of her body, before drawing the rune for projection immediately afterwards. One orb was sent sailing into the main entryway, followed by another with little in the way of aiming. Screams echoed through the general vicinity as souls were forcibly separated from their bodies and loved ones were taken from one another. Seemingly without a chance for harm now that her attacker had retreated, Zauberin approached one of the newly detached plus souls, bringing one of her limbs around and pinning the already injured being into the pavement.
“N-No! P-Pl… Aaahhh!” Zauberin was a messy eater. She tore into one soul, before brutally ripping the next free from its corpse in order to continue her meal. Completely distracted by her food, she didn’t even register that her attacker hadn’t fully retreated - merely repositioned themselves in order to find a better angle and better coverage. She barely noticed the flash of reiatsu from the arrow being let to fly from its home as it careened through the air and tagged her soundly in the right leg, causing her to lurch backwards and howl in pain. She shifted her body, lurching backwards and glaring up and around at her surroundings.1
”Hey! Up here!” A young man dressed casually in basketball shorts and a t-shirt shouted from above. From here, Zauberin couldn’t make out any of his more detailed features, but that didn’t matter to her. What mattered to her was that he was preparing another arrow. She lurched to her left as the man let loose an arrow - it would have missed its mark anyway. ”Shit - hold still!” He grumbled, cursing under his breath just in time to see a violet orb being flung in his direction. This one was slower than the others, but as he took off at a sprint away from it, the smoke and energy from the resulting explosion overtook him, eliciting a shout of pain.
She paced left and then right while staring at the platform. She wasn’t sure that she had killed her adversary this time, but she was certain that he was no longer directly threatening her, giving her time to go back to her meal. Screams echoed again from the entryway as Zauberin tore into two more souls, ripping them clean from their bodies and mangling both them and their chains in her haphazard way of eating. After eating her fourth soul, she slowly raised her body upwards again, head turning on a swivel in order to take her surroundings into account. By now, the crowd had thinned out considerably and she had no interest in chasing down stragglers, so she continued into the aquarium. From the initial and secondary blast that had hit the top floor, there had to be some kind of prey that was either injured or dead, she reasoned.2
She hadn’t taken more than a few steps inside when another blue arrow slammed down into the concrete to her left, causing her to startle and lurch to her right, spinning around to try and find her persistent attacker. ”God dammit!” Now that a single story stood between her and the would-be hero, she could see that he was worse off for the engagement. While she was limping and favoring her left hind leg over her right, her mobility hadn’t been completely halted and her injuries altogether weren’t very serious. The man above her, however, was visibly worse off. He attempted to steady his aim from above only to falter and slink backwards as he let an arrow loose past her mask, causing her to jump again despite the lack of immediate danger.
She growled, raising her hand and drawing the symbol to create an orb in front of her, followed by the symbols required to project the orb outwards, causing an explosion to the underside of the floor that the Quincy was standing on. A shout echoed from above, followed by the characteristic crumbling of wood and weak metal, with the Quincy falling down and onto the ground in front of her. He tumbled weakly into a roll that he couldn’t stand from, his left leg mangled and the rest of his body suffering varying degrees of fractures. ”Please - Please no. Where’s the… Why aren’t they here yet…?” Those were his last words before she tore into his body, ending his life amidst screams for mercy.3
“Prey… shouldn’t speak. Weak creatures… Only good for food.” She growled under her breath when she had finished devouring the Quincy, turning about and moving to continue her feast on the creatures further inside of the aquarium. Stragglers were all that was left, but they were absolutely helpless against the methodical prowl of Zauberin as she moved from injured body to injured body, continuing her feeding frenzy. Four humans became five, became six, as she continued to mill about the lower floors, dragging her right leg with her and occasionally testing its strength. It was a nagging injury, to be sure, but as long as she left sooner rather than later, she knew she would be fine.4
{1}Two Class 8 Humans Consumed = 120 TP
{2}Two Class 8 Humans Consumed = 120 TP
{3}One Class 7 Quincy Consumed = 100 TP
{4}Two Class 8 Humans Consumed = 120 TP
