[Soul Society]
(East Gate Hospital)[/URL]
((The same music still applies.))
Kusuma walks forward, paying the IntSec members a small nod as they start evacuating. But then there's a rustle from the building, and something jumps out.
It's humanoid, human even, even though it lands on its hands and knees, and is shrouded with a long mane that quivers with odd reverberations that make it look like something more than listless hair.
Spoiler: ...?
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Hikaru lays on her side in a... somewhat shabby room. Shivering. Her insides are in agony, feeling both freezing and burning. She's pale, sickly, and with an expression of heart-wrenching instinctual terror. Was this what it was like to die? She was... alone. Her mother went to get water. Her father was off fighting for some lord.
Her brother... she couldn't be sure where he was. As she got sicker and sicker, he helped care for her, but eventually, her mother took him aside. There were heated words and he... disappeared, having run off. Some of her friends said they saw him leave the town.
"Onii-chan... come back... p-please..." She whimpers to herself. To no one. To her brother, though she knew he couldn't hear her. "I d-don't... I don't..." She wasn't sure what to say. She wanted to say she didn't want to die. Maybe he left to get a doctor.
But it was hard not to admit part of her just didn't want him to be away if- when she died. There... was still hope. But it was dimming.
Kusuma continues approaching slowly, but his blade is drawn. Not yet released, but drawn.
"...pity, you look like a child. I'll do you this mercy." His tone is dampened from his usual lightheartedness. The voice of a man who bears the weight of the lives he's taken as an executioner. The form quivers as Kusuma raises his zanpaktou...
And then catches it in one hand as he swings it down towards the neck, spasming a bit as it grips the blade and redirects it into the ground. Kusuma blinks, eyes widening at the almost
casual redirect. With nary a drop of blood. And that momentary lapse in concentration is enough for the figure to launch a counterattack, leaping up into a shoulder tackle straight into Kusuma's torso. The royal guardsman has the pure combat instinct to brace, knowing that his opponent would have poor momentum and leverage...
And he still gets pushed back nearly to the wall before he catches his balance, grunting but mostly unharmed. But his foe still stands across the courtyard from him, fully upright at this point. Shirtless, as was usually the case for Katsuo, sweatpants more intact but still somewhat tattered, and barefoot. His body lithe, but still undeniably muscular - more than expected. Black hair blowing in a faint wind as clouds gather ominously above. His face... is not quite yet encapsulated in the mask of a hollow. But the bony substance is growing ever quicker across his face, and an acid-green glow comes from his hollowfied eyes. The figure quivers, hands clenching and spasming as Kusuma readies his blade again, raising it up.
"...I thought you a fledgling hollow, with how weak you felt. It seems... I cannot let down my guard with you. BLIND, HOM-" One of Kusuma's arms is suddenly wrenched from the hilt, his release call interrupted as his stance is thrown off. He looks to his arm and sees the glowing rope of a Hainawa, and a call comes from nearby.
"Do not release!"
Kusuma follows the rope and looks to rebuff the voice.
But before he can he's hit with the force of a truck. Several trucks. Being carried by a cargo plane. Launched out of an oversized cannon. The rope snaps. He's sent careening through the wall of the hospital courtyard. Then... the wall of a nearby medlog storage facility. Then out of that, and into a barracks. Then through the barracks wall, tumbling into an alleyway for a few meters before stopping. Katsuo stands at the other end of the trajectory, still twitching and spasming erratically, with one arm stretched out. Though Kusuma is a bit winded and just outright surprised at the suddenness and force of the impact.
Momoka, who was hiding nearby, winces at the punch, letting go of the rope kido immediately to prevent being pulled along for the ride. She... was sure he was probably not dead. But he would be none too happy about that interruption. But at the very least, Katsuo seems not quite lucid enough to continue the assault, just lapsing from his concentration a moment to let out a few pained growls and low howls, swiping at the air and nothing in particular. They still had time... for what, she wasn't sure. But there was a reason she interrupted Kusuma. She quietly makes to move towards the royal guardsman without being noticed, reapplying her stealth kido and climbing through the holes.