[BitPR²] Mortal World V

[King539]

Senshi grins and raises his hand, settling into a defensive stance. "Hado 4: Byakurai." A globe of electrical energy flies from Senshi's hand to the ceiling, dimly lighting the whole scene. Pretty impressive spell variant for a guy as bad at Kido as Senshi.

"The first rule of Fight Club..."

[Frozen_Feet]

The snake-haired creature looks up at the light. Or, well, some of its eyes look up at the light. It has extras to keep looking at Senshi.

"... is don't talk about the fight club? Is that right? It's been a while since we've seen the movie", the creature remarks.

"I thought it was a book...", the snake on its right shoulder speaks.

Two of the creature's eyes swivel to look at the snake. "Oh hush", the creature speaks, the its eyes turn back to Senshi.

"We're afraid we don't really adhere to such rules. After all, doesn't the 4th rule state only two guys fight at a time? For the are a lot more than two of us here. And we're not guys."

[King539]

Senshi's naginata collapses into a bracelet.

"I honestly don't think either of us follow those rules. After all, aren't we supposed to be unarmed? You have a sword, and I'm never unarmed."

At this, Senshi spreads his arms wide, and three shrunken appear in each of his hands, all of which are soon flying towards the creature.

[Frozen_Feet]

[Rome; Inside the Barrier]

As Senshi speaks, the snake-haired creature grabs its sword with both hands. "We'll see about that." Just as he throws his shuriken, the creature brings its sword down in a diagonal slash. "Luna Creciente!" The entire length of the barrier's interior is bisected by a blood red crescent of spiritual energy, and the bright light prevents Senshi from seeing where his projectiles hit. He might want to focus on not getting hit by the crescent himself!

---

[Kunlun Mountains; Inside the Mountain Fortress]

A black, faceless form observes a female humanoid in ZHE Quincy uniform and a Hollow's mask standing inside a transparent yellow barrier. At the other end of the barrier, a little less than 10 meters from her, a circular practice target stands attached to a post. "Experiment #107. Commencing test firing", the woman remarks, holding a silver pentacle in her hands. Reishi from around her is drawn towards the pentacle, forming into a ghostly blue bow. She draws the string back, an ethereal arrow appearing from thin air, then releases and the arrow flies and pierces the middle of the target.

The woman glances at the black figure outside the barrier, then lets her bow down. Then, a man in similar uniform but wearing a different mask, coughs and steps forward from behind her. "Test #108. Performing control", he mumbles, points a finger at the target, and in a flash of crimson light, it is completely incinerated.

All three watch the burning cinders of the practice target in mild disappointment as others maintaining the barrier let it fall.

"... Experiment #108 finished.", the woman drones. "Observations: bow formation complete. Arrow formation complete. Accuracy decent. Power..."

Still inferior to our Bala, the black, faceless figure concludes for her.

The man who served as control shrugs. "Well that's hardly a surprise, is it? The original Project Luna was about giving a living human the powers of a powerful spirit. As powerful spirits, we don't necessarily stand to gain much from acquiring the powers of a living human."

The woman glances at the man, then at the black, faceless figure. "Additionally, the continuation of that project, die Endsölung die Hohlefrage, had the aim of creating loyal soldiers of otherwise hostile spirits. It wasn't concerned with power. As we are not really Quincies, we don't have much to gain on that front either."

The black, faceless form nods. You both have good points, it notes. We indeed don't seem to have much to gain from this. Therefore, to continue this project of ours, it speaks at it turns to walk out of the room, the logical next step is to find someone who is not us, is it not?

The two uniformed humanoids ponder this, then nod and follow in the black, faceless figure's footsteps. "I take it another trip to Hueco Mundo is in order?"

The black, faceless figure nods. Indeed. Indeed it is.

---

[Later; again in the fortress on Kunlun Mountains]

It'd been quite an ordeal, finding another Menos. As before, the once crowded Forest of Menos had echoed in its emptiness, having still not recovered from the mass destruction fifty years ago. It might never recover now that Las Noches has taken to capturing and making into Arrancars every new Hollow they can find. As for the the Sands... almost all of those Menos with even an inkling of intelligence have been lured to Las Noches due to the prospect of never needing to fear hunger and loss of self again.

But, if there is one thing the collective powers of the creatures gathered around are good at, it is searching large areas for people who might be on the run or hiding. Now, the black, faceless humanoid stands before their catch, flanked by humanoid Hollows in white Quincy uniforms.

Hello there, it speaks, leaning closer to the captured creature. They've wrapped the Menos in white bandages, a method invented in Las Noches to force a non-humanoid Hollow back to a human shape. In addition, the Menos has been strapped with steel bands to what might look like a dentist's chair to an unenlightened viewer. The chair, in truth, is an artefact they recovered wholesale from Silbern and brought here.

I do not know if you can actually hear me as you are now, the black, faceless being continues. I would like to tell you this won't hurt. Unfortunately, based on what I've read, that would be lying. This will hurt. It will hurt quite a bit. However, you may take some solace in the fact that once it's over, you will be incapable of remembering any of it.

At this point, a female Hollow in a Quincy uniform steps forward and places a silver pentacle in a receptable filled with some clear blue liquid. In a mere moment, the liquid turns blood red and flows into a number of syringes attached to the chair. A male Hollow observes the control panel of the device as what suspicuously looks like the headpiece of an electric chair is lowered around the temples of the captured Menos.

The female Hollow glances at the black, faceless figure. "Everything is in place. We're ready to activate Sklaverei."

The black, faceless figure stands straight. Good. Begin Experiment #108. And so the syringes plunge into the captured Menos and an arc of electricity form a halo over its head...

[Lord Raziere]

Kunlun Fortress
The hollow within struggles in its binds. As the electricity and strange liquids surge into her, the struggle becomes frenetic and spastic, her entire body moving as if like the insanity of electricity and the winds themselves. Where there was once pure instinct and animal cunning within, now suddenly surged the powers of Quincies; the power of innovation, invention, domination, cold logic and spirit energy as seen through ginto tubes and measurements. Techniques, dogma and zealous fanatical belief crash into her mind, and war against the Hollow nature to devour, to kill, to be the top of the pack, to be a beast. The two evils within her head could not reconcile. They would only fight until the other is destroyed forever.

She struggles and begins to scream one long scream, louder and louder, at first probably not even piercing the bandages, but soon being audible, then beginning to hurt peoples ears, then beginning to make the very room vibrate from the scream. The two spiritual forces in her head could not be comprehended together, her mind could not process such two different things at once- so to keep itself from being destroyed entirely, her mind cracked to defend itself from obliteration to process these two things as one, with her twisting the Quincy voice into her own Quincy voice instead of others to make sure she stays Numero Uno, still hated the Hollow voice with undying hatred, but it was HER undying hatred. And thus just when the shriek reached a feverish crescendo, it suddenly stopped.

She didn't understand yet, there was still chaos in her head, but the agony of this forced whatever this was, was the main problem now. Suddenly she began laughing madly. She had only a few seconds to act. If she wanted to live past those it was going to be a hectic bunch of seconds. The plan was near incoherent and instinctual over all the blindingly agonizing pain but if Hollows did one thing well it was instinct. Gathering Reishii, she forced it into the form of an impromptu curved sword of red spirit energy bursting out from her palm and slicing through the wrap and the steel bands. With a supreme effort of will to take over her own Reishii following her Quincy instincts she used Hirenkyaku to speed her arm up to quickly cut herself free of the rest of the restraints, then her left arm suddenly shoots out, smashing through the receptacle to grab her Quincy Pentacle, somehow turned into some weird bony version with a blood-red gem in the middle, and throws it around her neck- her Quincy voice was telling her she was going to need it-, and finally tears off the wrap around her face so that she could see- with red left eye and her right hollow piece covered eye, her wild black hair falling down her shoulders.
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!!"
Narsica Hella Zoraida roared as she quickly looks at the situation while bursting up to a standing position, whats left of the mummy-wrap now keeping her decent. That was way too many brainwashing captors to take on with powers she just got and were still figuring out. Narsica needed to be gone from this place, yesterday! Her Hollow and Quincy sides both agreed: they could not kill what they desired if they died now. For mutual survival, they would reluctantly work together. So she didn't stop to chat or anything. She just took a split-second risk and tried to pull off a technique she used often as a Hollow, but now adapted for her new Quincy abilities:
"SONIDO-HIERRO SKULL SMASH! QUINCY VERSION!"
Suddenly she shoots forward in a straight at insane speeds, her head hardening as much as it can as she charged into the wall like a bull at speeds fast as- or maybe faster- than a bullet. If all goes well,Narsica crashes through any walls in her way, goes flying out into the air and starts falling down the mountains, cackling with insanity all along the way while she starts taking her own crash course in using Hirenkyaku to fly and get away as fast as possible.

One probably considers this not a normal result of such an experiment.

[Frozen_Feet]

The black, faceless figure and several of the uniformed Hollows are knocked aside as Narsica rushes forth. The wall is made of wood and bricks, so the part she smashes against breaks and she falls down along with a rain of splinters and pieces of brick.

The female uniformed Hollow regards the shattered glass container, the broken-off syringes and bent steel shackles. "Well. That could've gone better" she mutters, picking up some shards from the floor.

The black faceless form stands back up. Well now we know to use stronger restraints next time. Can you... fix that? It points at the mess Narsica made.

The Hollow woman shrugs. "I guess. It's just glass, steel and some tubing. But we need a new cross." She sounds mildly miffed at losing hers.

Good, the black, faceless form utters, placing hands behind its back and turning towards the Hollow man at the control panel. What's last data on the patient?

The man reads the print on his screen. "Anatomically and spiritually, the patient's stable. Transformation into human shape almost complete, just shy of removing her Mask fragment. The most resistance was met during etching of knowledge templates into her brain, especially the loyalty templates. This was expected. She just bailed before loyalty imperatives could fully overwrite her instincts. And obviously she's not going through the recommended rest period nor receiving the painkillers supposed to ease her into her new form and wipe the pain out of her memory. So, ummm... yeah. Anatomically and spiritually, she's fine. Mentally, she's likely in shambles and not getting better."

Some of the gather Hollows peelout through the hole in the wall, looking after Narsica. "Should we pursue her?", they ask.

Don't bother. Just keep your eyes open if she comes back, the black, faceless figure orders. And fix the damn wall.

[Lord Raziere]

Kunlun Mountains
As she falls, Narsica yells.
"SEÑORITA QUINCY VOICE! HOW TO HIRENKYAKU FLY! NOW!"
The Quincy Voice tells her to form a platform of Reishii under her. Wait, just....Reishii? Any Reishii? She looks at her sword. Then she flips and put the sword under her so that she lands on it and uses it as a surboard-like platform. Why not? It was Reishii so it technically counted.
"Ok! Those Quincy muchachos don't seem to be following me. But we still need to go, get outta here. Where to?"
She starts flying in a random direction on her sword while asking the questions and the answers were....not helpful. The Hollow voice was yelling at her to activate Letzt Still NOW and return her to the Hollow form from whence she came. The Quincy Voice was proclaiming that she should come inside her mind to destroy her hollowness once and for all so that she may be a pure Quincy and destroy everyone else, including those false Quincies they just escaped from, I mean they wore HOLLOW MASKS, they were just hollows pretending in a mockery!
"Aren't I a Hollow pretending in a mockery as well by that definition? That seems hypocritical of me."
Yes but you might be able to stop being a mockery! But the Hollow voice protests that they were a hollow before they were Quincy and that the Quincy was just an uninvited guest while the Hollow is the base being or whatever, so its too risky to try that.
"Yaaaaargh! By Davey Jones Locker, your both annoying! Nothing makes sense! I need to find......some place.....to make sense of all this! I need.....quills....parchment....models! equations! A thing to.....y'know...SORT all this! AAAAAGGGHH!!"
She flies on her improvised platform, off into the distance.

Somewhere in China
Narsica frowned. She looked at the surrounding city she had arrived in.
"Frell it. I'm lost. What IS this place!? I can't read any of this, all the people look the freaking same, am I in Asia? What is all this metal stuff? Why are pictures moving? Why are buildings so tall! What is with all this weird smog? What witchcraft have humans conjured? At least no one can see or hear me. AAAAAAAAAGH!! This is not helping me understand anything! Now I think I understand LESS! and I feel this weird overwhelming feeling where I feel very lonely despite being surrounded by more people than I ever seen in my entire life.....or death! I hate it."
She said while clutching her head and her left eye twitches at the stress. While she was a pirate who knew multiple languages in her travels just to do daily business, she never had the opportunity to learn Chinese, and even then the languages she did know were dialects 200 years out of date. The Hollow voice recommends killing them all for this. The Quincy Voice says to blame the hollows and the Shinigami and kill them.
"Nah, your both crazy."
Says the one who is talking to voices, they both say.
"and YOUR the voices I'm talking to! So who is the crazy one NOW!?"
....You. They both point out.
"Exactly."
They admit that they can't argue with that logic. Mostly because it wasn't.
"Enough of that, I'm the sane humane one-"
Debatable.
"-And I say we go find some place to steal a whole bunch of parchment and quills to write down to make sense of things before anything else."
What about actual clothing? The Quincy voice inquires.
"WHEN THINGS MAKE SENSE! When things. make more. sense."
She then jumps about the Chinese city, looking for a place to rob that had....things to write down stuff on and things to write with. She eventually finds a place that looks like it sold that sort of stuff- she only had her visual recognition to tell, lands in front of it- and punches the window to nothing but shards of glass and begins grabbing as many big rolls of paper she could carry. She discards various pens and pencils, until coming upon a pen with a fake feather attachment on it. There was a quill! Weird quill, now where was an ink-pot? She had to find an ink-pot....if she didn't hurry and get one, the Shinigami would arrive sooner or later. She was never sure how they detected trouble happening in the Living World, but she was an experienced enough Hollow to know that they could.

Too bad Narsica doesn't know that no one uses ink pots anymore.
"C'mon, there has got be at least some charcoal sticks around here..."

Spoiler: OOC

Show

To be clear, anyone is free to respond or whatever

[King539]

Senshi tries to leap out of the way, but his arms were in a an awkward position, having just thrown. Senshi doesn't quite make it.

The Luna Cresciente catches Senshi in his left hand, pinning him against the wall. Senshi yells in pain before the attack fades away a few seconds later.

Senshi slumps and clenches his fists. It's difficult to see how bad the wound was, but judging from the fair bit of blood dripping onto the Negacion-floor, he won't be using that hand for a while.

Senshi straightens, transforms one of his bracelets into a ninjato, and lunges at the creature. However, there is little strength to the strike. He's obviously in too much pain.

[Frozen_Feet]

Senshi might not notice as he lunges, but the sleeve of the creature's sword arm has three holes on it. His Shuriken did hit it after all. Whether the wounds bother it at all remains to be seen. As it sees him charging, it straightens itself and...

... does nothing at all.

There's a loud TWANG as the Ninjato hits the creature's yet unwounded shoulder. But it only cuts the cloth of its shirt. The creature doesn't even flinch at being hit. It's no fault of Senshi's weapon. As demonstrated earlier, it is sharp and strong enough to cut the creature's skin. But a weapon is only as good as the arm that wields it.

"Your first blow was better. Looks like one hand just won't cut it, hmmm?", the creature remarks humorlessly. "Give up. You can't win like this. Lower your sword and spare yourself from further injury. Last warning."

[King539]

Spoiler: Music

Show

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cLBAFJWbd30

Senshi leaps back, lowers his sword... and grins?

"Give up? Maybe you did't realize it, but I'm in the Combat Division. Giving up just isn't something we do. We just don't do it."

Senshi is standing straighter now. He is beginning to glow slightly with purple Reishi.

"Allow me to elaborate. If you chop my hands off, I'll beat you with the bloody stumps. If you chop my arms off, I'll kick you. If you chop my legs off, I'll headbutt and bite you. And if you finally cut my head off and stab me through the heart, I'll reincarnate and hunt you down in my next life."

The purple, terror-inspiring Reishi is pouring off Senshi now. The flow of blood from his left hand slows, then stops.

"I'd like you to understand something. This isn't my last chance to surrender, it's YOURS! YOU give up! YOU put down your sword! And YOU will be the one spared from further harm!

Senshi grabs his sword with two hands as it slowly transfigures into a large Nodachi, glaring intensely at the creature.

[Frozen_Feet]

The creature stands in place as Senshi makes his spirited speech. Its sword is resting at its right side, but Senshi might notice red light beginning to trickle along it as he speaks.

When Senshi's blade begins changing shape, the creature sees an opening, and slashes upwards, shooting another crimson crescent to knock the sword out of Senshi's grip, or worse, to cut both his hands off at the wrist. "Luna Creciente!"

[Lord Raziere]

Somewhere in China
Eventually, Narsica tires of trying to find any ink pots and smashes a shelf full of writing utensils in frustration.
"RAAAAAAGGH!!"
Some of the pens goes crashing to the ground and break open from the impact. Ink leaks out and she stares at the pens for a moment, trying to figure them out. Then it dawns on her.
"OF COURSE! They upgraded the quills! No longer need any ink pots! They're like.....super-quills! Loner Quills. They don't need no help from any ink pots, they're independent! This might just be......the greatest invention imaginable!"
A manic grin spreads across her face. Why didn't anyone in the Spirit World come up with something like this!? And in so many colors! She decided to grab twenty three of such pens. Then she broke out of the store through a different window and goes jumping off through the city.

Eventually she leaps into an abandoned building. Apart of her thinks it fitting: a dead place for a dead person. she throws the rolls of paper about and begins to scribble furiously upon them. The scribbles were honestly very bad handwriting- when your a Hollow for 200 years, you didn't have to the chance to keep up your handwriting at all, so for her they would make sense, but for others not as clear. She drew crude models and whatnot like a mad woman, obsessively scribbling them down at speeds of a person possessed Such scribbles included:
Zan -> Shi -> Ban. Okay! Hol -> Gil -> Adj -> Vas. Okay! Qu -> Vol -> ??? No! Human -> ???. How does 2-2=5?? No sense! If Zan is to Arran, Cross is to what? Qu + Adj = ??? Should be Boom! But instead 5?? NOT SENSE! What even IS Quincies??? Why Qu =/= Human? Res how? Vol how?? Qu =/= Bow?? Qu =/= Full?
This was just a small sample of what he scribbled down in trying to make sense of her own powers. Basically she was trying to construct a model for the entire spiritual world to figure out her place within it: Humans live, Shinigami purify, Hollows devour, Quincies control. Somehow Quincies were different from humans, as well as different from Fullbringers. Despite Quincies and Fullbringers having similar triggers for their powers, since both seem to be a living world reaction to Hollows. But why? Then there was Shinigami who seemed to be their job to purify hollows and make the whole death and reincarnation work right, while Hollows seemed to be a manifestation of the system breaking down?

But then why could Arrancars exist in the first place? Why could bestial Hollows become not only human like again, but take on traits of Shinigami, beings of discipline and training, and seemingly designed to purify them? It was the most normal/similar possible comparison she could make to her own situation, and even then she couldn't figure out how that worked. The only working theory she could come up with is that maybe that the Shinigami and the Hollows aren't so different as they seem? Like, Hollows go from giant bestial forms to smaller more focused forms as an Adjuchas to incredibly human-like forms as a Vasto Lorde, even before the Arrancar transition. So could the progression of Gillian to Vasto Lorde have an element of taming the Hollow beast and thus discipline, which just so happen has great synergy with a Shinigami using discipline to learn and overcome the challenges of a Zanpakuto spirit?

Which still didn't explain HER situation. Everything she knew, both Quincy and Hollow said that she was an impossibility, or at least was supposed to be an impossibility. Hollow energy was poisonous to Quincies. Her soul should've blown up by now. Though she honestly didn't know where to place Quincies themselves: their attacks apparently outright destroy Hollow souls and disrupt the balance of reincarnation, which is bad for some reason?? And they outright control Reishii for....what reason? They seemed to be some strange aberration that disrupted the whole spirit world system in general. If they didn't exist, things would make much more sense: Hollows would be the natural bestial way a soul that doesn't pass on would eventually progress and grow, and Shinigamis would simply be the naturally occurring solution to keep them in check, and Arrancars would simply be an adaptation to try reach an understanding to smooth the process.

But Quincies disrupt the whole thing. They control Reishii in a way no one else does: they take it from their surroundings, they enslave it using Sklaverei, they shape it into various forms. But Why? What would cause a being who could do that to the spirit world in general to exist? Was it an intentional spiritual invention on humanity's part, or something else? And why would a Hollow be able to use Quincy techniques and methods? Her own spiritual energy should be destroying it yet, it wasn't.

Revise the model then: all three beings, Shinigami, Hollow and Quincy come from humanity. That is what they all have in common. Thus she couldn't consider any of these truly separate states, merely spiritual paths of humanity that can be unlocked in the right conditions in life and death, and she somehow met the conditions to unlock the two paths that oppose each other the most. Somehow she was a spiritual intersection between Hollows and Quincies. Considering the state of her mind....that didn't bode well. The Zanpakuto seemed to be a stabilizing influence. Arrancars could work because Shinigami were all about self-discipline and inner learning, thus they were stabilized with that self-discipline by the Zanpakuto and its spirit. Narsica on the other hand had two voices in her head that were completely opposed and completely unhelpful. They only wanted her to kill this or that and each other.

She needed to figure out how to stabilize herself using what she had. Somehow she had Quincy powers instead of anything remotely resembling a Shikai, Shikai were like some weird unique expression of the soul. Sure Arrancar didn't seem to get Shikai REALLY, they just got Resurreccion which had abilities similar to one. So she would have to do Resurreccion to figure out more. Her hollow form was probably within her Quincy Cross- that was the most logical replacement for the Zanpakuto in this equation. That would tell her what her powers were more about and what it meant to be...whatever she was. She threw down the pens and walked outside.
"Resurreccion! Blood Wind, Howl!"
She said the words that felt right. That were supposed to activate it....but nothing happened. She tries again, still nothing. Narsica rummages around in her head among the info shoved into her and tries another way instead:
"Quincy: Vollstandig!"
For a third time, nothing happens. Again. She felt as if she was only tugging on half of her release when she did that both times, and yet nothing was unleashed. Perhaps she could...? The two voices in her head roared at her not to do so. They would never work with one another! Never! She growls, if those two didn't want her to do it then she must! She must find out! She must UNDERSTAND!
"Vollstandig Resurreccion!"
Suddenly, there is a flash of light....

[King539]

Rome, Italy

Senshi saw the red light, all right.

He neatly steps around the attack, quickly charging towards the creator, before putting all his strength into a two-handed slash down at it.

"Ah well. I suppose you could just do that."

[Frozen_Feet]

The creature can't recover its sword fast enough to deflect Senshi's blow, so it too is forced to dodge, leaning strongly to the side. Senshi's blade scrapes its left shoulder, and then... there's another, smaller red flash. Behind the cover of its own left sleeve, the creature let go of its sword with its right hand, pointed a finger at Senshi and shot a Bala at his stomach. How will Senshi react to an attack coming from such an angle?

[King539]

Surprised by the lack of expected resistance, Senshi stumbles. This, ironically, saves him from the full force of the Bala.

The Bala burns across his back, leaving a long, cauterized wound along his lower back. Senshi hisses in pain.

Senshi grits his teeth, and turns around. "Let's... finish... this..."

Senshi charges towards the creature, sword raised.

[Frozen_Feet]

The creature lifts its sword up with both hands to deflect Senshi's - then, when it feels the blades contact, it steps aside and strikes Senshi's blade down, trying to get him to lose his balance. At the same time, it kicks a roundhouse kick at Senshi's side, trying to sink its big toe between his ribs. Considering the entire being ia hard as iron, it is like a blow from a warhammer.

[King539]

The kick collides with Senshi's stomach, launching him hard against the wall of the area. He crumples to the ground.

It's impossible to tell whether or not he's still conscious in the dim light of his Kido spell.

[Frozen_Feet]

Not impossible. It just takes a bit of effort.

One of the snake-haired creature's many eyes looks up at the light. Low-level spells such as this typically lack ontological inertia - they fade out and die when their caster loses concentration or consciousness, or, in extreme cases, their life. It watches for signs of the light fading while stepping forward and on Senshi's sword. That's another thing to watch for - weapons conjured by a Shikai also tend to vanish when their wielder loses consciousness.

The creature point its sword at Senshi's neck and tries to lift his chin up with the tip of the blade. "You still alive, Shinigami?"

[King539]

The Kido-wisp-light-thing sputters for a moment, then flickers out. Probably just had a bit of juice left.

A sudden lack of pressure beneath the foot the creature put on Senshi's sword makes it apparent that the sword has vanished. Senshi doesn't react as the creature pokes it.

[Frozen_Feet]

The creature sheathes its sword. Even in the unlikely case Senshi is putting up an act, he can't threaten it in the condition he's in. The creature kneels before Senshi and puts its right hand under his nose, feeling for his breath, while its left reaches for his wrist and feela for a pulse.

"Let us let you in on a secret", it speaks. "When the others said this was 'fair game', they were lying. It was never fair. From the start, we rigged this game up so you could never win. And, you see, we knew which steps to take because we have fought the Combat Division, your 'Pack', before. From how you'd react to being followed, to individual swings of your sword... all was within our ability to predict."

"So... this what you get for being predictable." The creature shrugs. "Or maybe I'm just messing with you. Can you tell, Shinigami?"

The creature does not know if Senshi heard any of that. Though even if he's losing consciousness, those words might come to haunt him in his nightmares.

If, by this point, Senshi shows no signs of stirring, the creature grabs his arm and lifts him up in a fireman's carry.

---

[Elsewhere; unknown island in the Pacific Ocean]

Seji's Bankai training is interrupted by his Reiphone beeping.

An abnormal concentration of Reishi has been spotted in China. The readings appear similar to Quincy. At the same instant, an Arrancar has apparently released their sword in the same area.

Seji is thousands of kilometers distant from the place where it is happening, but he's also the only high-ranking officer on Earth at this very moment. Not that it obliges him to do anything about it - he has his leave of absence, after all - but it is a pretty worrying signal in context of recent events.

[King539]

Senshi is still breathing regularly, and his heart is still beating. As the creature picks him up, Senshi is limp.

However, as the creature begins to stand up, Senshi's arm suddenly blurs into motion. There's suddenly a knife in his hand as it speeds towards the creatures chest. He may only be using one hand, but surprise and darkness have to count for something, right?

"Predict... this..."

---

[Unknown island in the Pacific Ocean]

The Reiphone sit son to of Sēji's neatly folded haori. It's a hole before Sēji, covered in sweat, answers it.

"Hmm... Quincy... fighting Arrancar... China... not ZHE again! Really?!"

"Fine, I'm going in." Sēji puts on his haori and opens a Senkaimon to the Seireitei. After basking for a few seconds in the Reishi there, Sēji opens another Senkaimon, this one to the location of the disturbance.

[Lord Raziere]

Somewhere in China
Seji opens to find.... a ten-foot tall, very thin female figure of a hollow covered in white exoskeletal armor, she has four arms, the bottom two being three fingered with claws as long as swords, and the top two being long crab pincers. The hollow had a scorpion tail.

But none of that was the strange part. The strange part was that it had red glowing angelic wings as if she was some weird Vollstandig, her hollow mask had the Quincy five-cross on it in red, and that she was firing off Quincy arrows into the sky from her crab claws, completely missing any one on the ground while flying about at crazy speeds yelling.
"TESTING! TESTING!"
Narsica realizes that she wasn't going to learn much without a target.
"......RRRGH! I can't learn how this stuff works all that much without something to do it on! If I attack anything it'll attract the Shinigami...."
Narsica as she flies by notices Seji
"Wait. Darn. Well. That ship crashed and sunk to Davy Jone's locker real quick. Hey Senor Shinigami! Mind being like, my test target for a few minutes? I'm real confused right now and I need to work out a few things. Its for pirate science."
Both the Arrancar and Quincy spiritual energy readings seem to come from her.

[King539]

Seji is... understandably confused.

"Well, uh... I'd... ummmmm, really prefer not to be used as a target?"

"I am pretty good at Kido, though, so...I could, like... make targets? Or something like that?"

"By the way, what ARE you?"

Somebody's full of questions today.

[Frozen_Feet]

[Rome; Inside the Barrier]

The blade sinks into the creature's chest without resistance. Wait - without resistance? How is that possible?

Senshi might realize that in the darkness, he accidentally struck his knife through the creature's Hollow hole.

Nothing stops Senshi from pulling back his knife and trying again. However, the creature remains calm, starting to walk with Senshi on its shoulders. A sudden cold and the sensation of air rushing past them informs him that the side of the barrier has opened, but... behind it, there is just more inky blackness. Senshi might realize the creature is walking straight into it.

"Oh sure, do stab us", the creature retorts. "We will die and go to Heaven, but you will fall in the Void and keep falling for an eternity. Such a great victory for you."

[Lord Raziere]

Somewhere in China
"Targets sound good.

As for what I am, I don't know. Thats what I'm trying to fig-KILL ALL SHINIGAMI!!"
Suddenly both her Hollow and Quincy voices were yelling at her inside her head to kill him for different reasons: the Quincy because he was a servant of the Soul King and the Hollow because it was a shinigami and she got the urge to start attacking. One moment she was speaking the next her two crab claws were firing six red arrows at him while she was shouting. She clutches at her with one of her claw hands.
"Agh, shut up, SHUT UP!! Screw you both!"
She was beginning to think there was something wrong with her.

[King539]

The Void

Senshi pales, not that it's visible. He then sighs, and transforms his knife into a completely circular blade with the sharp part on the inside. If he judged it right, it should form around the creature's neck.

"Keep walking."

---

Somewhere in China

If Seji knew what Narsica was thinking, he'd probably agree with the possibility that something was wrong with her. As the six arrows speed towards him, Seji calmly raises a hand.

"El Escudo."

A translucent barrier of light forms in front of him, just long enough to stop the arrows. Seji looks genuinely concerned.

"Are you all right? I know a few psychologists..."

[Frozen_Feet]

[Through the Void]

The creature is unconcerned by the blade against its neck. There's a faint red glimmer beneath its feet as it steps on nothing. "You know, we admit to not following when you said it's your 'obligation to destroy us'. Who obliges you and why? Certainly, it has nothing to do with us attacking you. Self-defense is a right, not duty. You could've chosen to flee, or to bite off your own tongue and die. It seems to us, Shinigami, that you've never really appraised your options."

[King539]

"I obliged myself. I have to destroy you because you since you attacked me, you may attack others, others without anything approaching a chance. My morals and sense of honor would not have allowed me to let you continue to exist. Not that you'd understand either of those concepts."

[Frozen_Feet]

"Why would you think we have no understanding of such things? Because you think we're Hollows?"

Senshi can tell they're not in the barrier anymore. There are no walls, just emptiness.

"It is true we hardly share your sentiments on either topic. But not sharing is not the same as not understanding. For example, we know you're in pain even if we do not feel it."

[King539]

"Hmm. I suppose you're right. Technically. I personally believe that you can't truly understand something unless you've felt it for yourself. If you don't have morals or a sense of honor, you can't truly understand them."

"Wait. You're just taking me back to your masked friends, aren't you?"