[BITPR²] Kyuukyoku Gaiden: The Beachdown Apocalypse

[Kuroimaken]

"It's neither. Knowing she's lying to me is a more important piece of data."

The room temperature seems to drop about five degrees when Koutarou says that. Anyone who's been around him long enough to know him should probably be appalled to see him act so cold.

The real kicker, and the one thing he is more concerned about, is that he should've felt her spiritual pressure before he walked into the room. Meaning, he should've known who she was and where she was before he even approached that old man. Even considering whatever limiter he must be under, Koutarou's senses were never this dull.

"But by all means, do elaborate. I've got plenty of information that doesn't make sense anyway."

[Frozen_Feet]

"Tut tut. Don't be so hasty! I didn't say she was lying - only that you have a blatant reason to think so", the girl says teasingly. "That is a far cry from knowing it for sure. Though you do know something. It's been before your eyes all this time, you just haven't put it together."

[Kuroimaken]

"Like I said. By all means, enlighten me."

[Frozen_Feet]

"What happens to a Hollow when they are killed by a Shinigami?" The girl opens her eyes, looking straight into Koutarou's. Red slits stare from the middle of black orbs.

[Kuroimaken]

"Their souls are purified and turned into regular Pluses, which was in fact a point of contention for the Las Noches-Soul Society peace treaty."

[Frozen_Feet]

"So, remember any Hollows you've seen purified lately?", the girl says, staring into Koutarou's soul with those inhuman eyes.

[Kuroimaken]

"If I had, I'd be supporting a fellow Shinigami. But it takes days, sometimes more for a Soul Chain to erode." Koutarou points out. "And if I have indeed been cast into the past, then it's no surprise we're not seeing any Hollows. Before Las Noches emerged we had no idea where they all went and the Forest of Menos was all but completely deserted."

[Frozen_Feet]

The girl shakes her head at Koutarou's words and has to cover her mouth to stop herself from bursting to laughter. After she recollects herself,
She speaks: "Oh my. She was wrong to compare your memory to goldfish. That was a grave insult to all the fish."

She crosses her arms again and smiles. "So how about I tell you a story, to jog up your memory?
A farmer was walking through the cold woods. He came across a snake frozen by the cold. Feeling compassion, the farmer took the snake home and cradled it close to his chest before the fireplace."

There is a faint purple glimmer around the girl. An instinct might warn Koutarou that this is bad news.

"Revived by the warmth, the snake resumed its natural way and bit the farmer. Dying on the floor from the venom, the farmer asked with grief: 'I sheltered you from the cold and cradled you like my own child is this how you repay me'?"

The purple glimmer turns into a roaring conflagration of magenta flame, same colour as the previous girl's hair. It engulfs the girl and spills on the walls of the tiny room, a wave of heat washing over Koutarou.

"And the snake replied: 'You fool. You should've known from the start that I was a viper.'"

[Kuroimaken]

Koutarou does not seem impressed by the girl setting the place on fire.

He does, however, seem concerned for the safety of the ones in this shelter. So he calls out: "Somebody call the fire department!"

[Frozen_Feet]

They are spiritual flames, so it is an open question if anyone else could even see them. Just as well, it is uncertain whether anyone hears Koutarou shouting from within his room.

The flames burn hot and bright against Koutarou's face just long enough to make him question whether it would be worth it to escape the room, whether through the window or rushing through a wall. Then they vanish just as abruptly as they appeared. As before, no evidence of spiritual interference is left behind. It's like the girl was never there.

[Kuroimaken]

Clearly an illusion attack of some kind if the flames left no damage whatsoever.

However, Koutarou is getting kind of tired of being played. He reaches out with his senses to try and find any spiritual presences.

[Frozen_Feet]

He doesn't find any. It's like last night in the snow-covered city. Spiritually, the atmosphere just feels dead. Yet, he knows there are people elsewhere in this compound. They just don't register beyond range of more immediate senses. The feeling eluded him when he was outside and surrounded by people, but now, alone in his room, the feeling is inescapable. His physical eyes can see the walls and his physical feet can feel the ground, but his spirit is like a lone flame in boundless dark.

[Kuroimaken]

Someone is blocking me.

He locks the door and immediately starts checking his body everywhere for markings of any kind.

[Frozen_Feet]

Luckily, the small bathroom in his quarters has a mirror. Nothing seems out of place at first, untill he takes off his jacket and shirt again.

There. On his left shoulder blade, positioned just so that he couldn't see it without a mirror's help: a tattoo of a serpentine creature gnawing at its own tail. He might realize he could've noticed it earlier, if he had paid more attention to his reflection while shopping for clothes.

But that's not the only thing. It's in the same spot as that woman on the beach had hers. It's the same design as that man who paid for his clothes had on his jacket. It was visible to both of them, in fact it was visible to everyone else while he was walking around shirtless.

[Kuroimaken]

So he was marked somehow.

He did find it odd that he couldn't find any signs of a regular Shinigami limiter. But in order to test that, it would be best to check outside the reach of ordinary people.

So he put his clothes back on, locked the door, and discretely made his way out the city to as far away from the outskirts as reasonable, where he presumed no one would run into him by accident.

[Frozen_Feet]

It's easier said than done. The only map he has of the area is his mental image of it when he flew over it. Once. During daytime. Now it's already night.

It might actually be best if he flew past the harbor to the sea and looked for an uninhabited islet there.

[Kuroimaken]

It's really not necessary to overthink it. He just needs to pick a direction and go, while marking that direction clearly so he can go back the same way. He could do it with chalk, even, but his own Reiatsu signature should do the trick.

[Frozen_Feet]

It's not finding his way back that's a problem, finding a secluded spot such as he wants is. Human inhabitation doesn't stop at the city limits and going in a straight line in a random direction will likely lead him into having to move pointlessly far. Somewhere along the line he needs to decide whether he's fine with an empty back alley, a quiet parking lot, middle of a field, a patch of forest or a barren rock at the sea.

[Kuroimaken]

There is no such thing as "pointlessly far" when you want to make sure no one finds you by accident. But a patch of forest should do.

[Frozen_Feet]

There is if he still wants to get back to his room before people start asking questions. Or wants to get some sleep before the dawn. He has been without good rest for over 24 hours in succession. He can monkey around to stay awake, but it's not going to get more comfortable from here.

The forest is dark and quiet, large firs swaying in a slight breeze. The air is moist and cold. If there are any animals nearby, they have hidden themselves well. The trees obscure the nearest open area from sight. The nearest road is half a kilometer away, the nearest inhabited house is who knows where. The sense of physical isolation is only a little less massive than the spiritual sense.

[Kuroimaken]

It is here that Koutarou decides to take a deep, deep breath and slowly but surely unleash his spiritual pressure, carefully building up over time, to check how that "seal" might react.

[Frozen_Feet]

It doesn't really react at all. Maybe it's impossible to tickle it's upper limit while inside a human body. If Koutarou keeps it up, he'll quickly reach a point where he really would need to have his Zanpakuto by his side, or otherwise attempt something dramatic. The former is sealed inside his human shell and unavailable for use, just like usual when inhabiting a living body, and the latter... well, it doesn't really feel like anyone's watching, but technically stretching one's power just to see how much one can do is against every principle a Shinigami is supposed to follow while in this situation.

[Kuroimaken]

In order to fully release his power, his Zanpakutou would be necessary in any case. But if he tries to go too far with it, he could end up attracting attention whether he's far from civilization or not. Which is why he decides to continue doing so in increments.

It's a fact that limiting a Captain's power is no easy feat, and Koutarou is well above the power of a regular Soul Society Captain. So what he finds the strangest in this situation is that such a limit would normally be done not in percentages, but in degrees - to wit, a limited Captain and a limited Seated Officer would still be as far apart from each other as they were before the limiter, but in comparison to their full power, they would be a down a peg or two.

Therefore, it isn't necessary to test the full limit of his power. All it would take is seeing if trying to push it past the upper limit of a regular seated officer causes any reaction.

[Frozen_Feet]

Releasing even as much power as he is now, he's made himself a raging bonfire against the black canvas of the desolate spiritual plane. If anyone's watching, they aren't bothering to make themselves known.

Koutarou's further tests don't reveal much. He might remember from the Academy that a standard limiter is meant to limit whoever it is placed on to about fifth of their usual output. Based on how much less of an effect his Hado had compated to usual during the pile-up, that'd be about right.

The bigger problem is that Shinigami powers aren't meant to be used from inside a living body. A typical patroller, when inside a Gigai, is reduced to the level of a normal human. Koutarou's spiritual pressure is too massive to be restrained quite that much, but he just might be as far from his own peak, as a normal human is from an unrestrained Shinigami.

Without standard tools to vacate his physical body, there is no easy way around it. The obvious hard way is of course possible, if Koutarou is feeling hard-ass enough. There must be sharp rocks around here somewhere, or he could fly straight up and then let himself fall. It's a world of options.

[Kuroimaken]

Then again, it should also be unnecessary for the moment. He hasn't met with anything he cared to fight badly enough to want to be at full power.

Besides, there are quicker and less painful ways to commit suicide.

[Frozen_Feet]

Sure there are. But if he is not going to do the deed here and now, what is he doing in a dark, cold, wet forest?

[Kuroimaken]

Trying to figure out a situation, as opposed to wasting a perfectly good gigai.

He wishes he could contact Soul Society right now. He could always try opening a Senkaimon...

...which he does. Let's see what happens.

[Frozen_Feet]

Nothing happens. Ordinarily, a Shinigami is meant to use their Zanpakuto as a gate key. Right now, that key could as well be sewn inside his gut.

But even if he managed to open it, he would not be able to walk through it as a physical being. Only things made of spiritual matter can do so, so he would still need to vacate his body - or otherwise convert it from physical to spiritual matter. Ordinary Gigais come with such a function, but it's only operational when the user is outside it.

Koutarou knows SSI has physical-to-spiritual converters and that they can be activated alongside opening a Senkaimon, that's how living humans are usually taken from Earth to Soul Society on the rare occasion Soul Society needs to do so. He also knows powerfull Hollows are sometimes capable of dragging living humans through the Void, body and all, causing the transformation along the way.

So if he could get a word to the other side, somebody could open a way from there. The troubling thing is that no-one's done that already. Despite his spiritual pressure shining in the night like a beacon, neither Shinigami nor Hollows have shown any interest in seeking him out.

[Kuroimaken]

The possibility, slim as it might be, that neither is ABLE to is rather disheartening. The little faux-Shinigami with imprecise and ludicrous information does not help matters.

Ah well. Best return to the shelter while he can.

[Frozen_Feet]

His room is as he left it and he wasn't away long enough for it to raise concern among the facility staff. He could still get eight hours of sleep here, before they shoo him away.