Ringing acute in the ears of the observation room staff, alarm claxons projected their obnoxious tones through the entire facility. Their coming to life was a sudden, disturbing shift from the peace and calm that had present for the whole of the day. But such an undeniable warning could mean only one thing, an entity with extremely dangerous levels of reiatsu had been detected on earth.
"Get a reading on it!" The shift supervisor belted out to the staff, who scrambled from one terminal to the next, seeming to work vigorously to expunge the overbearing noise.
"Who is the primary first response!?" Another voice put up futile competition with the alarms.
"Dispatching Nana Amaterasu!" A third voice responded.
"Where did this thing come from!?" Once again, the shift supervisor leaned on his trained team to garner information.
The alarms suddenly stopped, on their displays, numbers that had begun to shift and draw more closely on articulating just what they had discovered ceased and locked in on a blank display.
"This means nothing," The gruff voice of the lead announced, scanning the staff who had been surprised into a halt. "We're sending her to Tokyo."
No sooner than she had gotten her orders, had she already removed herself from Soul Society’s plane of existence. She had been on this hunt for so long now, and for one reason or the other... it was finally coming to an end. For once in her life, she did not care about the restrictions placed on her persona.
She would face the consequences, regardless of their outcomes.
This was simply not an opportunity she could let go to waste. She was not ready to face him, she knew this. She was no match for that beast of a man, but she had to go. She simply had to see him one final time, and if at all possible...
Finally clash her steel with his.
When she opened her eyes again after having forced herself through the Senkaimon, she was a bit confused at first. It wasn’t often that the Research and Development Department didn’t mess up their coordination and she was actually sent to the nearest location of this imminent threat.
Taking in a large amount of oxygen, she breathed in and out heavily and slapped herself on her face a few times.
As senses took to her body once more, the surly voice of the operations overseer crackled in her earpiece. "Target confirmed last seen at this location. This is a recon and pacification mission. Locate the target, and if it is a hollow or hostile, you are to purify or pacify it for return to Soul Society. We've taken the liberty of preparing a spiritual lock on your position, whatever it is, it is capable of a great deal of civilian casualties."
There was a brief pause, then, finally. "Oh, and good luck Captain. As always, we're counting on you." The earpiece would sound no more.
The city itself seemed as calm and peaceful as ever, there was no sign of hollow activity present, nor any of the incidental panic or structural damage associated with one of the assumed read class. Instead, people walked down the street in large crowds, crews worked on framing and reworking the integrity of a building long ago damaged, and cars made their way by sluggishly, choked by the congestion of city life.
Descending from the air in one smooth movement her feet tapped lightly on the asphalt below. She looked back up and saw the blue sky overhead polluted with the smokem of bustling city life. It sickened her. To think that this was ‘the future’ when it came to technology, she could not bear to see the realm of the dead filled with this.
Admittedly, it wasn’t exactly ‘heaven’ up there either, but at least there was still a sense of tradition accompanying it.
Looking back to the road in front of her again she felt the unpleasant sensation of a car passing right through her. Sighing somewhat softly - though she wasn’t really sure what for - she shook her head softly and made her way over to the sidewalk where she began her search.
Smile all too evident in the voice, an all too familiar deep and smooth baritone, bade welcome to the arrival. "Seems I botched something in my arrival, seeings as how Soul Society was gracious enough to dispatch not only a captain class shinigami to the scene, but indeed, one of merit and substantial threat."
The speaker was a man of dominating physical presence, a bulk of lean, long, and dense muscle packed onto the frame of a small giant. Yet, in spite of the overwhelming physicality of his stature, the man's scarred face seemed deeply calm, an expression of a gentle soul. Wearing his jet hair long, dipping past his shoulders, his attire was simple. A navy shirt, buttoned up the front, and a pair of tailored khaki slacks cuffed over the ankle of a pair of dark leather shoes. He would have fit in with any other citizen of Tokyo, save for his vibrant blue eyes and alabaster sheathed nodachi blade slung casually over his left shoulder.
Those crystal blues slid over the form of the captain before he commented, "Captain of the Third, my apologies for disturbing your vigil."
“It has been a while,” she responded softly, and perhaps even a little bit meekly as she looked upon the towering figure of her former captain. “Though, wouldn’t you agree that the time for pleasantries has been long past?”
There was an air of cynicism surrounding the woman’s words and, indeed, her entire being as well. After having been branded a traitor, and then ‘killed’ by the Soutaichou without ever having told her anything. Anything. This was the first thing he had to say to her?
It wasn’t exactly like she had expected anything less, though, but somehow it still hurt. Had she really never been anything more than cannon fodder to the man? A number to be drafted and then sent off to their death?
As a single tear dropped onto her right cheek she met the man’s gaze for the first time. Even now, after all this time and even though she was as close to being his equal as she would ever be, did she still feel so, so small?
Once more did she feel like the young woman who had just left her Academy years behind and had applied for the Third Division under this illusive man.
Closing her eyes again for a bit longer than standard blink, she banished any and all thoughts from her mind and took another deep breath. When she opened her eyes again there was a definite edge to them as she asked, "Why?" Though, what question she was asking remained in the dark.
"Why did Faust leave us all to die at the hands of the Espada's most formidable? Especially when his 'plan' utterly and completely failed. Why did Riturou leave me alone after that catastrophe?" Despite the gravity of the questions asked, the man known to Soul Society as Theron Ascania was smiling. "We are not all so lucky to face our demons."
The smile faded now. "The answer is simple: it needed to be done. Because long before I was ordained a captain, I paid the ultimate price to keep Soul Society safe: I gave up my very soul fighting Anton Zhukov. I could no longer be the Captain Commander, I could no longer be the caring and man of heart that was needed in the void of Faust's failure and demise. I could only be the man I was born as, Theron Ascania, bearer of Harbinger."
An incriminating finger extended from his right hand and leveled at the chest of the woman standing before him. "And you needed to become strong, just as all of us did, and quickly. You saw the loss we suffered when facing a Vostro Lorde in Heuco Mundo. The weakness, the lack of discipline. Soldiers acting as fools that nearly brought about the ruination of the Balance."
The finger curled back and the hand fell, smile returning. "The Gotei needed soldiers it could count on, who would be willing to make the sacrifices, carry the burden, and be strong enough to persevere in doing so. That, Nana, is why. It had to be done."
Still maintaining her distance from the black-haired man she began to pace around from left to right. Her haori tugged along, carried by the wind. “No.” She shook her head, her eyes no longer meeting Theron’s - though, that could’ve been because she was pacing back and forth, instead of a general discontent of having to face the man.
“No-no-no-no.” She said the words in quick succession and pointed an accusatory finger at the man. “No, you are wrong.” Though the words, her articulation clear, there was a definite, insane laughter piercing through the woman’s sentence.
It was the sign of not wanting to face the cold, harsh truth.
Placing her right hand on her forehead she shook her head once and then stopped dead in her tracks. Slowly, but surely did she turn back to Theron’s figure.
“You ran away!” she shouted with more force behind it than she had ever thought possible. “From your duties, from your friends, from your life... from everything!â
His cold eyes lock onto the Captain's back, the gentle face remaining just so. It added a haunting, perhaps inhuman quality to the words that followed were it that it could be seen. "Friends? Duties? I never had them to begin with."
His tone became curt, words laid out in a neutral tone. "The day I faced Zhukov was the last day I was a shinigami. Perhaps you fail to grasp the severity of that statement. Everything I had done as Theron Ascania was in a desperate act to carry out that very duty you say I ran away from, despite no longer being Shinigami."
A lopsided grin broke out on the man's face. "You don't understand that each day I commanded the third I risked my existence to ensure sufficient time for a new generation of soul slayers to take up the mantle. Perhaps then, ironically, I failed in my goal of making you strong."
“Perhaps so,” Nana stated bluntly as she regained her composure. “But I say giving in to whatever beasts you let in after having faced Anton Zhukov... is when you really ran away. Not that what you did to me, no.
“Though I still look up to you with awe, I am not beyond sense, Ascania-san, and I think that with everything that has happened... you must know by now that I am selfish and haughty woman.
“I craved for you with a burning passion. I wanted to be your equal so badly, that I took it all for granted. When you disappeared all of that came crashing down and, as you said, I was more or less forced to take up the mantle of an era you left behind.”
Shaking her head softly, she looked into his eyes again and managed a faint smile. “You and me, it just wasn’t meant to be. I am not a Herald, never was. I was content with merely being a ‘Walker’, strutting along in the background just doing what was asked of me, because I despised that which we stood for.
“Yet, I never once thought of transferring, and now here we are, our roles reversed. I wear the mantle that has caressed your back for such a long time and now keeps me chained to those that lead, and you wear the skin of someone who is at ‘peace’ so to speak.
“It’s a strange world we live in,” she continued, “wouldn’t ou say, Ascania-san?”
His face suddenly breaking out into a beaming smile, Theron extended out a large hand and ruffled the woman's hair. His voice was touched with a tone of warmth seemingly never expressed in the days of his captaincy. "Everyone needs something in their sights, Nana-chan. Ritorou was mine, and I failed to reach him. I was yours, and you failed to reach me. Faust was Ritorou's, and he failed. It is the destiny of that haori."
The hand fell away, reaching up to rub at the back of the towering figure's neck. "This is the last time I'll be seen without intending to be."
“I’d say...” she began, her smile unwavering as she stepped back from Theron. “I reached you quite well. You’re here, aren’t you? That means I found you, and don’t for a second think you can outspeed me. I may not be able to beat you in a fight, something of which I am quite certain, but if there’s one thing you will never beat me in...
“It’s speed. So here’s the deal.” Her voice carried a lot more weight and confidence behind it this time around as she locked eyes with her former captain again. “I am willing to let this... stay between us. This little charade of yours. This vacation, this whatever you want to call it,” - she moved her right hand up and down as she sized up the man’s attire, a somewhat quizzical look on her face - “But, I have not come here just to go home empty handed again.”
Stepping towards Theron again she came to a halt just in front of him and placed her pointer finger on his chest.
"Oh?" The man's eyebrows perked up, and he seemed for a moment to intently study the whole of the woman's body. Said nothing else for a few seconds, then broke the silence.
"I suppose I could just cut your legs off and leave." The tone of that statement did not match the words, seeming rather humorous. "But you do seem to have forgotten the basics. The first tenant of a real Shinigami."
His gaze flicked down, looking to the pair's feet. "Daishou." The circle appeared under his own, propelling him rapidly backwards as the sword slung over his shoulder was removed, still not yet drawn from its scabbard.
"Attack immediately, and without hesitation on your enemy. Do no announce yourself, nor give away your position. And most importantly, do not let the enemy come to know you before you strike. A blade dulled with hesitation cannot kill or purify, only betray the wielder. Tsk tsk, we're off to a bad start." The smugness was almost tangible.
As soon as the man had - for lack of a better word - disappeared using one of the few things Nana dreaded more so than false promises, kidou, she had disappeared from the vizard’s sight. The air shrieked, filling the man’s ears with sounds of the wind screaming in pain as the flaming body of Amaterasu Nana appeared out of nowhere.
As she exited her senka all the man saw coming towards his face was the Captain’s right elbow.
It wasn’t just once, though. No, what Theron saw was more than one elbow coming towards his face. At first it looked as if there were only going to be three attacks on his persona, but then, as if right on cue, came an uppercut from below... aimed towards his chin.
Eerie, perhaps, the best way to describe Theron's eyes. His body did not react to the senka moving towards him, but his eyes never betrayed. They followed her, and her motions, with absolute clarity and precision. The eyes of god stared at the Captain in unbridled ferocity.
Yet his body did not seem to contain the same measure of poise, the uppercut hammered home, and tendrils of raw heat licked away at his figure as he careened back from the impact of the blow. Yet, during the stumble, with a motion only a master of zanjutsu could hope to see, Harbinger was drawn, no, forced from its scabbard using a harsh concentration of reiatsu and the pure, unrivaled skill in swordsmanship that this man possessed.
Weaving as a serpent through no less than three lines of attack before finding the one to carry towards her sternum, the flat of the blade made its attempt at crushing bone before returning to its scabbard in only a slightly more sluggish motion than the draw.
As the stumble from the blow finished, Theron eased himself up and grinned over to his enemy. A trickle of blood escaped his lips to leak down in slow drops over his jaw. The clothing that was no doubt tailored to fit his size was already burned, and likely the skin beneath. "Know your enemy, and if you do not know them, force them to reveal themselves before you strike with overwhelming force. The longer a fight continues, the greater the chance of uncertain outcome."
