[PM][1st/12th/Seisatsu] Week 102: And If You Wrong Us, Shall We Not Revenge?

louhi · Sep 16, 2009

Him... and him...! Louhi watched in disbelief at the scene that played out in front of her. It was as if it were specially concocted to strip away every bit of her pride, whatever might have remained of it.

How could that worthless nobody, the one she'd kicked about and nearly blinded, be there as Shiroi's support? How could he have held up under an attack from Seisatsu? And meanwhile, she might as well have not been there at all! Her blood was boiling with anger at everyone around her, but the vizard would have to stand in for all of them.

Eyes blazing and speechless for once, the girl launched herself in a flash step towards the enemy just as he backed away from the other shinigami, bringing her naginata along with her. The weapon overshot her own arrival, its huge maggoty blade lunging at the man in a horizontal slash that was powered by every bit of swordsmanship she could muster. At the same time, a wall of bones and disgusting half-burned flesh forced its way in front of Kago, shoving the offensive boy backward and blotting him out of Louhi's sight.

DarkToaster · Sep 17, 2009

Shiroi was about to jump to the aid of his subordinate when Kago managed to not stop the slash of the Vizard’s unstoppable blade, but seal away his weapon as well. He did not know how it had happened, nor did he know for how long it would last, but miraculously Kago had managed to force an opening on one of Masaru’s legendary Captains and the Commander intended to make full use of it.

“You’ve done enough, Kazunari!” Shiroi called out, his voice commanding but lacking the usual venom. The gardener in Shiroi knew that even a desert flower could bloom once in its lifetime if only for a short time. “Now get away and let me do the rest!”

“Bankai!” the Commander roared, rushing at the Vizard even as Louhi attacked. The metal of his weapon disentangled itself from its prey and flew at the Commander, intercepting him in mid-charge and clinging to him like mud. The metal spread across the form of the youngest Faust and blurred his features, fading them into an ebony mirror.

More remarkable than the Commander’s transformation into his statue-like war-form was the effect his presence had on the crumbled ruins around them. The air seemed to come alive and become tangible as if on a hot summer day. A foul wind blew, and with it came the rot.

The forms of the ruined pillars and statues they fought on distorted and lengthened as they melted, just as the face of the Commander had become obscured. All around Shiroi, the slow destruction raged, but his form itself only reflected the doom surrounding him.

Yet his reflection showed no change in Louhi in that moment, for his power could not touch her. The same could not be said for Seisatsu Kuragari.

Shiroi disappeared into shunpo, stopping only to swing an arm, stretched and contorted into a river of sharp metal at Seisatsu’s midsection, aiming to strike simultaneously with his former Vice-Captain. He knew her moves without even a conscious thought, for they were the ones they had developed together.

The Vizards had stood between them for 500 years. The Commander vowed in the moment of execution that they would never again.

Amadeus · Sep 17, 2009

Seisatsu felt a cold satisfaction as the Commander and his favorite pet unleashed their full power against him. The strange heat swirled with the stench of death surrounding him. It twisted and engulfed him, filling every sense. Somehow it felt comforting to be so enveloped.

The sensation of his flesh cooking snapped him back to reality. It was painful, but he had suffered this attack and worse before. He wouldn't give even an inch to it.

He ignored the 12th Captain's assault. Such was the lot of peons, even in his weakened state. Shourisha's dulled edge glimmered weakly in Hueco Mundo's endless twilight. The naginata was slightly faster than Shiroi's own attack. It tore through the white cloth on his back before impacting loudly against something beneath, something that failed to give way even under the Captain's mighty assault.

Still, Seisatsu gave no notice.

The Imperator lifted his sealed blade to block as the Commander flowed toward him in a deceptively fast silver stream. The assault merely swept around his blade and carved a gash in the side of his torso before passing on, leaving droplets of blood to arc slowly through the air in his wake.

He stumbled backward a half-step as the spray of blood drew nearer to the earth. Already some of the spray dotted his face. The Imperator turned to the Twelfth Captain, as if suddenly remembering her presence, though he drew no closer to her rather impressive polearm.

"Your master isn't like you.” He clutched at his wound with an empty hand. "Nothing on the inside. He's spread out all over, hiding bits and pieces in places he hopes no one will look. All he is is what is reflected there. I wonder which of us has a bigger share of the mirror.”

A strange calmness had overtaken his spirit, a sense of rightness in his soul in doing such battle with his ancient foe. Fate rotated in its perfect spheres, and Gabriel Faust and Kuragari Seisatsu soaked the land with blood of the fallen. Everything was aligned. He looked down at Shourisha, as lifeless as it was. Before him he saw the path he was to take, and pursued it. Down the length of the 12th Captain's weapon he flash-stepped, feeling slightly heavier than before, and then his blade slid neatly into the groove his ephemeral guide had left behind, aiming to carve a little more from Shiroi's favorite.

[407/2224]

DarkToaster · Sep 17, 2009

”All you are seeing when you look into me is your own reflection, Seisatsu Kuragari. You have never stood for anything but destruction,” Shiroi said, retracting the coating around his face and extending a bladed appendage to parry the former Captain’s blow, eclipsing Louhi from view. Even now, sealed though he was, the Vizard was still formidable enough to make the Commander feel overmatched in terms of raw skill.

Yet, his reiatsu was not as overwhelming as he remembered. No longer was he the fledgling Captain of 500 years ago. He was slower now, and even if his sword was sharp, his methods seemed even blunter than ever. Five centuries of bearing the burden of living up to Masaru’s legend seemed to lift from him. He had surpassed his ancient nemesis.

“Look closely at what you have become. I want to brand it into your soul as you die.”

numbers

louhi · Sep 17, 2009

Fighting alongside Shiroi felt like two gears of a machine clicking smoothly together; a total contrast to their personal relationship, but somehow that didn't hinder them now. She had fought Shiroi and fought with him too many times to count. Being angry with him was just a part of that symmetry.

If he's plain destruction, I'm rot.

Sheltered behind the dark, projected limb of Apotheosis, the girl ducked down. The huge naginata spun back toward Seisatsu, its blade hanging a fraction higher than her head. More maggots poured out, along with a breath of rotted earth and pine from the un-real place in Louhi's soul where the endless creatures spawned.

But she was putting power into her bare muscles now. A boiling black hand tainted with poison and blood darted out from behind Shiroi's protection in opposition with the swing of her blade, reaching for a grip on the fearsome vizard's ankle.

151/1519

bloop

Amadeus · Sep 18, 2009

"Spare me your insipid, self-righteous condemnation Faust.”

The Imperator backpedaled, flipping Shourisha to halt the assaulting polearm. The impact of the mighty weapon drove Seisatsu back even further. The sensation he had felt before was accurate – he was slowing down. That Faust and his pet still sought to engage him at melee range offended the Vizard. Surely they were trying to weaken him with their poisonous infections and then take advantage of his infirmities, claiming they bested him at his own forte.

"I won't bow to your corrupt judgments like one of your brainwashed peons.”

He lifted his free hand to the side of his head and slid it horizontally across, producing his samurai helm which covered the entirety of his head. The slit over his eyes glowed a dull red, and crimson flowed into his blade once more. Without a word he swept his blade horizontally before him, determined to carve both Shiroi and his pestilential chattel apart before they, in their inevitable cowardice, retreated.

[167/2391]

derp

DarkToaster · Sep 19, 2009

The Commander leapt away into flash step, using the opportunity to allow Louhi to leap into his wake with her Slipstream technique. Shourisha was not a blade one took lightly. Louhi was headstrong and often that worked in her favor. Against Shourisha, however, there could be no mistakes.

“Bakudou #68, Kageryuu Kizouhin,” he chanted and the shadows responded by bowing to his will and wreathing him and Louhi in their protective darkness. The darkness rose up and danced about the Imperator, mocking him.

“Do you think I have to brainwash the Gotei 13 to follow my orders as the First and his successor in failure, you had to do? It really is a mystery to you, Seisatsu Kuragari, isn’t it? You really have no comprehension of the person who defeated you.”

“Do you really think that service comes only through strength? My strength is making you weaker. But it makes those who I choose stronger. Yours is only good for cutting things down. You have never been able to create, Seisatsu Kuragari. Even in the middle of this air of pestilence, that which I hold dear continues to thrive. What would Masaru say of you if he were here, I wonder?”

Amadeus · Sep 19, 2009

"Do not speak to me with your lying, feudal tongue, Butcher.” The Imperator spat. "I was killing Espada when you were still a brat with an inferiority complex. It's taken you five hundred years to come even close to what we who went before you accomplished. You are alive only because my comrades bled and died for your future. And now you drag even the name of Shinkou Masaru into this, another mere tool to be turned against a man who bled for your life and the life of your worm of a subordinate. You, who degrade the accomplishments of patriots, dare to call me the destroyer? Please, you make me look like a rank amateur.”

They had retreated as soon as his ability to use Bankai returned. They were like roaches scurrying away from the light, hiding in the cracks and corners. That Shiroi could think of them as anything but cowardly scum only proved the degree to which he had infiltrated them.

"When we assaulted Las Noches, we didn't sell ourselves to one Hollow merely to strike at another. The army we faced was united without faction under Petyconia Sombraviajero, ten Espada strong! We attacked them without fear, without compromise! You dare presume that you are the righteous one, that you are the one who has accomplished much. Peh, what a bad joke!”

He lifted his hands to the heavens.

"I, Kuragari Seisatsu, have slain an Espada and a Vastro Lorde! I overthrew the corrupt regime of the First Vizard, freeing my people from a bondage of the mind! When this lying, deceitful snake in the flesh of a human being did his best to commit genocide against my people, I did not retreat from that evil either! For five hundred years, I protected my people, guided my people, bled for my people! I am betrayed at every turn, cornered in every way! For almost a millennium, I have suffered every outrage that this world can commit against me!”

The Imperator pointed into the wall of shadow, his empty, bloody hand shaking with fury. Still, he addressed the heavens, not his foe.

"If there is even a drop of righteousness in the ocean of evil that is this universe, I will accept no outcome but victory, no result but justice! If there be no goodness in this mortal plane, then I want no more of it!”

He made no attempt to chase after his enemies or enter the wall of darkness. There was no need to play along with Shiroi's little games.

"Come, Faust! Do your worst! I will never fear your blade, nor bow to your corrupt, serpentine propaganda. If I die, so be it! I have done more than a spineless worm like you could dream.”

[462/2853]

DarkToaster · Sep 22, 2009

The darkness responded only with silence as the Vizard spoke and Shiroi wondered if Seisatsu actually believe what he said. How could this man be so deluded, so out of touch with his own actions?

“Can you condemn me for this alliance, even as you stand beside the butchers of the very patriots whose names you think I have stained? Can you claim to be the liberator of the people you re-enslaved and led to destruction? Is this how you tolerate your own continued existence?”

“Then so be it. You shall fall blind, dying as you were in life. Today I finish my taishuu that I began with you 500 years ago. Shadow Step.” Shiroi spoke the kidou, but did not cast the spell, hoping to use the Vizard’s paranoia from their previous encounters to their advantage. Instead, he entered a shunpo and prepared to slash the man across the back as he lashed out against imaginary enemies.

louhi · Sep 22, 2009

In the depth of the shadows, the girl's other senses kicked in. The truth was, she was already close to being worn out from the combination of fighting the Espada and then charging straight in to face Seisatsu. With some relief, her hand found the back of the Soutaichou's haori and she allowed him to drag her into his flash steps. The always-hot coal of anger in her resented that relief, too.

With the need for footwork out of the way, she began focusing on the death around them again. It was too bad she hadn't managed to mark the vizard; now that he was masked, whatever Kago had afflicted onto his sword seemed to have worn off. She'd seen that awful red glow again. Her maggots had been luckier, though. A number of them that had swarmed at him when he blocked her naginata had found their way into the man's body, especially into the wound Shiroi had given him. She felt the faint tug of two of them, not enough to influence his movement, but she could probably worsen that injury with a bit of effort.

What surprised her more was that he hadn't even reacted to the hungry little creatures that were burrowing in him. That was someone who fought and endured... She shook her head. There wouldn't be any more of that. Shiroi would kill him, with or without her help. Piles of flesh bound together in the darkness, making shapes roughly the same size and shape as the commander. As he dragged her with him once more, one of the fleshy monstrosities threw itself at Seisatsu from the front, while another oozed around his feet.

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Amadeus · Sep 25, 2009

The world seemed to tilt and roll around the Vizard. It seemed the cumulative effects of his opponents' efforts were beginning to take their toll. Seisatsu felt the power of his inner Hollow burning within him, its power rising with every ebb and flow of battle. Soon enough the wound Shiroi gave him would be no more.

A brief glance at his left shoulder said otherwise.

Colonies of squirming white things wriggled in and about the wound he had received. Seisatsu, who had ridden victorious across innumerable battlefields, was not unfamiliar with their appearance. What concerned him was their location. Normally they only appeared on carrion. Another one of Shiroi's tricks?

Either way, the wound had not begun to heal as it should have, and was in fact deteriorating. A lingering scent of decay accompanied the repulsive creatures, causing his nose to wrinkle. No, this was the other one. The pet. The thought of the Gotei in the maggot-ridden hands of such a pair of miscreants sent a chill down the Vizard's spine.

Somewhere in the distance, the pretentious liar's tones that the usurper had no doubt tainted so many minds with hissed and murmured. As if he, his mortal enemy, could be moved by such transparent protestations. The Imperator tested his left arm. Its reactions were clumsy and slow. The power that required both arms was sealed once more. No, this situation was not worthy of such a display anyway. Faust was not worthy.

Still his enemy clung to the darkness like the hem of his mother's dress, hiding from the real battles that had to be fought. A tall shape loomed from the darkness in front of Seisatsu for only a moment before the Imperator severed it at the knees, sending it flopping closer to the Vizard. Another disgusting puppet.

A spike of pain alerted the Imperator to an assault from below. Gobs of flesh interspersed with broken jawbones and fractured hands had bitten into one of his legs. These attacks were not the tools of righteousness. Mere devilry, summoned by arcane methods. Darkness and death were nothing to be feared, only overcome. Centuries of misery had burned that sentiment into the Imperator's mind.

He stabbed his blade into the disgusting pile of flesh. Very well. He would simply have to sterilize everything. Reiatsu swarmed and gathered into his blade before discharging directly into the earth below. As the world briefly turned white, the Imperator felt a distant pain across his back.

[415/3268]

DarkToaster · Sep 25, 2009

The Commander darted away again into a flash step, safe in the bevy of dead and accompanied in the darkness by one betrayer allied with him against a greater betrayer. It was nearly finished and he wanted dearly to end it, but he could not be impatient. Seisatsu was too dangerous to take chances with. The ground rocking behind him in a devastating display of Cero was testament to that.

Ekirei reached out for Louhi and hardened as the shockwaves of apocalyptic force rocketed outward, sending stone, metal and bone in all directions. In the shielding cocoon they waited and Shiroi's unnatural breath through his second skin hissed in pain from the debris. Then it was over.

“Control doll,” he said, creating a clone among the ashes of the now-vaporized hordes of dead around Seisatsu. This one would be implanted with Sinking Shadow. It swung a bevy of ebony appendages at the old Imperator all of which were blunt and useless.

With a touch on the shoulder, Shiroi bade Louhi not to follow him this time as he re-entered flash-step, and exited, opposite of Seisatsu’s sword arm, hoping to give himself as much time to react as possible should his gambit be guessed and his metallic body erupted in acid-tipped spears that sought out the flesh of the former Inquisitor through the shadows.

numbers

Amadeus · Sep 25, 2009

The dull roar of devastation slowly echoed into extinction, carrying with it the miscellaneous dead. Though the earth fell away beneath him, the Imperator's steps did not falter. He rose higher, giving himself a better view of his surroundings. Blood loss was making his vision swim. Reopened wounds drained blood into his left eye. It would take some time for the pet to reach out further to find more bodies, so the Imperator had only the great deceiver to contend with.

Among the ashes something stirred. Nothing should be able to move down there. A cluster of slashes rent it easily. Too easily. Another trap. Shiroi would attack from the left, from his blind spot and away from the sword arm he feared. The Imperator moved to guard his flank, but not quickly enough. His arm froze in place a little above where he knew the attack would come from. Just a little more, and he would be in range.

The arm he took from the Tenth Espada flexed. All he needed was a shiver; just a twitch. Even bound and blind, if he could move his sword arm, he could move forward. Shourisha, even with such a tiny motion, would take care of the rest. Faust, for all his deceitful intricacies, could not understand such a simple sentiment. Would he expect such a gamble? The question in his mind lasted only a moment. He didn't care. The Imperator of the Army of Masks would act as he wished. The concerns of others were secondary.

Far away, something was burning. Something sizzled. Seisatsu's nerves, fried as they were by the incessant assaults, barely registered the attack.

[274/3542]

DarkToaster · Sep 25, 2009

The golem-like body of the Commander shuddered as his spikes hit their mark. Even as the Vizard’s blade sliced easily through his second skin and carved a gash into across his chest, the two remained immobile in their deadly embrace for a moment, each sneering in hatred behind their masks. Then, as simply as they had entered, they retracted and Shiroi drifted out of the range of the Vizard’s blade.

He held out a palm. Everything had been but a set up for this moment. Methodically, the Commander had waited his ancient enemy out, running him, weakening him, exhausting him until he could no longer defend himself. Now it was time for the coup de grace.

“There will be no one left to mourn you, Seisatsu Kuragari. You have destroyed everything. Your people, your reputation, your honor. Your weapon has cut them all. You do not care, because you have inhabited the mind of a hollow for too long. Your heart has atrophied. I do not pity you Seisatsu Kuragari, because you have never had pity for anyone but yourself.”

“This is the end,” Shiroi said flatly, and an orb of white hot energy erupted from his hand. In a flash of movement it hurtled at the former Inquisitor and collided with his chest. The next moment, a pillar of flame erupted around the Vizard, a hole where his heart should be. In his moment, of doom, he had become what he sought to control.

Shiroi raised an arm to shield himself from the brightness of the blast and while the pillar of white flame extended into the sky, it was daytime in Hueco Mundo.

Amadeus · Sep 25, 2009

Even in the end, Shiroi didn't grant him even the dignity of silence. The light and heat, however, washed the pretentious words away. The pain and the destruction brought him solace, spared him the words he didn't want to hear. After nearly a millennium of tolerating their empty speech, he finally didn't need to bother with them any longer.

Fate, it seemed, had made its choice.

His body resembled a Hollow's more in death than it ever had in life. He fell, blood tracing crimson arcs through the sky as his thoughts exited his body through the hole in his chest. Seisatsu couldn't see his killer as he descended, but he knew he was there. He felt the cold, gray orbs upon him, presumptuous till the end. The Imperator wanted to retort, to have the final say, but his body wouldn't respond.

Well... His last thoughts curdled as they circled the drain. It's your hell now.

Hollows gathered beneath them has he fell down into the pit he had created, each teeming maw scrambling to get a taste of the prize. The Imperator was empty before he landed.

[192/3734] Final

louhi · Sep 26, 2009

Nearly exhausted, Louhi had allowed Shiroi to take over as the battle drew to a close. In the face of so much power, the fury of the Imperator's final attack and then the Soutaichou's, she was helpless to act anyway. Her own abilities were fleabites in comparison. Incongruously she spared a thought for the man she'd blinded; if he hadn't run away he was probably passed out under the rubble.

And then it was over. Squinting against the light, the captain of the 12th watched Kuragari Seisatsu's last moments. She knew what it was like to die. There are some that say death is an equalizer, but she didn't think that was really true. The death of the powerful and ancient vizard was on a completely different scale than the faceless minions she'd mowed down in numbers. It was a sight she'd never forget...

And it should have been hers! An irrational rage bubbled up from her core. If the commander hadn't shown up and protected her and pushed her aside, that sight would have belonged to her. No matter what, he always seemed to get involved in some way. How was she going to find her own strength if she was never let alone?

"Interfering old geezer!" Louhi roared, finding her voice again as the light began to fade.

She launched herself at him, punching and kicking ineffectually at his amorphous form, uncaring of the gash that had already wounded him. "Stay out of my way!"

249/2048

DarkToaster · Sep 26, 2009

The second skin of Ekirei removed itself from the Commander’s body and returned to its sheath, even as Louhi punched and kicked at it uselessly. In a moment, there was nothing between the two of them.

He looked down at her pale white fists, whose poison did nothing to him. He did not move out of the way or try and stop her. A part of him wanted to chastise her and tell her how stupid she had been for trying to take on Seisatsu alone. She had put herself and her division in danger.

Overwhelming those professional concerns though was a desperate thankfulness that she was still alive. In those panicked hours as he rushed south to save her, the anger from the revelations in their training together had slowly melted out of him.

Her eyes were downcast now as she continued to hit him, more feebly than before and he could see droplets falling from behind her bangs. He wondered if she could see his own tears falling.

He opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Instead his body moved on it’s own as his long arms pulled her close to him and wrapped around her, even as she continued to pound her fist on his heart, slower even as his heart beat faster.

“Thank you…,” he finally choked out. “Thank you for being alive.”

louhi · Sep 26, 2009

Louhi's pounding fists came to a halt, frozen against the blood-slicked shihakushou of the captain commander as he encircled her in his arms. She had chosen her path. This wasn't it. So why was she going still, like a bird dropped into a sack? The part of her that demanded she fight back was distant, trapped on the other side of a wall where she couldn't reach. She could feel her own traitorous heart pounding as the warmth of Shiroi's closeness spread into her.

"...you too," she managed to stutter back in a puny voice.

She didn't dare look at him, afraid what she'd see in his eyes or what he'd see in hers. She turned her face downward until her forehead collided against the solidness of her old captain's chest and stayed there, hiding the wetness she'd felt on her cheeks. The war waged on inside of Louhi, whether to flee or give in. Her fists clenched, but she still didn't move.

163/2211

Shiroi could not count the passing moments for time seemed to move in strange bursts, at once incredibly fast in his panicked heart and at once slow as his mind was bombarded with the feeling of it. The way she felt small wrapped up in his haori-clad arms, the subtle shiver she made as she stifled back sobs. He could even feel her pulse beating with his faintly.

Even as he realized his position, they tried to disengage, but seemed to decide simultaneously that it was not the time and clutched each other all the tighter.

In the middle of the cries and sounds of battle they simply stood. The war could wait, at least for a few more moments.

nano · Sep 26, 2009

Faceless. Out of the many unimportant grunts roaming the battlefield, he was particularly stark - easily forgettable. The collar around his neck, the unfortunate trademark of the seventh division was, pitifully enough, the only thing that gave him a fraction of character.

Sometimes though, being in the right place at the right time can change a life. Even a grim afterlife like his.

Things had happened quickly and Jun could only faintly remember the string of events that led to this. All that mattered was that he focus on the present, anyway. Niklas had entrusted this to him, and for the first time in any of his lives - Jun wasn't going to fail. No matter how imposing the man in which he was supposed to talk to was.

"Soutaichou," he began in an uncharacteristically strong voice, "Anton Zhukov says that Seisatsu Kuragari knows what you truly to came to get."

The words meant little to the prisoner, but a nagging feeling in the back of his head told him that the Captain Commander would pay them more mind.

|179|

DarkToaster · Sep 26, 2009

The Commander cleared his throat and let go, turning to face the messenger. “It is too bad for Seisatsu Kuragari then, that he is dead. Even if he were alive, it would be too late to stop me. Come.”

Shiroi strode toward the man before stopping to look back at Louhi, “We have a job to complete now. Go back to your division. We go south to finish this war.” He turned back, hesitated in mid-step, and then the doubt left his mind.

Esqueleto was next.

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[PM][1st/12th/Seisatsu] Week 102: And If You Wrong Us, Shall We Not Revenge?

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