[PM] [C46/C/VC] Week 226: Desperate Times

[swaswj]

"Sorry for this, old friend."

Standing there brawling madly on a suspended bridge was not the best way to reach the outside, to catch up with Nana or get to where the bulk of the terrorists had gathered together.

They didn't have to kill each individual attacker, they just needed to force them outside.

Sayis thrust his left arm out, spiraling tattoos aglow with reiatsu. "Daishou!" he shouted again, placing the arrow directly beneath Ishin's feet. The flailing embodiment of death was snatched up and hurtled across the bridge. However much damage Tsuneo had caused, it was nothing compared to that giant of a man with chains and fists flying.

Ishin bowled straight through the Sine Qua Non, shoving them back by the dozens. The momentum of Daishou faltered there, but Sayis wasn't finished, yet. "Bakudou fifty-four, Black Tide!"

The dark wind surrounded Ishin, swirling up from his feet and rapidly climbing all the way to his head before exploding outward. The white-hooded enemies were lifted on the black gusts, thrown backward from the opened doorway. The lucky ones landed on the flimsy metal catwalk, but most plummeted helplessly toward the cracked and jagged ground below. The area on their side of the make-shift bridge was clear of the Sine Qua Non.

Sayis jumped forward in a rare flash-step, arriving just in front of Ishin. His grey eyes flicked over, but as expected, their weapons were gone. The Soutaichou looked across the second bridge, at the still thick throngs of white robes. They watched solemnly from past the circular wall, each with a weapon at hand.

[266/3361]

 

[Rob]

“I’ll open a pathway,” she spoke in Sayis’ general direction as she began to scan the surrounding area.

Finding a crack on the bridge she stood roughly the size of a hatchback, she placed both her hands under it and with incredible force broke it free from the rest of the bridge and held it high above her head as she entered a flash step.

As soon as she appeared again, the Sine Qua Non agents that were holding the Gotei personnel’s blades found themselves momentarily stunned by the enormous boulder coming their way. Nana followed shortly thereafter and with an almost surreal punch right at the rock’s weak point, broke the boulder in a hundred smaller pieces and shouted, “Hadou One, Shou!” as she snatched her blade from the unfortunate agent.

“Bring it on!”

[135/885]

 

[Stephen Tetsu]

Controlled chaos. Perhaps that was the only way to describe the destructive counterattack launched by the leaders of the spiritual realm’s militia.

The bridge was cleared in a rain of lost limbs, bodies, discarded weapons, the group of powerful shinigami pushing their way to the edge of the inner wall.

Pinned, pain sending shivers across his entire body, the assassin leader knew he was going to have to find a way to rejoin the fray. The acting Templar captain’s spell had pinned him with his back against the uneven rock wall, held up by a talon that had caught the loose folds of black cloth over his shoulder. A second had connected with the hem of his left pantleg. The third had succeeded in hitting the warrior himself, punching straight through his thigh like a stake.

Mind clouded with pain, the thin man acted mostly on impulse. Simply ripping the beak from his leg in a spray of crimson, Tsuneo slammed the magical construct into the wall a foot above his head and, grabbing the beak that had hit above his shoulder, tore loose of the binding beside his foot. Then, gritting his teeth as his damaged leg gave a tortuous hiss and pop, the assassin turned and began to climb back towards the carnage above.


​[216/1994]

 

[Eidolon]

*schlick*

A thin, red line appeared on the neck of of the propelled captain, too shallow to be fatal. A pair of stark, blue eyes met the stalwart grey of the Soutaichou's before fading in a fluster of sunlight. A voice called out from the front of the lines of those clad in white, belonging to a man distinctly clad in shades of twilight grey and midnight blue. At his side, a woman standing slightly shorter than he, with delicate, soft features and an expression to match.

"What, didn't see it?" It was the opening thrust of what promised to be a dangerous confrontation. A sudden, tremendous weight even for the Captains of the Gotei filled the air, twin ivory manifestations of reiatsu saturating the area. It came from the paired nobility standing now at the forefront of the massed army, which now on the whole was forced to kneel, gasp for breath, and for most fight to stay conscious.

"That man you used isn't dead for one reason: you are not Faust. I've heard of you, a new Soutaichou, a man born of the people and of Rukongai, who does not act on the leash of the Central Forty Six. Will you not simply step aside, and order your men to do the same? This should not turn into a place where innocent blood fills the depths below us. A new order, of just peace and rule, should not be built upon the blood and backs of the people seeking it."

Augustus LaSalle was smiling, an appearance of honest parlay amidst a brewing war.

[265/893]

 

[swaswj]

Stunned, Sayis caught Ishin by the shoulder as vivid crimson flowed down from his throat. Instinct told him to immediately channel reiatsu to heal the wound, but with the LaSalle twins right there, he couldn't dare pull his attention away. He urged the prison captain backward, trusting that one of the others could take care of Ishin with reiki. As far as he knew, Makoto's ability to use Chiyudou was still locked away.

Facing the two across the rickety metal bridge, Sayis peeled away the layers of his restraint, revealing his own heavy reiatsu. The Soutaichou had grown used to finding the strength of his reiatsu to be peerless, with even Theron unable to match him in raw force of spirit. Those Sine Qua Non who had been fortunate enough to land on the bridge were now wedged between the competing weight of the LaSalles and the captains of the Gotei Thirteen.

"If you truly felt that way, then why open negotiations with spilled blood and drawn blades?"

Grey eyes surveyed the group across the bridge, quickly determining that only the weakest had been sent inside.

[186/3547]

Note

Yeah, somebody try to heal Ishin before he bleeds out >.>

 

[Eidolon]

The smile turned flat, and Augustus placed a hand on the hilt of his zanpakutou. His eyes never left the opposing commander, but a delicate, white-laced hand touching his arm softened the hard look in his azure stare, poise quickly returning.

"Because it gives us an advantage if you say no, and shows you how serious we are, compelling you to say yes. We need not even kill all of the chamber, we simply need control their physical well being long enough to shift power from their corrupt hands." The lithe blond was continuing his read on the silver-haired counterpart, trying to see if words would reach him.

"Be we cannot delay long. Opportunity must be seized. Allow me to demonstrate my resolve, and, why accepting this new way is best for all. Reiatsu alone is not why you should fear us." With that, Augustus' eyes became heavily lidded.

All about the factions standing opposite one another, the blood that had been spilled, and was yet spilling began to stir. Carmine streaks arched up into the sky and congealed, flowing out in a grim outline. Reinforced with the metal of the bridge they stood on, the chains around the wrists of the prisoner captain in the form of a hulking skeleton, the imaginary construct shifted between reality and dream, a horrendous beast.

"Maria," the blond requested softly. She only smiled, touching her own weapon and bringing to life the monstrosity that might very well decimate all of the Gotei's finest.

A beast of blood, his hands replaced with gaping, serrated toothed maws and liquid body covered in wavering, vital spikes of gleaming life blood. The dead of the SQN would have their revenge in the form of this unspeakable nightmare.

[290/1,183]

 

[swaswj]

As the nightmare beast took form, Sayis began to realize what a difficult position they were in. Everything his senses were telling him suggested that golem was real, was given physical form, even though by all rights it should have cut deep into the LaSalles' reiatsu to summon such a creature. Instead, their pressure hammered down just as strongly, even as the monster of blood and steel, the golem of death and vengeance rose up between them.

When Sayis tried to consider everything he knew about Maria and Augustus LaSalle... it amounted to nothing at all. Faust and Leon fought together, trained together specifically to stand a chance against these two. They, or at least Faust, knew everything there was to know about the pair and had centuries of combat experience.

In his clear grey eyes, he could see the nature of the twins, could see that they truly believed what they were saying as clearly as he could see that not a bit of it was true. Without his zanpakuto, though... without Karil he could not pierce beneath the surface, could not see the true reflection of their character as well as their strength. Ishin was already badly wounded... Should Sayis hit them with everything, right out of the gate?

Or would that be leaving him open?

"Ends never justify the means," Sayis replied boldly, "and if you believe that, then you long ago forgot what you were fighting for. What makes you better than the Forty-Six?"

Before the blond could retort, a different voice answered, heard clearly inside Sayis' head. "Nothing at all." The Soutaichou blinked, and saw similar confusion from the LaSalles. "For the greater part of one thousand years, you and your sister have continually diminished yourselves. You are but specters of Maria and Augustus LaSalle, pretending at life, pretending at the ideals once held dearer than life itself.

"It is past time to bring an end to this charade."

Tentei Kuura..?

From the clear blue sky overhead, there was a deafening crack of thunder. Darkness swallowed everything, and in the midst of that blackness, an even darker bolt of lightning, made of the void itself, split the sky apart. The darkness lifted, the blue sky glaring after that second of utter lightlessness.

As Sayis stared in awe, the LaSalles and their entourage were engulfed in black clouds that swiftly vanished into the air without a trace. Augustus dropped his sword, clutching desperately at his chest. Maria gagged, turning pale as she clung desperately to her brother, both of them screaming silently.

Sayis met Augustus' eyes. Those eyes were filled with disbelief, with... betrayal... and with fear, abject terror. The two fell to their knees, in each other's arms. They were convulsing, wracked by pain from an unknown source, their skin flushing red, tinged green in places. Even then, even in the throes of agony and ravaged by the fear of death, Sayis could see Augustus cradling his frailer sister, desperately trying to use reiki... on her.

Helplessly, the Soutaichou could only watch as the two twins suffered... and died.

The soldiers they had brought with them were all similarly cut down.

"Anshinkan Raifuku. That is the name you are looking for." Sayis blinked, pulling his eyes away from the field of corpses. The golem of blood had come apart, splashing among the stones beneath them.

"...why?" was all he could think to ask.

"Much as Kikuchi Issei had lost sight of the reason he became head of the Central Forty-Six, and the world suffered for it... the same was true for those two. When noble and true purposes fall into disfavor, as compromise becomes acceptable and then necessity, the suffering of the world only increases. It is my desire to put an end to this perpetual cycle of decay, to cut short the fall of the once-righteous and usher in new change.

"You have just seen the medium of my... persuasion: Buryoku Gaikou."

[658/4205] Final

Note

All captains, vice-captains, C46, and the people in the Earth thread can hear Raifuku.

Watch the other thread.

Go here.

 

[Stephen Tetsu]

Strength. Inconceivable strength. So this was the strength of gods. The entire chamber seemed to shudder from the combined might of the three figures perched at opposite ends of the bridge, at the monstrosity that had formed from the blood of those that had already fallen in the chaos.

Caught against the wall, weighed down by the increasing weight of the spiritual presence of the juggernauts in the room, Kono Tsuneo knew he was in way over his head. Up against these monsters, he would be able to do nothing, a simple ant amongst elephants.

And yet, he climbed. He climbed because he had to, climbed because there was nothing else for him to do. Climbed even as the atmosphere made it impossible to breath, every sinew in his body straining, tearing, skin slickened with his own blood. Climbed even as every rational bone in his body told him it was all for naught.

And then a voice. That voice. A voice he would never forget.

Raifuku. The name touched him like a curse. His first foray against the super-gods that populated the world of captains and dignitaries, a man fast enough to catch him and make it look easy.

A crack of thunder from above. Something was going on up there. Something terrible.

As fast as they had arrived, the massive energy fields of the twin rebels had vanished. They were dead.

H-how? he thought. How is this possible?

Nothing made sense anymore. He didn’t deserve to walk among these men, could do nothing worthy of them, was weak, useless, insignificant.

Numb with shock, the assassin pulled himself up onto the far-side of the metal catwalk just as the enigmatic human made his final pronouncement.

“Two days...”

Knee deep in the fallen, contorted corpses of men who had but moments ago been out to bring the world crashing around his ears, the exhausted warrior was lost in the magnitude of what had happened.

The flames of an inescapable feeling of helplessness consumed him all at once.. He was an insect and they were gods.

Limping through the pile of corpses, the pale man, bleeding profusely from the gaping wound in his thigh, reached the mutilated corpses of the twin leaders of the siege. Stricken with fear and pain in their last moments, they had died on their backs with their eyes open, azure blue gazingly dimly at the matching peaceful hue of the clear sky. Stiff with toxin, their hands were forever intertwined.

He reached the center of the bridge and stopped.

For the first time since the fates had seen fit to tear him from the peace of eternal rest, Kono Tsuneo was afraid.

[446/Final: 2440]

 

[IshinOnigami]

Just so i get this straight, the way i read it the wound was not fatal. I will write it as such until i am told otherwise.

Ishin had been used as a human cannonball. Not that he minded, simply due to the fact that his flails combined with the inertia from the spell used upon him made him a spinning ball of death that went flying across the bridge unopposed. Until, that is, he was cut. He didn't feel it, mostly because he had used his abilities to block any pain he would receive from the battle, but he could feel the blood start to coat his neck. Placing his left hand over his wound, he watched as the hideous amalgamation, a byproduct mostly of his own making, rose to oppose him. But just as quickly, it disappeared. He felt the power flow from the twins, could hear the voice. A part of him knew it was Tentai Kurra, but that part was shoved so far back in his subconscious at that moment that he paid it no heed. None of that mattered. All he could realize was a pure and blinding rage. A desire for revenge so strong that it overwhelmed every other emotion within him. He could not stop himself. As if from another person, he heard his own voice ring out into the still tumultuous air of the chamber.

"RAIFUKU! You coward! You helped them escape and now, when you have no use for them, you end their existence? Bring your sorry ass out here and fight me like a man! I will kick your ass with or without a LaSalle present!"

GM Note: No, it was not immediately fatal, but still needs to be healed. The thread ended for Week 226, so this last turn isn't included in your wordcount.

Wordcount is 1338. If I have to count your wordcount again, and I'm grading, your grade will be cut by 50%.

~Will