A reverberating wave of something slammed into the captain.
It tore his bankai away like wet paper and shattered the barrier the strange woman had summoned like glass. Xiezhi was back in his hand, and that was when he consciously realized he wasn’t wearing anything. Hastily, Haresuno dropped his zanpakuto to the ground.
“Material Summon,” Haresuno commanded. While some of his power seemed to have limits, the kidou he cast brought forth a bundle of fresh clothes - complete with a pair of glasses and a ribbon. He then went on with neat precision and quickly dressed himself. All the while his face burning crimson.
In a matter of moments, the captain was once more clad in his uniform. The stark-white emblem of his office resting over his shoulders. Its bold numeral for five standing out on the back.
“Much better,” he mumbled to himself, reaching down to reclaim his katana. Looking down, Haresuno realized that he no longer had his scabbard and extra sword. Samael’s attack had taken everything but his skin and hair, though those had obvious signs of singing from the acid attack. “Or, maybe not....” he restated with a wave of nausea. With a sigh that seemed to settle at least his footing, the captain turned his head and began looking around. Once again the world around him had taken a curious twist. In the moment of his release felling the Faust Lord’s specter, and coming back to challenge what remaining ghosts were left, the world had exploded and plunged the group into darkness before thrusting them into a brilliant white plane.
All around them from left to the right was bleeding white. Endless, and daunting, the only distinguishing feature was the solid ground they stood on.
“Is everyone alright?” he asked out loud. With any luck the final assault that Samael had unleashed failed - a thought (hope rather) that the captain kept in the distant part of his mind.
Faust had been a monster, and because of it Haresuno had physically pushed himself to limits he had never once before met with an opponent. The only reason he was even alive and not as damaged as he should have been was due largely to luck.
He felt as strong released as Prometheus did when I was sealed with him, the captain noted distantly. His mind had been too preoccupied during the fight, but now that there was a lull the gears turned. Some human part of him shivered at the revelation of what he had just accomplished, however wonderful. If he had just been focusing on me, rather than trying to aide the others, I wouldn’t have lived.
The world tore and broke in a way she couldn’t have wanted to do to it more. Sadly, it wasn’t her scythe tearing a hole in reality, but instead likely an element of Fukushin’s game. The illusion exposed for what it was, it was no more, she surmised. But the people she had lost? Sekka, Gorou, Hao, Nana... Lilith. Those people had been real.
Her guilt, and the pain from her stomach wound, overcame her as Lashiel, sealed quite suddenly by the searing white that assailed her, fell to the ‘ground’ in front of her. Lashiel had burned in her hands from the energy she sent coursing through it staving off Faust’s final attack, and it hurt like hell when it resealed and her hand held the weapon’s blade. She quickly retrieved and sheathed the fallen weapon, not daring to be unarmed for more than a second in this place.
She noted Haresuno’s naked form and was quite relieved when he used Material Summon to correct that slight irritation. Worse, she remembered a certain training session with Kago that ended in an equally displeasing manner. “It most certainly is,” Adelaide commented under her breath when the gardener expressed how much better being clothed was.
She took some of the torn midsection of her shihakushou and used it to wrap her left hand, which was still lightly bleeding from a blade suddenly replacing a staff in its grasp. Figuring her status was plain enough to behold, she didn’t bother answering the Captain’s inquiry. “So,” she remarked while treating her wound, “is this the real world?” Were they nearing Fukushin? She wanted to repay him the great kindnesses he had afforded those she was charged with protecting.
"Oh, I'm fine," Hotate mumbled, "very fine." She had not looked away from Haresuno while he dressed. If only he wasn't so, so breathy.
Looking around for just a moment was enough for Hotate. It was disturbingly white and empty, or appeared to be empty at any rate. No telling when someone or something new would show up. The entire place being so monotone made it difficult to distinguish distance and size of the area.
"Let's stay still for now," Hotate suggested. "You guys are in bad shape." She held up both hands, overlapped in a plus shape and palm facing towards Haresuno. "Break apart and return, turn and overcome. Yada, yada, yada. Chiyudou number fifty two, High Mend."
He stood still as the familiar feeling of chiyudo washed over him. The Found Captain extended his will and reiatsu to the surrounding world, examining it through his god hand. “Possibly,” he answered to Adelaide. “Its fuzzy, but the distinction between this world and the previous iterations are different somehow.” He turned his head to Hotate, looking at her over his shoulder. “I have to agree with you, though I think bad shape’ is a tad understated.” Chuckling, he returned his attention to the rest of the room.
It really wasn’t a laughing matter. Though he was better than most people at concealing agonizing levels of pain, the wrecked and tired ebb that resonated through him before the High Mend had been enough to put any normal man out. Thankfully there was someone who could heal.
Whoever this woman was, she hadn’t been with the Gotei when they departed from Seireitei. So that left him to believe her a rogue of some sort. Well, whatever her reason for being there, he didn’t care. The fact that she viewed them as a means to escaping or survival - he really wasn’t sure if those words could be swapped for one another at this point - and would continue to use them, was a small victory in a way. And it certainly didn’t look as if Haresuno would have a problem with that.
“I appreciate you helping us. My only hope now is that we don’t have to do any more fighting.” He wasn’t going to bet on that, which probably meant it was a good thing he hoped for it. It’d be real nasty if he said they wouldn’t, only to go right back into the fray. “Oh!” the captain muttered in surprise, “I’m Captain Uchiharu of the Fifth Division. You are?”
Come to think of it, Adelaide hadn’t known the name of the other woman either. She had saved the gardener and made Adelaide’s attempt to treat her own wounds look as frankly silly as it was; not only was Adelaide’s poorly bandaged cut healed but the burned flesh of her torso dulled its own agony measurably. As far as the Mystic was concerned, that made the woman worth being kind to. Whoever she was, clearly she was on their side for the moment.
So, the Englishwoman followed the lead of the Captain in the room: “Adelaide Pierce, Acting Captain of the Tenth Division.” It was the first time she acknowledged aloud that Lilith’s death had left her in charge, in command. It was funny, with the exception of Yuurei every single person under her command had died, but only now did Adelaide put words to that burden; only after she failed did it become real. She gestured to the little boy beside them, “This is Vincent Kruez, a member of Tenth’s previous iteration.”
Introductions out of the way, they were left with the problem of how to proceed. The healer’s name wasn’t going to change that. Unless her name was “Fukushin”, in which case Adelaide would have a great many questions to ask. But odds of that being the case seemed pretty low. Adelaide was sure that they had uncovered useful information when they encountered an ancient Central 46, but just what that information was she wasn’t sure. However, as telling as the ancient nature of their former position, the fact that Issei survived the encounter, thus preserving history, seemed strange when set beside the conjuration and death of other illusions like Loviator or the Pale Horse. And when the illusionary world broke, was what remained reality, or simply the canvas on which the illusion was painted?
They had answers; they just needed to know what questions those answers were for.
Hotate extended the other hand to the injured woman. "Chiyudou number one, mend. I'll have you two patched up in no time." Both hands were glowing with a soothing white that washed away the pain and injuries of the previous room.
"Ah, I remember, former vice captain of the Tenth Haresuno," Hotate said. "I used to be in the Fourth Division but transferred out. I doubt you've heard of me though." The former shinigami had her mouth crooked. Looking back and forth between the people here, she shrugged. "My name is Hotate.
"And acting captain?" Hotate's eyes were wide with surprise. "What, what happened?"
It wasn’t like Adelaide didn’t know that question was coming, she had expected Haresuno to ask. Still, it didn’t make answering an easy prospect. “Lilith Maikeru, Captain of the Tenth, was killed during this mission. In accordance with her wishes, I’ve assumed command.” The old saying was that greatness wasn’t best sought, but best thrust upon someone, which certainly was the case for Adelaide. Still, she didn’t feel all that great. Her tone had hints of uncertainty, apprehension and outright despair that underlined its attempt to sound in control of the situation like a watermark.
While it was easy enough to think that perhaps Yuurei, or even Lucas, might still be alive, she had been privy to her Captain’s final thoughts, joining by telepathy the ranks of people who watched the Mystic Captain die. She had tried to use Taidan’s power to contact her since to no avail. Adelaide’s own brush with oblivion had not had the same finality as Lilith’s did. No doubt remained in her. This too was clear in the way Adelaide spoke.
For a moment Amaya simply convulsed in the jungle beneath the remains of the Sin Eater. Before the convulsing, there had been a red hot feeling a clarity. The weight of the trident as it cracked and shattered her ribs, the last scream that tore from her lips before air stopped flowing into the deflated right lung, and the seconds of gasping so desperately for air that barely made its way into the single good side of her lungs that remained. Her hands dropped the blades of her bankai and grasped at the trident that held her to the ground. Wheezing she tried desperately to pull it from her, to do something to save herself from the end.
As the barbed edge of the bolas tore into her arms, the pain pulled her away. Her hands couldn't grasp the weapon that held her down, they could only tremble and form into a ball as her mind started to sweep away into the tortured bliss.
But before she was gone into the haze, before she let the red sweep her into its embrace, another blast of fresh agony swept over her. She felt her skin break, and her leg shatter.
For an instant her hands trembled in ecstasy, groping their way to the shattered husk that was now her leg. For a mere instant she recognized the horrible angle the lower remained of the limb was skewed at as she felt past the wound, but then she was gone.
The red filled her mind, her body writhed on the spot, ready for the black to take her. As she left the forest floor and appeared in the room beneath the group of strangers the pangs of pain and pleasure simply blurred together into pure shock.
[294/294]
note
Not entirely sure what can be accomplished here. I'm guessing based on my girlfriend's medschool expertise that Amaya's suffered from a pierced right lung that's now deflated and filling with blood, barbs cutting her left shoulder to shreds, and a severely broken almost severed left leg. But in order to keep her alive for more than 10 seconds I'm saying the femoral artery hasn't been severed. All in all I'm guessing she dies in about 5-10 minutes best case scenario without major medical treatment
As much as Haresuno wanted to hear what had happened to Lilith, the bloodied form of Amaya hit the white floor. Her blood pooling around her in a ruby lake. He had questions, dozens of them for both Hotate and Adelaide, but they would have to wait.
His eyes opened wide in both shock and horror, and without waiting, before anyone could move, he was across the empty space. Riki wasn’t his specialty, his was much better suited for other types of aid, but until Hotate could do something he filled his hands with the moderate healing powers every shinigami learned. If anything it would push away the woman’s pain.
Kneeling in the pool of blood, uncaring to the stains it would leave on his black uniform, or to the fringes of his haori, Haresuno focused all of his effort into doing what he could.
Frustration and worry raged inside of him. He didn’t know if his friends were dead or alive, or even if he could do anything to help the rest of the Gotei - if there was any Gotei left to help.
“No one is dead,” he said through gritted teeth. Tears welled at the edges of his eyes, but he refused to give in to them. “No one dies,” he went on. “Not until I see their bodies lifeless. Not until I’ve done everything I can to help them. I just fought a ghost - a shadow of a time forgotten in our history. Where legends walked in broad daylight, trailing in their wake the heavens and the earth.” More energy poured into his riki, as if by some miracle it’d do something more than stop the pain.
“No one dies today,” he said again. Frustrating tears running down his face. “Not this girl. Not Lilith, you two, nor I.”
But then what of the shinigami he killed? Another ghost?
"What the balls," Hotate muttered rather calmly as she stared down at a familiar shinigami woman.
There were a group of very nasty injuries on the shinigami the worst of which was extremely life threatening. All Hotate had right now were her hands. For injuries of this magnitude, she would need tools not available here. At the very least she would need to suck out the fluid in the lungs.
"Kyaputan Haresuno, please administer some breathing aid, that is, give her mouth to mouth, no need to do any chest compressions." Sure Hotate could do it better but she didn't want blood and other stuff vomited directly into her mouth. Looking down at the bloody wound on the woman's chest, she added, "We need some way to get out the blood. If any of you has a tube or something that would be really great."
She crossed her arms and lowered her head thoughtfully. Closing the wound isn't a huge problem but the blood can't stay in the lungs. If only there was a fully equipped hospital with trained staff in this realm of white purity.
"Chiyudou number thirty, Clear Sight." Hotate looked deeply into the woman's lung, hoping to get an idea about what to do in this situation.
“No decompression is right,” Haresuno agreed. “Actually, no mouth to mouth either.” He watched as only one side of Amaya’s chest rose and fell. “Adelaide, get over here and help,” he ordered. Dropping his riki, Haresuno’s hands darted for the Templar’s obi. He made quick work to undo the belt, one hand reaching for his few remaining knives so he could cut strips of cloth.
“Take her swords and make a splint. Bandage the wound first.” Cutting the obi into varying strips, he handed the majority to Adelaide, going further to say, “Once you’ve set the splint, tie it to her other leg and then administer riki while we work on the rest of her wounds.”
Rising to his full height, and moving around so Hotate could have better room, Haresuno placed his knife between his teeth as he knelt down near Amaya's head. A flick of the captain’s hand and the earth rose up to greet him in the form of a thin tube. Before he broke it, he reached up his left sleeve and behind his only gauntlet to the only needle he had left. Along with the variety of knives he carried, before Samael’s acid rained down on him and ate away at everything but his left arm, he had throwing stars and needles hidden away.
If losing weaponry wasn’t bad enough, most of what had been in Haresuno’s satchel had been necessary for treatment of wounds. Salves to ease burns, herbs to mix against toxins, bandages, and other things. Like smaller needles.
Holding out both the needle and the tube, Haresuno offered them to Hotate. If she took one he’d do away with the other and start caring for Amaya’s shoulder. “Kang ooh ‘elp r?” he asked around his knife.
"It'd be really cool if you can make a hollow needle too. No?" Hotate smirked.
She picked up the tube. It was surprisingly smooth and polished for being made out of dirt however it was still dirt. Putting it into someone wasn't exactly something she wanted to do but there really wasn't any other method.
Hotate shifted around to be at the wounded shinigami's head. "Hang on. I'm going to move her a bit." Using clear sight, she could see that the ribs were pretty much intact and had no chance of any bone shards will pierce any other important organs.
She gently inserted the tube just deep enough so one end was all the way into the lung. Leaving one hand to keep the tube in place, she used the other to roll the top half of the shinigami to the side, being careful not to move the legs at all. The shoulder would just have to take the abuse some more. The blood started flowing out through the tube and flowed out like a horror movie faucet.
Quickly, Hotate inserted her hands directly into the woman's lungs. "Chiyudou number fifteen, Pressure Seal." She pulled out the tube at the same time the seal blocked the wound, stopping the flow of blood both outward and inward.
And now the girl's left hand was horribly contaminated with another person's blood.
A simple truth about life motivated most of Adelaide’s inaction: dating a doctor does not impart their medical training. Adelaide was pretty far out of her element with this particular problem. She bandaged the wounds as best she could and made the splint as Haresuno instructed, but she also kept an eye on Hotate – if she watched the patterns of reiatsu being woven by the healing magic, she could imitate it. Not that anything she had seen so far was something she had a clue how to use productively.
As for their mental states... well, the team was certainly worn down. It worried Adelaide, the tone the Gardener had taken. Of course she hoped that everyone was alive, but the evidence provided by Taidan disagreed. Even across the vast and improbable maze, the Mystics’ telepathy worked marvelously. Adelaide did not hear their voices. No one answered her call. Quite simply, Lilith Maikeru was no longer there. Lilith had known death was coming. She had said... and the fact that the Gardener didn’t seem to understand the definitive nature of this reality only made the tragedy more depressing.
Her voice was a bit horse, but she spoke to Vincent, “Vin-kun, keep watch, okay? Last thing we need is someone coming up on us while we’re treating her.” It gave the kid, who seemed to be in shock, something to do and it was actually kind of an important thing to have someone do. There was no telling what the purpose of this place, or when that purpose would make itself known.
For a moment the room full of participants was silent, only the soft ticking sounds of whatever was still going on piercing through the silence, but then...
Ring! Ring!
A sound, deep from within Haresuno’s shihakushou echoed throughout the room like there was no tomorrow.
[45]
ITSTHENANAWAGONAREYOUGONNAANSWERTHATCALLORWHAT?
No, but seriously, pick up your denreishinki, Zack.
“You’re pretty skilled, Hotate,” the captain remarked. Moving along with his care, Haresuno had his knife in one hand and steadied the woman with his other while Hotate finished her pressure seal. As careful as a master tailor he used the knife to separate the barbs which were dug into Amaya’s shoulder. He grimaced as he did so, obviously not happy with playing surgeon. Out of the corner of his ear he heard Adelaide giving orders to Vincent, and it helped to loosen the tension knotting between his shoulder blades.
Just when he had finished removing the last barb, setting down his knife so he could start riki again, for the first time since he had been subjected to the maze, his phone went off. Confused, Haresuno’s brow furrowed and he continued his riki. Once more letting the weak healing powers flow out of him and into Amaya’s skin.
I shouldn’t have my phone on me, he thought. It would have been destroyed in that fight with Samael. So why was his phone ringing? Obviously, someone was calling. Where was it ringing from? He didn’t know that yet. Would he change the annoying ringtone? He’d sit down with Lucia first thing upon returning to Seireitei and pick out a nice eight-bit tune.
“So. Question to all you still conscious folk that I have the honor to sit here with. How does one’s phone ring when its not on their person?”
Generally speaking, when something impossible happened, Adelaide expected to see, or feel, or whatever perceptive word seemed most appropriate – she expected the waves of reiatsu to flutter through the air. Adelaide expected an impossible thing to be the result of some form of magic. In fact, the on Adelaide wasn’t entirely coning unprecedented was happening was that there wasn’t any ringing either.
Yeah, wait a second, what in the name of Sappho was Haresuno talking about?
She just took for granted something the Gardener seemed to think was a problem was, in point of fact, a problem. It took a moment of critical analysis that she simply had not given to realize that the improbable scenario Hare offered was one that wasn’t in any way, shape or form an actual thing. “Well, we have a dying Templar, a shell-shocked kid, an Acting Captain who has let pretty much her entire division die, I don’t even know what your thing is” Adelaide gestured to Hotate, “so why not? Captain Untimely Hypothetical. Round out the numbers really well for us, sir.”
Snark hid the slow descent into absolute and utter despair and lunacy rather thinly, but well enough all things considered. She focused Reiki into the pound, trying to determine if any of the healing kidou she now had access to would be worth using or not, “Hotate, if there’s any chiyudou you want me to use, cast it and I can mimic it.” Maybe focusing on something other than whatever obtuse point Haresuno was angling to make with his kooky question would give Adelaide something to ground herself.
267 Words
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Rationale
How could we all her something in Hare's rel-world tube? We shouldn't be able to. So, I'm presuming the only person who can hear Hare's real-world phone in the White Room is Hare himself. If I'm wrong, I'll revise.
"Even as darkness covers the sky and the land crumbles. Even as the seas rage and the air twists. Seek your own light and create the path for those unable to do so themselves. Under the immortal spirit, the dream is not over. Chiyudou number seventy five, Rejoin." Hotate had knelt down next to the partially severed leg. With it being held in place, the chiyudou would easily reattach it. She just adjusted the position a bit so the leg matched up perfectly and held it in place with both hands.
"Well, there isn't really a huge point to mimicking this as it works pretty fast. The leg should be reattached in no time though it won't be usable for a while.
"Anywho, I would guess the stress of all your closest friends dying and this entire situation has finally made you crack and you're starting to hear things Captain Haresuno. I assume you must be crazy to use that ringtone."
There was an empty look on Hotate's face as she stared intently at the partially severed leg. There was a smile on her face but it was just an expression that meant nothing right now. "Lilith, why would you go die just because I'm not there to watch over you?" She lifted one hand up and wiped her eyes with the back of her arm.
So, it looks like we really need to progress things remarkably quickly, In the interest of resolving this, I'm taking a couple liberties and a really long post. Consultation with Rob led to this being the most logistically sound endgame here. I offered some room for resistance if you really want to, for character reasons. And if you do, more power to you.
Sorry for uber-long post, again,, trying to advance things a whole hell of a lot in a limited time in accordance with my consultation with Rob while leaving some wiggle room.
That seemed almost too improbable even by today’s standards, and by any reasonable accounting that was a pretty high threshold to cross. “Mine was’t destroyed. And actually is ringing.” She looked at the wounded shinigami, who was starting to be patched up quite nicely, and decided it was fine to take a break to answer a call.
And there was nothing. No voice greeted her when she opened her phone. Not even after a cursory “Hello.”
And the phone kept ringing.
She looked at it. She had answered the call as she had countless times before. Granted she was not a technological savant, but she was an early adopter by nature, and she had acclimated to the soul phone rather well. She knew how to answer it. And she did. And yet it kept ringing.
Then, like flashes, like lightning coursing through Adelaide’s mind, she slowly began to appreciate the nature of the situation. She lowered her hand, dropping the phone. “You can’t hear it ringing...” it probably sounded like a question, but it was a statement, a realization. Haresuno hadn’t gone crazy. His phone had been ringing. Hers rang and she couldn’t answer. His rang despite being destroyed. If she gave it time, others would probably hear it too, one by one. “Oh, that is something else,” she muttered, more to herself than to anyone around her.
Adelaide had died. She hadn’t just lost, she hadn’t just been hurt, her own hellfire burst in her face. She had died. That death had been an illusion. The Pale Horse had been an illusion. Sameal Faust hadn’t ever been real. Loviator hadn’t ever been real. Those beautiful vistas and terrible nightmares she and her division had seen: none of them had ever been real. Adelaide knew all that, she had appreciated it. She had known that understanding it was essential. And now she ha the last puzzle piece.
The phones aren’t real.
“That is fearsome...” Adelaide’s tone dripped with awe as the marking on the back of her neck began to blaze to life. Sekka, Hisoka, Yuurei... Lilith. They had to be there. If she could get a goddamn phone call, Taidan was going to work. And reaching back across the impossible reaches of nothingness, reaching from realms untold and sights unseen, seeking in the white abyss for Adelaide’s voice calling out, one found her. Hisoka found her.
Messages flew back and forth at the speed of thought. Ideas, feelings, images without the need for words or voice to slow them down tore across the great abyssal expanses. And as they did, Adelaide’s expression of surprise turned to one of sheer horror. It was, at most, two or three seconds time of silence and dread before Adelaide spoke again. And she spoke two unspeakably powerful syllables: “Bankai.”
Changes played out melodramatically as Adelaide’s power lanced out around them, drawing every soul, every fiber of life in the white nothingness to attention. “We all suspected it. None of this was ever real. Not even the deaths we’ve seen. But this world is coming to an end, and we don’t want to be in it when it does.” Black fire started to crawl along Adelaide’s skin, and though her words gripped with fear and apprehension, their potency, authority and urgency demanded to be heard. As the black fire gathered, Adelaide poured out more and more energy through the mark on her neck, making it literally burned. Her breathing grew heavier, her hands shook as they held, white-knuckled, to the pole of her scythe.
I really hope this works, the weapon sounded unconvinced by the lightning-fast exchange with Hisoka in the outside world. You made a theory based on knowing your phones are illusions, and suddenly you can communicate with the dead? Trap. There was, of course, a chance the phones had been replaced with duds, and the reality explained by Hisoka was an attempt to remove suspicious elements. But it fit. Everything fit. And they fit pretty damn well, at that.
It was more than that, though. Taidan was a trait of the Mystics. If things have gotten so bad that I can’t even trust my division, Lashiel, I deserve this fate, and the weight of every soul I failed should press down on me like boulders for eternity. I will not fail them again. She had to believe. There had to be one thing left she believed in. And in turn, those around her had to believe in her. Haresuno or Hotate could easily weather this storm if they really tried, and if they did, they would die.
“Look, there isn’t the kind of time left to really explain. Yeah, this is insane. But trust me,” Adelaide explained as the black flames on her body migrated toward her hands, “None of this is real, Captain. But that phone call? That’s real. And we better answer it.”
As suddenly as the redhead’s release of Bankai had been, the black flames turned into the white-hot searing inferno of cosmic fire, blazing through the air, intent on eradicating every trace of life. Adelaide included.
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Flames of Passion
Flames of PassionThe "Final Strike” attack of Adelaide’s Bankai. By expending 75% of her remaining reiatsu, Adelaide unleashes the enhanced raw power of Lashiel and the fires of the Fallen Angels. The chains from the scythe cease to be dormant, instead lancing outward and multiplying as necessary to bind the targets of this attack for its duration. Adelaide then begins to spin her scythe in a clock-like fashion, and funnels her passion and reiatsu through the spinning blades. Lashiel then transforms and enhances this power into the cosmic fires of a solar flare. Adelaide can move the stream of fire by changing the direction of her scythe. This celestial flame attack can burn away most material. The raw power involved in this attack forces Adelaide out of Bankai, and if she lacks Mastery with Bankai she is fatigued after using this ability. If Adelaide does have mastery with her Bankai, following use of this ability, Adelaide cannot re-enter Bankai for five turns.
Haresuno was able to barely get a spell out, “Shou!” he cried. Power left him and rolled out against the crashing tide of Adelaide’s bankai. The spell wasn’t going to be enough to stop her, though, but it did give the captain time to react. He jumped across Amaya’s unconscious body, towards the mystic, acting as a barrier between Hotated and Adelaide as much as possible. His right hand snapped down to his obi, where Xiezhi rested in his scabbard, and drew the magnificent blade with a metallic ring that announced its arrival.
He stretched out his left hand to the flames, letting them come closer as inky-black vines began to writhe under his skin. It was only for a second, long enough to eat away a small portion of the flames, and then he used that to fuel his own reiatsu.
Rolling out in every direction, a feeling of corruption and of something not right entered the room. It drained power from everything in Haresuno’s domain, and that included the mystic’s fire.
His sword flashed as instantaneous as everything else, its polished blade cutting through all that remained and split Adelaide’s power to either side of him. Missing the two women behind him. But not all of it had missed its target. Fire still saw fit to burn away at most of Haresuno’s new clothing, singing his skin and hair. The acrid smell of human flesh burning mingling with the iron smell of blood.
“No,” Haresuno growled. His left hand had been damaged, and it hung next to his side as if dead. “You mock me, Pierce, as if you know everything this instant. “You think nothing of others, and only of yourself.” Taking a step towards Adelaide, Haresuno locked his azure eyes with her emerald. “I will not trust someone who is so ready to assume all her comrades are dead. “None of this is real? I fought two arrancar worthy hollows; a young girl hardly older than my own son; and Samael Faust. You think I didn’t realize nothing here was real? I survived horrid deaths and attacks which no normal shinigami was meant to survive.
“And insane? I have a vasto lorde sitting on my shoulder every time I want to fight! You want to tell me what’s insane? Acting without telling people isn’t insane, Pierce, it’s rude. Trying to kill us without any clear provocation, that’s grounds for me to retaliate.
“I do not just lay down and die.
“I do not just accept someone is going to kill me.” Haresuno’s anger was cut short as he watched Adelaide’s body burning. “No!” he yelled, reaching out to catch her falling body. Only his left hand wouldn’t open.
