Shizukana Kurayami sensed the first of the arrivals before Sazanami had fully gone. There wasn’t a moment spared after the departure of Kazuki when the call to all came out but she had been making moves long before it.
“Everyone, we are under attack by Espada-level threats that have invaded Soul Society, and from what I can discern, they are targeting divisions. Return to your divisions with urgency and try to bring back as many samples as possible…I repeat, the war has begun!”
The departure of both oyuki and Iwamura caused Shizukana to move fluidly and with purpose as she drew a single nail on her finger down a short length of her arm and drew her blood along it with the tip of this finger. By casting out the reach of her Reikaku, drawing the necessary scripts upon her flesh as well as the ground and placing her hands out then together was a simultaneous way to manifest a single gleaming rectangle in front of her. The power of the incantation caused winds previously non-existent to manifest, kicking up the papers on her desk and scattering them into disorder. The woman’s long blue hair swelled and fell around her figure in direct defiance of this exertion of power’s elemental generation.
Again, she felt the devastating arrival of another high-level Arrancar this time in the —
“ The Black and White Silk, Twenty Second Bride, Sixty Sixth Crow. Foot Print, Distant Lightning, Pointed Peak.”
Her right hand parted from the left and pushed an invisible force forward and brought them together once more signifying the blood upon the ground to then grow and expand into the atmosphere rapidly. The conjuration would impose itself upon all persons who had experienced the Reiatsu of it’s caster who in this case was the very well known and socialized Shizukana Kurayami.
“ Return to Earth, Downcast Night, Sea of Clouds, Green Rank. Filled with the Great Circle, Run Across the Sky. Binding Path: Seventy Seven! Heavenly Rickshaws in Silken Air!”
The suspended runes constructed of her life force lit up upon the activation of the encompassing spell and would then capture the attention of all Captains, Vice-Captains and those who had felt her signature before currently in the Seireitei and by extension the whole of the soul society. Granted, her words were meant for and could only be heard by her fellow Shinigami, all that any other being would experience amounted to more of a feeling of the environment becoming disturbed by something.
Connections successfully established, Captain Kurayami’s words would be made widely known. They were the stone cold words of a veteran who had faced the invaders kind many a time beforehand during what could have been considered the beginning of the war that had now been reborn. It was the same war as it had been centuries ago to Shizukana.
“This is Captain Shizukana Kurayami! You are all hereby advised to please put on those cute little stickers I gave to each and every one of you! You have a small window of time to do so or you’ll absolutely die! The enemy is here, but we are coming to your aid! Hold out, Give your all and eradicate the Arrancar scourge! Anyone who requires aid send a signal in the sky and we will find you!”
With her message relayed, the dreaded countdown to acts of the darkest form began though her own personal countdown to the day that was now upon them was just coming to its end. Her soldiers were hardened, far beyond the abundance belonging to other divisions purely because they have been exposed to the evil of the hollows and the toll of Hueco Mundo in infinitely more frequency than most. They had no second thoughts and were not concerned with dying, so long as they endured enough to make a semblance of a difference. Violence would begin, chaos would ensue no matter how orderly someone thought they were capable of being. As a war torn weapon at one time, the Captain of the Fifth division would have known. Battle was never simple and this was as plain as the plan that she was commencing which the men and women of the fifth fighting to protect the Seireitei knew by heart and had planned to give their hearts to ensure its succession.
None of this could be avoided and had to be confronted. In due time. She was short, sweet and to the point with every assumption that they would not only be revered but they would be obeyed. She had to believe that they would heed her advice and that those she gifted her seals to did not treat them untoward. She prayed they kept them safe for when they would inevitably need to use them to protect themselves from her.
She hoped they did not immediately discard them for doing so was tantamount to throwing away any chance of survival. It was ironic, Shizukana mused inwardly as she moved about her office that Kisho Date had not been far off in considering her a danger to the soul society, for he was one hundred percent correct. He’d been diligent but perhaps a bit too diligent and had focused on the cause of her imposition to be of Hueco Mundo origin, parasite or toxin when In Fact, the true danger was always there all along staring him right in the face.
Having said that, this wasn’t to say Shizukana hadn’t put a multitude of proactive and preventative measures in place should such a time come when utilizing her Zanpakuto’s exceedingly lethal ability would not only be necessary but also inevitable. She had known this day was coming, and so she’d worked ardently to create a fail safe of her own ingenious design however, as innovative as it was it was like all things. Not without flaws.
“...Ah..”
Suddenly, her vision started to blur and she knew that she was on the brink of falling asleep once more. Unlike so many times before, perhaps it was the adrenaline that could only belong to war coursing through her veins, Shizukana lashed out at the Priest who’d come to wrench control of her consciousness away in the fashion of a disgruntled parent.
Just before she faded slightly more, she clocked another Arrancar making themselves abundantly known. This time, they were located in the —-----
“NO!”
In his chambers, she stood from her pew and shouted at the man behind the podium. Shadowy followers reacted violently but dared not tread near her or the spirit leering imposingly down at her.
“Give them time!--”
“Time?! All you have taken from me is time!”
Infuriated by the thrusting of her impotence upon him, Yurusarezaru recoiled. All she had done as a Captain of the Fifth Division was to deny him his time. Time to purify the unclean, precious seconds and minutes, hours and days, weeks and months and year after year after year she refused him! Unless they were on the territory of the hollow and the casualties were reserved to them alone she would allow him his fill but even her distaste for violence regardless whom she inflicted it upon made her sick, it made her stifle him and left him unsatisfied. As far as he was concerned, being her weapon had been a waste and a shame after the unhallowed wars when she was promoted to a place of power. Power did not suit her.
“When it concerned my friends, my family and fellow shinigami as well as the humans I could never allow you to take their lives! Never! I’d not think twice had they not brought the war back to us. We cannot act in haste!”
“Time is everything you have stolen from me and yet you ask for more of it?!”
The very audacity of her attempting to negotiate how he’d chosen to punish her for her show of willful ignorance was appalling to the seething phantom but still she persisted. Until she said something that resonated with him.
“Can’t you see that this could be the last of the time that we have?! Should we not use it wisely?!”
The priest was still and only gazed at Shizukana who still gripped the back of the pew in front of her with all of her might, so much that the wood began to splinter beneath her fingernails. In his domain it took everything she had to even grunt a verbal protest or lift a finger to complain and so for her to have been able to not only rise to her feet but to also conflict with him under the amount of pressure that he was placing upon her to sedate her showed him that she was serious but she was also desperate.
“ I promise you. I will fight with you, this will not be as it was when we train. I will call upon you and use your insipid, unbelievably cruel and unforgiving power to wipe out my enemies and bring upon the slaughter that you crave to the point of driving me completely insane!”
Kurayami heard herself beg and she listened to herself lie. It was the same lie that she told him over and over but this time she couldn’t manipulate how much of his duty was there to be done nor for how long she’d be in need of it. Or better yet, her people.
They lied to each other but the harsh reality still remained and that was the appearance of the Arrancar which had forced her hand and given way to his.
Shizukana felt her focus sharpen once more and when it did,
KABOOOOOOOOM!!!
The first wave of Ximena’s brutal attack bombarded and obliterated careless soldiers, those who weren’t worth the Shihakusho they’d been fitted with. Their positions that day had been orchestrated by none other than their very own captain the furthest from the more vital center. The Arrancar that faced them that day was formidable indeed, this could not be refuted by the sheer amount of damage she had done lazing about and playing with their beds. However, Long before the choice to dispense ant-like ammunition that might hinder Shizukana’s escape plan while it was continuing to commence. You see, although Ximena was a horrendous adversary it seemed she was rather sleepy and therefore quite lazy and with laziness indisputably came with tardiness. Simply put, the being was too late to line her brand new bedroom with more quality sheets and would have to settle for what she had because she’d eventually have to come to the conclusion that she’d be spending the night in her new abode alone.
The creature had won her splendid array of beds but not at all where she had thought she had, unbeknownst to those who had prepared, executed and achieved their plan. What Ximena had thought was the fifth division was actually far from the truth of the matter and this truth was that the Arrancar fiend had manifested in the vastness of the Northwest of the Seireitei rather than the Northeast where the whole of the fifth division actually rested entirely undisturbed.
Whether the unlucky division was the third,thirteenth or the twelfth was uncertain but what was, was that the people Ximena had slaughtered and the buildings she had crushed to bits did not belong to the fifth division.
Others, unlike those belonging to the fifth division might panic and die in response to an invasive event, some may have begun sporadic preparation for the fight to come but to the ears of the capable of the fifth division, this alert was immediately followed by the initiation of a process. A morale way to live one's life and to perform imprinted upon the minds and hearts of all fifth division recruits. In this way, the special training kept most of the remaining officers safe and furthermore, under such uniquely lucky circumstances, one step ahead. Surely the Hollowed creatures did not think their main source of contingency had not prepared some manner to combat an invasion of the home of their enemy the shinigami themselves did not value?!
Every remaining foot that stood on the grounds of the fifth division still keen enough to have taken this imperative training seriously, vanished to parts known only to themselves by employing their Shunpo and this included all of the stuffed dogs, cats and birds as well as all manner of animal that also called the fifth division as their home. The crowds of Mod Soul agents left in the same manner, disappearing to places they’d been instructed to, far before the epic day that was upon them now. Within a second or two, the Fifth division was entirely barren, void of all life down to the missing Captain.
With the others, she vanished like so many of the fifth division operatives had and abandoned the division entirely. The rate of the appearance of the Arrancar had been secluded to certain divisions, or rather, divisions alone. They were targeted positions and it stood to reason that one of the enemies was coming to pay them a nasty sort of visit too. So before that could happen, the people meant to protect it would abandon it. For in the wisest words once said,
Those who could not abandon anything could not change anything.
Where she would go and end up, depended on a grand number of considerations and all in secret and kept to herself. One also had to wonder, just what sort of game was the terrible harbinger of purification playing? With opponents that were quickly showing themselves to be more incompetent than Intimidating.
DEPARTING THE NORTHEAST TO PARTS UNKNOWN
