At last, your chains are broken
- Location
- Australia
- Pronouns
- She/Her
At last, your chains are broken
You and Chise stood in your room, the book placed upon the floor. She gripped her left hand at the wrist with her right, holding her own arm steady from sheer force of will. A circular diagram had been laid out on the floor, and a small trickle of Chise's blood dripped down from her hand. The crimson liquid splattered onto the diagram, which began to glow; now that it had a conduit to Chise's power. Circles of light, vastly more intricate than what Chise had drawn, sprung into existence for a brief moment, only to be snuffed out one by one.
Then, as the last circle faded, the physical lock on the book popped open and fell away from it. There, on the floor, the lock quickly and efficiently immolated itself, leaving behind nothing but a hiss of smoke. You gingerly reach down and pick up the book, as Chise bandages her hand and scuffs away the diagram. The book does appear to be a ledger, and it's unencoded. You only take a quick glance through it, but it appears to detail a scheme for laundering money from the Academy's budget, as well as various less than legal enterprises, through Rukongai's entirely cash or barter based economy.
Implicated in it was at least three noble houses, and the commandant.
"This - this is big, Red." You say.
"Yeah." Chise replies quietly. "What are we gonna do about it?" She asks.
"We need to get this out of here, away from the fucking bastard behind this. We need to get it to the real Shinigami." You say, stoking the fires of determination. Surely, someone amongst them would care that they were being ripped off. Someone would come and punish this conspiracy, in this citadel of white stone and promise.
"I know where the Fifth Division headquarters are - they're only, like, an hour away." Chise said, as she picked up the book and attached her sword's sheath to her uniform belt. You do the same. They might as well be toothpicks against the Commandant, but it felt reassuring. You still had a few hours of freedom left, but you had the feeling that you'd be overstepping that boundary sometime soon. The two of you rush out of your room, running down the barracks' stairs and onto the grounds. Not a single person notices your presence, or so you think.
You walk across the large front lawn of the Academy, your hearts beating about a thousand times a minute as you walked slowly, cautiously, through the deserted training yards. And there, amongst the refuse left over from a day's training, stands a fellow student. You recognise him from his match against Hosoda - and, knowing what you do now, he seems almost certain to be at least an agent of the conspiracy. He's in his last year, and a star student.
You realise that you don't even know your killer's name. You never know their names
"R-red, I need you to promise me something. I need you to run, and not look back until you have half a dozen of Shinigami with you." You say, your voice trembling. The student hasn't seen you yet. He's going to look in your direction soon. You're going to die soon.
"Wh-" She says, but you interrupt her. He's looking this way, and you need to buy her time. That's why you lean into her and kiss her, you tell yourself. It's just a distraction, and not because you're going to die. He turns away, and you break it off. She sees the older student now, and nods; tears in her eyes. She walks away, and you walk forward. He hasn't seen the book, he'll have to fight you.
"Said your goodbyes, whelp?" He says - Zhang, that's his name. You remember his name, now.
You don't say a thing, an anger burning inside you. You can't think straight, your hand is trembling as you rest it on the hilt of your sword. It would be smarter to keep him talking.
"No final words, then? You do realise that you won't buy nearly enough time for your pathetic hanger-on to get away, don't you?" He says, and your anger boils over. You charge, screaming a wordless battlecry, and you draw your sword and swing for his head. There's a sound like a thunderclap, and pain. You smash through a wooden target and lie bleeding in the grass. Your arm feels like it's on fire, and you scream in pain. A piece of wood's sticking out from your chest. Your sword arm is gone, everything below the elbow.
Blood trickles down over your eyes, and you try to breath. Zhang walks over to you, a smirk on his face. He flings you out of the wreckage, onto the grass. With a word, he wrenches your arms behind your back and forces you upright. Your chest screams as you try to breath. He's talking, but you can't hear him. You struggle, but we can't move. We need to be free, we need to fight. We can't breathe, we can't struggle.
We've died a hundred, a thousand times, but yet also never at all. We're not going to die here.
We need to breathe.
We need our arm, to hold our sword.
We need to break our chains, to fight.
You breath as the foot long wooden splinter is forced from your body. Papery, alabaster white flesh flows out from your mouth, down your chest and to what was once your arm. You can feel your sword arm again. You remember this. A million voices scream for you to struggle, so you do. You burst open the chains of thought and magic holding you, drinking up their meagre power. Everything flows towards you, grass and wood and even the air itself acting as fuel.
Your own power was merely a spark, this? This was a raging wildfire, and you were ready to unleash it. You stand up, and pick up your balde. Your power flows into it, but it's not enough to awaken it. You don't need that, yet. You just need it to survive. Zhang turns, aghast. He moves to draw his zanpakuto once more, but the world seems almost as if it's standing still to you. You move, more through thought and expenditure of will than physical effort, and there is the sound of thunder. Not the pale imitation of a poorly performed flash step - no, this was a true sonido.
You swung with the force of an avalanche, and your blade sung with the crimson light of a hollow's power. Zhang's zanpakuto meets your own, and a shockwave explodes out from the both of you. Wooden stands are reduced to splinters, and you see the fear on Zhang's face. He steps backwards, and you're behind him. A flash of steel and another thunderclap, and blood spurts from his back. Again you strike. His left leg, cut at the knee. His right arm, at the shoulder.
He uses his dying moments to unleash what power he has left into a raw, unfocused kido. You sense it only moment before it happens. You recall distant memories of crimson light, the kind you'd used to turn your sword into a weapon fit for you; if only for a few moments.
You let out a wordless roar that sends splinters flying, and a beam of crimson light lances forth from you; impacting Zhang's suicidal Kido. You draw on more and more power from your surroundings, dissolving splinters and grass. You push Zhang back, his desperate strike no match for your borrowed power. His attack splits apart and yours lands home, and then everything turns white.
You wake in a hospital bed, your sword the only object in the room you recognise. You are, by your own estimation entirely unharmed. You have no idea why that is. Then you think about what you'd just done, and you know why. You sit up, frantic. Chise - she must have been nearby when your attack collided with Zhang's suicidal Kido. The door to your room opens, and in walks a brown haired, bespectacled man. He's wearing the uniform of a Captain.
"Hello, Kanade" He says, smiling. You try to reply, but all that comes out is a raspy gasp. "I know it must be hard for you, so there's no need to reply. I just came to wish my favourite... hyrbid the best in her recovery. Sosuke Aizen, captain of the fifth division." He said, and your heart stopped. Aizen turned and left, after that, and you scrambled for some water.
What did you do next?
[x] - You need to go check on Chise - she could have been hurt in the explosion!
[x] - The best thing to do right now is wait here, and think about what happened.
You and Chise stood in your room, the book placed upon the floor. She gripped her left hand at the wrist with her right, holding her own arm steady from sheer force of will. A circular diagram had been laid out on the floor, and a small trickle of Chise's blood dripped down from her hand. The crimson liquid splattered onto the diagram, which began to glow; now that it had a conduit to Chise's power. Circles of light, vastly more intricate than what Chise had drawn, sprung into existence for a brief moment, only to be snuffed out one by one.
Then, as the last circle faded, the physical lock on the book popped open and fell away from it. There, on the floor, the lock quickly and efficiently immolated itself, leaving behind nothing but a hiss of smoke. You gingerly reach down and pick up the book, as Chise bandages her hand and scuffs away the diagram. The book does appear to be a ledger, and it's unencoded. You only take a quick glance through it, but it appears to detail a scheme for laundering money from the Academy's budget, as well as various less than legal enterprises, through Rukongai's entirely cash or barter based economy.
Implicated in it was at least three noble houses, and the commandant.
"This - this is big, Red." You say.
"Yeah." Chise replies quietly. "What are we gonna do about it?" She asks.
"We need to get this out of here, away from the fucking bastard behind this. We need to get it to the real Shinigami." You say, stoking the fires of determination. Surely, someone amongst them would care that they were being ripped off. Someone would come and punish this conspiracy, in this citadel of white stone and promise.
"I know where the Fifth Division headquarters are - they're only, like, an hour away." Chise said, as she picked up the book and attached her sword's sheath to her uniform belt. You do the same. They might as well be toothpicks against the Commandant, but it felt reassuring. You still had a few hours of freedom left, but you had the feeling that you'd be overstepping that boundary sometime soon. The two of you rush out of your room, running down the barracks' stairs and onto the grounds. Not a single person notices your presence, or so you think.
You walk across the large front lawn of the Academy, your hearts beating about a thousand times a minute as you walked slowly, cautiously, through the deserted training yards. And there, amongst the refuse left over from a day's training, stands a fellow student. You recognise him from his match against Hosoda - and, knowing what you do now, he seems almost certain to be at least an agent of the conspiracy. He's in his last year, and a star student.
You realise that you don't even know your killer's name. You never know their names
"R-red, I need you to promise me something. I need you to run, and not look back until you have half a dozen of Shinigami with you." You say, your voice trembling. The student hasn't seen you yet. He's going to look in your direction soon. You're going to die soon.
"Wh-" She says, but you interrupt her. He's looking this way, and you need to buy her time. That's why you lean into her and kiss her, you tell yourself. It's just a distraction, and not because you're going to die. He turns away, and you break it off. She sees the older student now, and nods; tears in her eyes. She walks away, and you walk forward. He hasn't seen the book, he'll have to fight you.
"Said your goodbyes, whelp?" He says - Zhang, that's his name. You remember his name, now.
You don't say a thing, an anger burning inside you. You can't think straight, your hand is trembling as you rest it on the hilt of your sword. It would be smarter to keep him talking.
"No final words, then? You do realise that you won't buy nearly enough time for your pathetic hanger-on to get away, don't you?" He says, and your anger boils over. You charge, screaming a wordless battlecry, and you draw your sword and swing for his head. There's a sound like a thunderclap, and pain. You smash through a wooden target and lie bleeding in the grass. Your arm feels like it's on fire, and you scream in pain. A piece of wood's sticking out from your chest. Your sword arm is gone, everything below the elbow.
Blood trickles down over your eyes, and you try to breath. Zhang walks over to you, a smirk on his face. He flings you out of the wreckage, onto the grass. With a word, he wrenches your arms behind your back and forces you upright. Your chest screams as you try to breath. He's talking, but you can't hear him. You struggle, but we can't move. We need to be free, we need to fight. We can't breathe, we can't struggle.
We've died a hundred, a thousand times, but yet also never at all. We're not going to die here.
We need to breathe.
We need our arm, to hold our sword.
We need to break our chains, to fight.
You breath as the foot long wooden splinter is forced from your body. Papery, alabaster white flesh flows out from your mouth, down your chest and to what was once your arm. You can feel your sword arm again. You remember this. A million voices scream for you to struggle, so you do. You burst open the chains of thought and magic holding you, drinking up their meagre power. Everything flows towards you, grass and wood and even the air itself acting as fuel.
Your own power was merely a spark, this? This was a raging wildfire, and you were ready to unleash it. You stand up, and pick up your balde. Your power flows into it, but it's not enough to awaken it. You don't need that, yet. You just need it to survive. Zhang turns, aghast. He moves to draw his zanpakuto once more, but the world seems almost as if it's standing still to you. You move, more through thought and expenditure of will than physical effort, and there is the sound of thunder. Not the pale imitation of a poorly performed flash step - no, this was a true sonido.
You swung with the force of an avalanche, and your blade sung with the crimson light of a hollow's power. Zhang's zanpakuto meets your own, and a shockwave explodes out from the both of you. Wooden stands are reduced to splinters, and you see the fear on Zhang's face. He steps backwards, and you're behind him. A flash of steel and another thunderclap, and blood spurts from his back. Again you strike. His left leg, cut at the knee. His right arm, at the shoulder.
He uses his dying moments to unleash what power he has left into a raw, unfocused kido. You sense it only moment before it happens. You recall distant memories of crimson light, the kind you'd used to turn your sword into a weapon fit for you; if only for a few moments.
You let out a wordless roar that sends splinters flying, and a beam of crimson light lances forth from you; impacting Zhang's suicidal Kido. You draw on more and more power from your surroundings, dissolving splinters and grass. You push Zhang back, his desperate strike no match for your borrowed power. His attack splits apart and yours lands home, and then everything turns white.
You wake in a hospital bed, your sword the only object in the room you recognise. You are, by your own estimation entirely unharmed. You have no idea why that is. Then you think about what you'd just done, and you know why. You sit up, frantic. Chise - she must have been nearby when your attack collided with Zhang's suicidal Kido. The door to your room opens, and in walks a brown haired, bespectacled man. He's wearing the uniform of a Captain.
"Hello, Kanade" He says, smiling. You try to reply, but all that comes out is a raspy gasp. "I know it must be hard for you, so there's no need to reply. I just came to wish my favourite... hyrbid the best in her recovery. Sosuke Aizen, captain of the fifth division." He said, and your heart stopped. Aizen turned and left, after that, and you scrambled for some water.
What did you do next?
[x] - You need to go check on Chise - she could have been hurt in the explosion!
[x] - The best thing to do right now is wait here, and think about what happened.
Gain +20 Reiryoku [Other Stats modified]
Gain New Skill: Reiryoku Gathering
Gain New Specialisation [Hoho]: Sonido
Gain New Trait: High Speed Regeneration
Gain New Trait: End-State
Gain New Skill: Reiryoku Gathering
Gain New Specialisation [Hoho]: Sonido
Gain New Trait: High Speed Regeneration
Gain New Trait: End-State
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