[Seireitei] The Streets

[Bloodedge]

Jin seemed to be faring less well by the moment, as his vision and his movements were responding with some lag. As such, Atsushi was coming closer and closer to stabbing him again with each movement. Jin took note of this difference over time. After a few moments of this exchange, the tables seemed to be turning in the other direction somehow. Atsushi was shocked by this. "How!? You should be losing motor skills every second!" he exclaimed.

"Sou ka. You've never seen my release," Jin replied. A few moments later, it seemed to Atsushi as if Jin were moving at speeds far beyond what was natural, even for a Shinigami who'd mastered everything the art of Hohou had to offer. It was an impossible outcome, but now that he'd returned to having the advantage, Jin went about explaining the 4th Division Captain's fate. "My Yukianesa rests in the clouds of the great blizzard. There, only she is immune to the cold." This was all Jin had to say, bar the name of a single technique. "Suishou Kessei!" With this, he jammed his sword into the ground. This caused an eruption of ice around Atsushi to form a stalagmite around him. The 4th's Captain was rapidly frozen, far more solidly than he had been previously, and in a way that typically incapacitated the victim. "Are you done, Noel?"

[Apollymi]

Noel shot twice more, the shots seemed to curve around the young women aiming to hit them again where they'd previously been hit regardless of their dodges. Not that this mattered anyway, their dodging took them directly into Noel's path and when she was behind them she swiped each with her large gun dealing them enough blunt force damage to subdue them without actually taking their lives. Both the Vice-Captain and the 3rd Seat seemingly fell unconscious at this point and Noel tucked the two large guns back into their holsters. At the same time she'd been taking care of her friends, her brother it seemed had gained an advantage over the Captain of the 4th Division the man was soon found to be encased in ice with Jin left asking Noel if she was finished right as her feet touched the ground again and her hands fell away from her still released double guns. "Hai, I didn't want to hurt them. I don't know if what's wrong with them can be fixed or not. Nii-sama, I still don't understand what's going on." she said still confused about the situation. And with two of their own down again, it would seem like the group at large would suffer massive causalities without any real explanation of what had been taking place here.

[Bloodedge]

Jin held his sword at his side while beginning to converse with Noel, figuring now that Atsushi would not be escaping his ice prison. He looked toward the pair of young women from his Division who'd been bested by his sister, thinking that he also had little to no clue what happened to this group. "I don't know either, but this isn't some simple rogue sect," he said.

Right on time for what he knew to be the height of action, Kumori Raizen approached. He walked not alone, but in the company of one Niwatoko Benihime of the 12th Division. In his left hand was a prism-like case, which contained within it a black crystal of some sort. Jin, at the very least, may have recognized this as one of the gems once worn by many members of the Kumori family. "In a way, this is a sect... but not of Shinigami. I'd rather say, there is a Hollow hive mind taking refuge in the Seireitei. There has been for centuries."

[Apollymi]

Noel frowned it seemed her brother didn't have the answers she was looking for. It was a bit distressing especially since two members of their group were now affected by this problem. It seemed though that this problem was a lot more complicated than they'd been lead to believe. And proof of this would come as the newly sanctioned Captain of the 10th Division approached this recently calmed fray holding in his hand a black crystal which seemed to be inside some sort of casing. 'Oh my god it's really him!!!' the young green eyed woman seemed to become suddenly excited by the presence of this particular Captain, she'd never properly met before. In his company a redhead young woman with crimson eyes, dressed strangely by most people's tastes. Her chest, feet and hands all wrapped in bandages while also wearing the standard hakama of the Shinigami uniform. On the small of her back her sword with the hilt sticking out of the left side as she walked along her left elbow rested upon it. Noel seemed to hold herself together enough to say something which wasn't an immediate admittance to her knowledge of this particular Captain. "Centuries?" it seemed that this was a revelation to Noel who thought that something like a Hollow sect hold up in the Seireitei should have likely been known about by the higher ups long before it became this sort of problem.

"I figured you two'd show up once things got hectic. What happened to working fast?" asked the Captain of the 12th Division as she finally made herself known as well. It seemed that when the weather in the Seireitei became unseasonably cold, she'd taken to the streets to find the source that the Captain of the 9th Division had felt it necessary to release against. "Also, seriously centuries... and nobody noticed?" she asked seeming to feel herself kept out of the loop. Benihime looked to her Captain for the first time, after having her gaze fixed upon the two fallen Shinigami for quite sometime. Whatever the young woman seemed to be thinking she didn't say anything.

[Bloodedge]

"Yes... about four, to approximate," Raizen said to the blonde lass who'd questioned the spoken timing. As if cued by the appearance of this pair, Akiko showed herself. She came with questions; one regarding the timing of their return, and the other regarding the fact that none had noticed this Hollow presence after centuries. "This was fast. What we've accomplished should have taken a hundred years, and we've managed in a few days. Besides... I couldn't dare show myself in front of this one without proper preparation and state of attire," he said while turning toward the frozen Captain, bowing with utmost formality. "I do hope my ensemble is befitting of an audience with you... Ojiisan."

[Apollymi]

Akiko seemed to think about the timing necessary for 400 years ago to be a good approximate time for this apparent Hollow uprising. A bit of a frown came to her face as she realized that was around the time she'd graduated from the Academy and as such she was nothing but a child herself. "I was a kid fresh out of the Academy back then... " she said this only made Noel's eyes widened. First to be so directly addressed by Raizen and then to go on to be told that the conflict she was currently participating in, had been part of something taking place long before she was even born. She had nothing to say about this. Akiko was then forced to look at this pair of individuals, as they claimed to have done something which should have taken a hundred years in only a couple of days... "Uh-huh, something like a 12,000 percent up time. That's..." she paused waiting to see what they'd actually done, because anything done in that sort of time which would be useful in this situation had to be something stellar. Beyond that she knew from her own experience that the little redhead was quite a good research partner to have around as she'd used the girl's expertise to help get Raizen out of jail. Still, the cat woman's eyes just widened as Raizen directly addressed the creature inhabiting the Captain of the 4th Division as Ojiisan.

After being called Ojiisan and being addressed directly the form of Okawa in the ice began to crack. Hollows overhead became visible with a few seconds as the shell of the former Captain of the 4th Division cracked and exploded. From within came a face which bore startling resemblance to Raizen's. White hair tumbled forward and reached shoulders as this massive creature with a human face came together. This human face was complete with blue war paint shaped like a giant crescent over swooping over the right side of their face. Anyone old enough to realize would know this face, as it belonged to someone who had been a rather important and startling Captain in centuries prior to this. As his body ripped out of the body of the Okawa Atsushi it pulled him apart and seemed to be a conglomeration of various people's body parts, including those of the fallen Kenpachi who had a large scar across his chest and random other limbs. It also had wings and a large claw like apparatus on its shoulder with a small glowing orb in that spot as well. It would be the face though, that had the attention of the golden eyed Captain of the Twelfth Division. In fact she was so startled she took several steps back blinking as if completely unsure of what she was seeing. "But... that's..." the recognition on her face seemed to be something rather strange and painful for her. Which made Benihime's attention shift from the girls on the ground to her panicky Captain. "Ano, you know him, Aya-tai?" she asked seemingly immune to the amount of tension currently in the woman. "Juuniibantai taichou, Kumori Mōryōmaru!"

Her statement made Benihime's left brow raise, and then she simply nodded. She supposed there being a proper scientist among Raizen's relatives was something that was bound to happen. She took from the woman's surprise that she'd known this man at some point before he'd become what he was right now, but that wasn't really important as the this massive Hollow of collective bodies began to speak. "Oh? Knew I was here did you?"

[Bloodedge]

Following Raizen's greeting of his apparent grandfather, the Captain of the 4th Division met his untimely end. He was ripped apart from within by an emerging creature, seemingly Hollow in nature, as the otherwise invisible Hollows in the Seireitei showed themselves. Akiko seemed familiar with this individual, and she well should have been, considering his former occupation. The previous Captain of the 12th Division soon stood with a Hollow's form, yet still the face of a man. He even went so far in his grand reveal to question Raizen's knowledge of his presence. "It couldn't have been anyone else. He who created the Bakkoutou would have been the only one capable of making one with the power to consume all the others. It seems, though, you just weren't clever enough to figure out how to do this without being consumed by your Bakkoutou. And... it also seems your Bakkoutou in particular was made from a rather nasty Hollow that you simply could not compete with. It's a shame, really." As Raizen spoke, his gaze traveled around the area, as if to scan everything he could for any remnants of this Hollow plague.

[Apollymi]

Mōryōmaru frowned slightly at the lad as he explained how he came to the conclusion that the man still existed and even had a fairly good idea how he came to have a hollow body while still possessing his own face. "Oh?" the man seemed to be simultaneously proud and confused. "What a clever boy. No, I haven't managed that yet. Not that it really matters... I am more powerful now than I was then. So, I don't really need to think about it very much," the man said looking up at all the Hollows in the sky and smiling. "Besides the Hollow and I are one now... it doesn't matter that this form is monstrous... I'll eventually find the right match of pieces. Actually, you'd be a pretty good fit, mago. Join us... we can win this war together," said the creature directly to Raizen.

The entirety of this situation was watched by Akiko who seemed to be distressed by it. Beyond the fact that her former Captain was right now some kind of Hollow creature, he was also bringing back horrible memories of a time when the Seireitei was falling apart. The man was one of the smartest she'd ever known and Raizen's implication that he simply wasn't clever enough to fix his own problem made her frown deeply. 'See, this right here is the problem. Secrets were all over the place. And while I was conducting mundane scientific research he was out becoming a Hollow and starting a rebellion,' her thoughts were interrupted as her eyes flicked over her fifth seat who managed to look ever so intrigued. "Aya-tai, could you not look at me as if I've grown a second head... there is a former Captain Hollow in front of us," she said which made the current Captain of the 12th scoff as she reached into her sleeve and pulled a lollipop out to eat while she thought. "Yeah, and please tell me you have a plan in mind for properly dealing with him, because memory says he was a nightmare as a Shinigami." said Akiko. This made Benihime chuckle just a little, the next words from her mouth reeked of arrogance influenced by Raizen. "We wouldn't have come out empty handed..."

[Bloodedge]

"Really now? After all this time, you still don't understand?" Raizen questioned. In actuality, the Captain himself had already come to a conclusion that would allow retention of one's body and mind while undergoing such a change as what Mōryōmaru had gone through, but now was not the exact time to be discussing that. His forefather spoke of joining him, or rather, them to finish the war with a favorable outcome for their side. This prompted Raizen to raise a brow. "War? There is no such thing, as you should well know by now. As far as I know, I am the only living Kumori," he said. It wasn't until Akiko spoke that he would produce any additional words, but when he did, they were aimed her way. "The majority of the plan was simply to wait for this moment. There's nothing to fear. Nightmares are nothing, if not dreams yet to be understood. I understand this one perfectly." In spite of his words, Raizen seemed content to wait without action. If anyone was to attack the former Captain, it would be Ikaruga Jin, who'd previously resorted to caring for his fallen subordinates. After leaving his Vice-Captain and 3rd Seat, he charged toward Mōryōmaru from the rear, sword in hand, aiming to run through this half-Hollow's torso with the icy blade and freeze him from within. "Sou ka. That's where this snow came from."

[Apollymi]

Raizen questioned Mōryōmaru's understanding of how to maintain his human form properly without being overtaken by it. "It doesn't have to be that way. There is both of us, and they still conspire against you even now... mago," said the boy's grandfather. True enough the boy thought himself to be the only living Kumori but it didn't have to be that way. Besides that fact, the old man was still very aware that they'd tried to kill the lad before this point for doing the exact same thing that the grandfather had done but somehow managing to retain enough of his human self that it did not matter. Before he could speak more on this, his former Division member spoke on how much of a nightmare this man was when he was previously a Captain, and Raizen went on to explain that he knew enough about this man to no longer fear anything hinting at what the red haired girl had said was true and he could be dispatched.

Beyond this it seemed that the former Captain of the 12th Division was being attacked again, by the same lad who'd attacked him while he wore the visage of the Captain of the 4th Division. His body was indeed stabbed through and he began to freeze. Benihime watched as this happened and began speaking again to Raizen, mostly because of an observation he'd made about the snow. "Hai, that's pretty interesting... but I don't think it will be enough. Freezing unless done instantaneously and completely, likely won't stop him from regenerating," said the girl who went on to watch as the ice was soon pushed out of the man's insides and instead broke into several shattering shards before he uttered the name of a high powered Kidou spell. "Hadō no Hachijuuhachi: Hiryū Gekizoku Shinten Raihō," said the man as calmly as he'd been speaking as he shifted his upper body with the man's sword still through it aiming an open palm at the center of his being which would explode into a massive beam of electrical and spiritual energy. This would cause an immense blast on impact and be even more massive than one would expect even given the power of this Captain before he became a Hollow, his intention to completely obliterate Ikaruga Jin were he stood so he could go back to the civil conversation he'd been having with his grandson about the world at large.