Bleach Hereafter RPG

Cogs ceased to turn. Consciously plotted out actions faded as instinct fully exerted itself.
    The criss-crossing network of scars on his soul wrought from trauma had intermingled after being passed between the hands of heart and mind so overmuch in his private time. That person cast aside, whoever they were, sparked to life impulses more becoming of a monk in matters of the spirit such as these. The mighty, towering flare of the cero bursting was little more than a stage light, the barbed, scything tentacle lashing for him no more than a stage cue. Burning black fingers scored the air, no less than three smouldering tomoe beating a taiko tempo upon the wild breeze left behind as he sprinted towards the milk-sodden mass. All three drumbeats burst into lances of white light, crackling lightning of a sacred sort dispensed. Two bursts of ghost magic bargained for the touchy tentacle tearing through the air to taste his tender innards, the third weidging into widening a crack for him to duck and weave on out of the protective blue tomb towards the seemingly inert if not unconscious form crumpled in the rubbish.
    Whoever they were, Itsuki had played his hand. Gripping them by their wrist, he scooped their arm up over his shoulder, slipping hand along to then cradle their ribs with other arm bracing them about the back of their knees. A twinge of barely day-old wounds reminded him of his own limits. With a heaving breath of exertion to invigorate his adrenaline-infused soul, pushing the warnings of his body aside the bartender turned heel and pushed off, making for that crack in the kido coaxing him back to safety.
    Fucking hollows, you're not getting another one if I can help it. Burned the thought in the centre of his brain.

It was something of a shock to him, witnessing what he had as he side stepped the young man who went to retrieve Nezuel from the trash behind him. Though it was outside of the normal range of assumptions he had made, it was exactly what he needed in terms of help to be able to focus his full attention on the writhing adjuchas in front of him. As the two passed him to retreat back to the safety of the kido Nezuel had thrown up before being attacked, Lazarus's reishi weapons would begin to sizzle, steam and smoke beginning to rise from them as he aimed to deal a number of decisive blows to this beast.


"Last chance to tell me what you know before I decide to erase you from existence entirely..."


In an instant he was upon the beast, his blade aiming to cleave up the length of it's body and back down, his hand bow crackling with electricity and heat as he aimed it just below the hollow hole of the monster, firing it off at point blank range. His spell enhanced strikes would leave a lasting burn to the hollow if it didn't some how wiggle it's way to freedom, and the arrow would provide both that and a shock to the system with the electrical charge behind it. If it tried to move he would continue the onslaught of attacks, the blade held just under the chin of the beasts mask, eyes as cold as steel, his body radiating a mercilessness he hadn't shown even to Nezuel.

Limbs flying, serious sentences and swords swinging adeed up to the heft pump pump ump of adrenaline driving him hard. Quaking earth send tremors down his spine, clutching the wayward soul tight to his chest.
In some spontaneously display of dynamism and daring the deft priest dropped his weight back, skidding through the crack in that blue pyramid just in time to--
    "Bastard!" He cried aloud.
    In his efforts to show off Itsuki had failed to account for the mystical, inverted tetrahedron fucking off on some whimsical magical journey!
    Worse yet, for his troubles another just reward was to emerge.
    Once resoundingly solid and whole, if a little scuffed, scabbed, scraped and foul-smelling, the unconscious stranger had flat out dissolved into a smear of blood Itsuki has just chosen to stylishly slide through.
    "Is that normal, were they supposed to do that, what's happening?!" Cried out the bartending monk with the distinct appearance of someone who overdid a pretty shit halloween costume. Patting at the blood on his chest, turning over to run his fingers through the mass soaking into pavement and tarmac, he was beyond certain Professor Alexander hadn't mentioned anything about dissolving like it's July 1997.
   Red light bathed the scene like some dramatic bloodlight, the street a mock-Martian landscape painted in a smattering of dramatic moments loosely strung together by the thrill of new experiences. Stagelights faded as the bone-faced director's visage faltered, the actor rising up to his knees, ready to improvise the only appropriate conclusion to such an unusual street performance. Somewhere between trauma and thrill, absurdity and grit had asserted itself in the folds of his brain and the recesses of his heart.
    Black fire burned at his fingertips and molten orange frothed at his collarbone as the faintest winds of power on the roadside burned to life.
I know precisely what this is. Pushing himself up from the bloody mire in the gutter, the priest clasped his hands together in prayer, a smattering of crimson flecking his pale features. "南無妙法蓮華経!"* He called out, voice firm with clarity and freshly blooming courage. Nails in his collarbone burst like fireworks, betraying his amateurish control of his spiritual energy. Bouncing sparks froze in the air, drawing themselves to bind and constrict the ebony flames in his hands. Contorting, lengthening, the black flames had formed threads and the remains of his molten nails the burning beads of his own personal supernatural rosary.
    This is my opportunity to rule the fear of these things.
    It had only taken a moment or two to conjure the full extent of his present strength.
    Crying out a mighty kiai to the winds, the hole in his collarbone roared with the same dark fire that had formed threads, his own plume of red added to the shirt already over-stained. Beads flew free of the threads, scoring searing lines of light through the air in their baker's dozen. The carousel points of light ended their circus with explosive aplomb, detonating on touch with their target of the hollow's mask or otherwise.
    Having already arrived to this conflict extensively battered and bandaged from the conflict a day prior, Itsuki was left bent double like an old workman folded under a sack of cement on his back, panting through the sweat and blood of spent resources.
He could only hope it was enough to let the heavy hitter finish it off properly.

*

What looked like an opportunity to get the two of them to safety and keep the hollows attention quickly fell into chaos, the sight of the Arrancar dissolving into a mass of blood more shocking than the kido spell fading away into nothingness. Normally hollows faded away into nothing like the embers of a fire, or like ash scattered to the wind, so to see this happen was so far form the norm it caused him to pause in his movements and try to analyze the situation. The now enraged adjuchas was getting ready for a counter attack however, something Lazarus had taken a second too long to realize, though just as he thought he would take the brunt of the attack something even more strange occurred. What was once Nezuel, the blood pool littering the alleyway, rose from it's place on the ground, surrounding the beast like some form of liquid prison. The sight of a being resembling the Arrancar was all he could glimpse before it was all a rush of muffled explosions and noise.



As the orb bled back down to earth, no longer defying the laws of gravity or even basic science, the figure was gone, the adjuchas now left with multiple cracks and extensive damage. To make things worse it looked like the beast was healing itself even still, though it was much slower than before. A final burst of power from the human Fullbringer, though he was now doubled over in either exhaustion or pain, likely both. Regardless, this left him an opening he didn't think he'd get again, and after being thrown into the hard concrete wall he now stumbled out of Lazarus was about ready to end this. The normal hand bow would grow massive instantly, the bottom of it driving itself into the earth as the concrete cracked and splintered at the intrusion. A deep breathe in, a moment to compose himself, and Lazarus would flourish the blade in his left hand. the transition from blade to arrow was seamless, and as he held it to the string of hi now longbow, the thrum of the ambient reishi sounded out in the small alley way.



What was a normally darkened alley would start to light up as he pulled the string back, the normally invisible reishi in the air around him supercharging and drawing to him, the arrow glowing brighter with each inch of the draw. Now fully drawn, Lazarus stood with an arrow so dense it almost weighed him down, his left arm flexed hard against the fabric of his dress shirt, shaking ever so slightly as he fought to gain control of the power in between his fingertips. The held breathe would escape his lips, eyes pin point focused on the hollow as his arm steadied and he stood perfectly still. He counted his heartbeat like a metronome, waiting for the in between of the beats like a sniper in a watch tower , the moment upon him now. As he loosed the arrow with deadly aim, his body lurching back at the force of the arrow as it flew forward, target being the center of the hollows mask. His body started to protest in aches and pains from having exerted his body to the max for the shot, though he would ignore the pain. If this didn't take out the best he didn't know what would, but he needed to be standing in case the beast wasn't slain by this last attack, though the edges of his vision blurring harrowed the potential end of the fight on his end regardless.