{( OPEN )} Chance Encounters.

{( Intro Song )}

Night was falling in full effect and Yogenhoshi was still feeling fleet-footed from the events leading into this evening, particularly having been able to watch an entire baseball game at a brightly lit stadium crammed full of people; all seeming happy, sometimes even exuberant, as if in defiance to the inner darkness all entities seemed to possess which threatened to rise and consume them during the low points in life. It was quite a spectacle though he had little to no time for such pastimes back in Seireitei, where his time was effectually divided between his duties as a 4th Division healer and intensive training.

The distinctive sound of flexing wood, as of trees being bent out of a natural alignment off in the distance to his 3 o' Clock, brought him back to why he was this far outside the city proper in the first place. It was a faint sense but was there nonetheless, something he had been extensively trained to recognizing and track long before graduating the Shino Academy as a full-fledge Shinigami, the presence of a Hollow. The entity must be immense, by the sounds of it, but that had little to do with the quantity and quality of its reiatsu and subsequent capabilities; many young and promising soul reapers had met their ends that way.

As expected of the larger variety of Hollow, so used to dominating their lesser brethren in the Darwinian realm of Heuco Mundo, it began to lumber straight toward him once it picked up on a nearby presence with a surplus of spiritual energy. That was the driving force for these "adolescent" Hollow, this all-consuming hunger, and it made them predictable to a point that his predecessors had literally devised an entire style specifically for exploiting such weaknesses in base behavior. Yogenhoshi was far from typical, however, and thus came to his own conclusions and preferences for tactical fighting in much the same way as he did in everything else. Adversity was life's seasoning.

"Hadō #8 - Kaen-dama," he audibly evoked, something rarely done as it was often better to avoid giving an opponent tell-tales as to what you were planning, but with a seemingly mindless Hollow... such precautions seemed unnecessary. Besides, a verbalized incantation generally increased the scope of a Kido spell's effects beyond what was capable on a non-verbal command. A glowing red sphere bloomed into being nestled within his left palm, fingers curving to preemptively wrap around it as the size increased to approximately that of a baseball, radiating like a hundred pounds of glowing embers condensed within such a small space. Wiggling his hips from side to side as if loosening up his body, he slipped into a casual stance with one foot extended to point more or less at the charging Hollow while the hand still clutching his Hadō blast was kept back as if he were attempting to conceal it behind his sideways posture in spite of the harsh glow it emitted.

Under such lighting conditions it was impossible to make out Yogenhoshi's face, cast completely in livid shadow, but his tone left no doubts as to what his true intentions were as he said, "Batter up..." His target had already closed the gap of space, now looming in mid-motion a mere ten yards away, by the time he wound up and pitched; hurling the Hadō blast directly into the Hollow's face with a fiery explosion that caused it to shriek and stagger backward, blotted out by a veritable smoke screen of the acrid smoke produced by burning flesh.

Some of the leaves and branches near the point of impact had been set aflame, others merely smoldering as if on the verge of igniting themselves, and now the forest was illuminated by a harsh and guttering sort of light which cast long shadows one way then another.

The young girl ran through the forest, her eyes looking around as if searching for something within these woods. White cat ears perked up on her head, her white hair a bit past her shoulders in length, the ends turning black in some areas. A strange red glyph sat on her forehead, somewhat visible through the girl’s bangs. She looked to be nine years of age and seemed to be wearing a white and red kimono and sandals. A white and black cat tail poked out behind her, swishing slightly as she spotted the huge hollow charging towards someone. Amelia sighed a bit, she had wanted to test out her skills on both the nearby hollows, but it seemed that a shinigami was about to take this one out. A quick shunpo took her about ten feet from the beast just as the shinigami slammed it with a spell, one that Amelia wasn’t quite familiar with. She knew it was kido, but had not seen it used before. As it hit the hollow, smoke poured off from the wound, but Amelia’s senses told her it wasn’t dead yet. Not paying much attention to the shinigami, she focused on the hollow, beginning to chant softly.

“Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south! Hadō #31, Shakkahō.”

She raised her hand, the ball of red energy launching from her hand towards the hollow. Unfortunately, Amelia’s aim had been off, instead of hitting the mask the spell slammed in to the hollow’s neck, causing a loud roar of pain from the beast as it turned to face her. It charged towards her, but Amelia’s eyes did not lose that strange calm they always held. Silently she cast Scales of Orochi, a dense ball of spiritual energy surrounding her in a protective barrier. It would protect her from a single attack, but she wasn’t sure how many more spells she could throw out, especially ones like that shakkaho she had cast before. Sure she was a magus, but shinigami magic was tougher for her to control then the sugiura ones. Turning towards the shinigami, she called out to him.

“Oy, you, could you do something about this hollow?”

Yogenhoshi had sensed a new spiritual presence just moments before the child projecting it appeared, leaping out from the trees as if from nowhere to evoke a Hadō spell and begin assaulting the wounded Hollow. Where'd the cavalry come from? he thought, watching the blast impact their shared quarry and stagger it out of the cloud of thick smoke which still hung in the air. Char marred its mask but it largely seemed undamaged, proving much more resilient than the garden variety Hollow that normally slipped into the Living World in search of a meal, though its chest and neck were severely damaged from the combined efforts.

Bakudo #15 - Rokku no Hifu, he thought, softly verbalizing the incantation under his breath so as not to be heard by the strange newcomer or the enraged Hollow that was now turning its sights upon her. "Those who would destroy me will find no purchase..." he whispered, right fist clenching at his side as a thin aura began to coat the entire arm, reverberating back and forth between purest black and white as if the two colors intermingled to create one frequency. "And those who corrupt shall be denied!" The limb's durability increased.

The Hollow began its charge as the child erected a barrier to protect herself, all seeming to happen in a sort of surreal slow motion to Yogenhoshi's senses. Protecting the weak, particularly children, was something his soul galvanized him to do time and again, proving it to be a prominent part of who he was. This child may not be weak-- how was he to know?-- but despite possessing latent spiritual abilities of whatever kind and caliber, that Hollow was an objectification of everything wrong in the world; across all its realms. The enveloping aura exploded with energy, seeming to quiver with a force the Kido spell strained to contain as the pulsations of black and white surged and became erratic. It was hard to tell how high the potency spiked.

"Oy," he heard the girl say, even as his mind intuitively took in all the circumstances involved with the present scenario and rifled through an impressive repertoire of Kido like a tumbler system, almost instantaneously reaching a decision. Hadō #17 - Pulse Blast. An evocation was unnecessary. "you, could you do something--"

Her words were left hanging as Yogenhoshi seemed to flicker all at once, vanishing all at once like a light switch being flipped without seeming to move in the slightest, Flash Stepping on a direct path to intercept the charging Hollow. Once he accomplished that, in the blink of an eye, he leaped to the air to be on a level with the enormous mask and luminous red eyes which shifted to fix upon him-- which was all the time it had to do anything. Thrusting his right palm out seemed like such a small and trivial thing to do when taken in with the size differences between Hollow and Shinigami, and the momentum of its charge, but the malignant entity was stopped dead in its lumbering tracks and briefly seemed to compress as if crashing headlong into an immovable object after a full-throttle acceleration. He, himself, seemed unaffected.

Yogenhoshi wasn't a particularly strong Shinigami, so far as brute strength went, but his vast knowledge of Hakuda allowed him to view things differently than the majority of his peers. Instead of simply seeing an opponent and striving to read their intentions through body language, or find an emotional crevice to chip away at as a means of facilitating a psychological edge, he saw a person on their various levels. What they thought and felt, most prominently, but also the physical body itself; anatomy, and the physics contained therein. His strike had landed squarely at the epicenter of the Hollow's forehead, deliberately choosing that spot as it would equally distribute the force of the blow throughout the mask while all that momentum the beast had gathered was focused into that small point of impact. The results were nothing shy of impressive as his palm punctured the mask, causing the bone around it to shatter and begin crumbling in an expanding radius seconds before the Pulse Blast detonated; the the Hollow's head rapidly expanding from internal pressure before bursting in a dazzling explosion of pale blue reishi which instantly began dissipating into the atmospheric reishi. The combination of increased durability and a purely destructive Hadō spell worked much as he had anticipated.

Free-falling to lightly land upon the ground, Yogenhoshi spared one more moment to appreciate the sight of a Hollow being purified before turning his back to the rapidly deteriorating husk. "Didn't anyone ever tell you it isn't safe to play in the woods after dark? Especially when you're alone?" He said, addressing the girl with a tone of mock severity.

Amelia watched as the man flash stepped in front of her, taking the attention of the hollow away from her and towards him. [i]I set up the barrier so you could get a shot in while it focused on me, but I guess we can do this the hard way.[i] The thought ran across her mind as he jumped up and slammed the kido of his in to the hollow’s forehead. She watched the mask break, the hollow being purified before her eyes. Sighing, she let her spell drop as she turned to the man who fell to the ground. Smiling softly, she tilted her head to the side slightly, her cat like ears wriggling on her head. When the man asked her if she knew it wasn’t safe to play in the woods at night, she giggled softly.

“You’re funny sir. It’s alright, I’ll be fine, I can take care of myself. Anyways, what’s your name mister? I know you’re a shinigami, but I don’t know your name… oh, I’m Amelia by the way.”

She was smiling calmly at him, her tail swishing softly behind her. After a few moments she pulled out a strip of paper, about the size of her hand when open, and started fiddling with it. Once he had responded she would giggle and stretch a bit before looking back at him.

“Oh, do you mind helping me with something? I was planning to get some training in, but then that hollow showed up… and well… but it led me to you! So, do you mind helping me train? I hate training alone, it’s so boring…”

Yogenhoshi wasn't one to judge others based on appearance, and that had absolutely nothing to do with why his eyebrows began to rise the more this unorthodox girl spoke. What a peculiar child, he thought.

He listened to her denial of the very real dangers that seemed to run loose in all realms, new and old, and found it disconcerting. Even in his homeland of Soul Society in spite of the 13 Court Protection Squads. The trouble there was in the fact that not all Seireitei's threats came from outside its shining walls... She's either a lot tougher than she looks or she is very, very foolish. Only time would answer that for him.

"Training, eh? Well, I suppose I have a bit of spare time on my hands... but the type of training you have in mind will be the deciding factor," he said, turning to face Amelia for the first time since her arrival. "I'm Yogenhoshi of the 4th Division, though most simply call me Hoshi or 'The Monk'." The only things he truly had to offer by way of training were Hakuda and Kido, healing if the trainee was receptive to such things... His proficiency in just about everything else was comparable to a mere novice, having been polished but not expanded upon during his time in the Shino Academy, and would only be effective if her skill in those areas were similarly untried. "What skills do you have in mind?"

Under normal circumstances he probably wouldn't be willing to train someone just met, even if their intentions seemed good as life was festering with manipulation and intrigue anymore. Helping someone along in the right direction, however, when such knowledge might keep them alive... That seemed different, especially when it was a child.

Not hearing a reply, or much of anything, Yogenhoshi turns to regard the child-- which was no longer there. Odd how people tend to come and go like that, but nothing out of the ordinary. "Back to business, then."

Delving into an internal pocket of his Shihakusho shirt to draw the trusted spiritual cellphone every Shinigami qualifying for active duty outside of the Seireitei is issued, Yogenhoshi deftly browses through the correspondences. Doesn't seem like there's anything left to do here, now that the Hollow has been taken care of... he thought.

It wasn't likely that another Hollow would appear here, in the middle of a remote forest, after one had so recently been purified; unless it was powerful enough to be confident in its capabilities, and that type of an incursion would set off alarms back at Seireitei's Technological Institute. Pocketing the cellphone, Yogenhoshi made to take a casual step forward-- then vanished, leaving a pulsating after-image to fade away amid a swirl of foliage. Only a prevailing wind marked his passage.