Karakura's A Big Place

The woman walked through the forest, her footsteps of snapping twigs and brushing bushes letting any non-sentient observer know that she was there. It wasn't necessarily the smartest of ideas, but Jessica Delacroix was confident enough in herself where a fight wouldn't be the biggest of issues. Should her "opponent" prove to be stronger than she is, she could simply flee, free to declare revenge another day.

She paused for a moment, taking in the surroundings, breathing of the scent of the woods, with a hand on a nearby tree for support. The bark was rough to her touch, something she had been accustomed to for many years beforehand, and the smell that came to her nostrils was sweet; crushed pine needles and cones underfoot, thanks to a near constant animal passing through the area. There were the calls of birds off in the distance, something that had been a perpetual companion throughout her years of isolation.

She moves forward again, ducking under the tree branch as she passes. "A good look of your surroundings can never harm you," was something her first instructor has told Jessica. And throughout the years, it had been true enough. There were often times where her own natural talent had failed her, and she had to rely on other means to succeed. There was one occasion during a solo session with Hollow Bait, where she attracted a group of Hollows that swiftly overpowered her.

She ended up defeating them, of course. Heroes always win in the movies, right? There's never tragedy in training montages. But she came through with another scar, another lesson to learn. The problem was that she engaged them too quickly, didn't take proper stock of their abilities. She was reckless during that fight, relying heavily on speed and Heirenkyaku to carry her through the brawl.

It wasn't enough to stop the lead Hollow from coming up from behind, grabbing tight hold, and tossing her to the dirt as though she was nothing more than a piece of trash. The way she won was by hiding behind rocks large enough to conceal her, then popping out and kiting her enemies away. Jessica's back was sore for weeks after.

She comes back to reality, though, blinking her eyes and looking around once more. There was a nearby squirrel, disinterested in her, focusing intently on a nut; a fox near his home, stalking for food. The world was alive. So alive, and many people trapped away in other affairs don't realize it.

She moves forward again, coming through a clearing. A parting in the trees reveals a large city directly ahead, and a smile comes to Jessica's face. She finally reached her destination: Karakura Town.

As the woman emerges from the forest, she freezes in her tracks. Something was coming, that herald of death and destruction... A Hollow, and something... else. Is that... Quincy? She takes a breath, in, out, turning and facing the direction she came from. Suddenly, she senses eight more, weaker, signatures. But these did not feel like Hollow...? The eight were demonic in nature.

Jessica was not looking for a fight today. But she would if she had to, as the simplistic procedure of summoning her spiritual weapons would show. The young Quincy takes a battle stance, leading with Crime, staring in the direction of the approaching signals. She had never encountered something like this before, and her nervous demeanor showed it.

But relief came in the form of the eight demonic signatures, fading one by one. She wonders what could be causing such an effect, briefly, until the Hollow reiatsu faded as well, seemingly fading completely into the still-approaching Quincy.

She lowers her weapons slightly, waiting until she noticed a black-haired boy appear out from behind the underbrush. She watches as he still moves forward, then stops, calling out a greeting and asking if she was heading to Central as well.

She takes a moment, heart still beating quickly, to calm herself down. Jessica takes a deep breath, glancing up to the sky, and lowering Crime, which still remained with her, like an ever-present companion, remaining outside of sight.

"Uh... Yes, I am, I suppose," Jessica says, in a nervous tone. She takes a step backwards, untrusting of the sudden being who approached her so quickly. She clears her throat, and in a level voice, she continues, "I've been travelling for a while."

But still, questions raise unbidden to her mind. What was that spiritual pressure she felt? And those demonic signatures, as well? She looks to her side, then back to the boy.
"Be careful, though. I felt something dangerous about, and the forest did too. Did you notice how all the animals disappeared? Right there, you stepped over a fox hole. Instead of running back to his den, he dashed somewhere deeper into the forest. And it was heading this way."

She waits, staring at the boy, examining him up and down, taking note of everything that was apparent. His black hair, the school uniform he dons, as well as the odd menagerie of symbols he dons along the shoulder. After trying for a moment to decipher the badges, she gives up with a sigh, then waits for an answer to her questions.

Well, that was relatively true. Relatively, not relatively. It wasn't exactly false that she was new to the area, but it wasn't...
Yeah, he pretty much nailed it.
"No. I'm a newcomer, hailing from wherever I got this [Sanrei] Glove," Jessica says, raising her right hand to show it off. The glove itself was rather simple, the way she had gotten was the same. Although interestingly enough, it had been white and black, like a formal dress glove, but when she went through the ritual to prove herself worthy of using it, the thing decided to morph into its current appearance.

That being of a fingerless black glove with no other real adornments. While it looked weathered, it did it in that way leather did without any special materials, made specifically for caring for it, but with a certain level of care to it. It was true that it made reiatsu much hard to focus, but that's kind of the point of the Sanrei Glove, isn't it? She had been wanting to take it off, but the second Quincy teacher warned her never to do so.

She learned through countless trial and error to trust the man when he said things like that. The tone he took still sends shivers down her spine, simply thinking about it. Her whole body is electrified, senses roaring, waiting for something to come and demand use of them.

But there wasn't really anything of that sort, besides the strange spiritual energy that the man who introduced himself as Cero kept putting off. It was Quincy, but it still had that odd feeling of it, like when you're standing alone in a dark room and feel the hair on the back of your neck start to rise.

Although he'd shown nothing but respect and kindness, Jessica still felt something through him. And she got this feeling of apprehension, as though it'd be child's play for him to reach over and snap her neck, like one would break a twig. But she did what any good grifter did; she hid it. At least, as best she could.

It's not easy hiding fear, most of the time. It remains underneath, bubbling just through the surface, and one misstep causes it to come all rushing out. So she deflected it, moving to another line of conversation after clearing her throat, "The Yayjuu? Is that an organization, or something?"

The steady gait of the woman walking along the Hohl Aquero, Cero, was rarely interrupted. She kept moving onward, in spite of many things. She happened to recall one particular night in her younger years, before she had moved to the wilderness, in a bad part of town... There were men and women of all variety out that night; drug dealers and junkies, prostitutes and pimps, and men looking to get lucky. Many eyes were on her that night, the eyes of the deprived, the low, desperate, hard working people fallen on hard times.

Jessica didn't stop for them. She didn't stop for anybody, but what Cero happened to say and do made her foot pause mid-fall. Out of the corner of her eye, time seemed to slow down. One could detect the faintest smell of electricity in the air around the two, and you could swear that the atmosphere suddenly got very clear. One would note sinuses clearing quickly, and might feel goosebumps on their arms and necks start to rise. Jessica turned her head slightly toward Cero, taking a step backwards and in one smooth motion, she drew Punishment and leveled it with his head.

That was when the Hollow presence finally revealed itself. There was nothing but the tiniest scrap of a shred about, and she hadn't the faintest idea that Cero himself was the one giving it off. It seemed muted, far away and off in the distance, not as close as it was. She could tell that it wasn't a separated entity, even the most rudimentary examination of his spiritual pressure could tell that. The reiatsu being outputted by Cero stank of Hollow now, like something out of her training sessions, and she cursed herself silently for not noticing before. Every essence of Jessica was silently pleading for her to pull her weapon's trigger, but she hadn't yet; because of the other signature she was detecting. Quincy.

The revolver itself was made of a shiny and bright material. Its ivory handle was sharpened to a point, a fine backup weapon in case any foe closed the gap close enough to assault her. There were etchings along the barrel, promising a swift retribution, underneath the carving of angel wings. The muzzle stared at Cero, its words whispering on the wind, and it wished nothing more than to fire and end this 'Hohl Aquero,' as he claimed to be.

Jessica studied the Cero's reiatsu's more intently. She wondered why it felt so odd; there were two distinct sides of it. The Quincy, and the Hollow. They were separate, yet the same. She felt them both being tangible, and she could prod each one individually. It felt so wrong to experience, and it was the first time she had come across something like this.

But the way he acted gave her pause. He seemed almost ... repentant. Jessica's brow furrowed, and she called out in a deathly silent voice. "What is a Ziamachi?" she says, her tone still as the water on a windless day. She knew of an arrancar, the Hollow who tore off their own mask and became something... more. That they regained their sentience after losing it by becoming a Hollow in the first place. Anything more than that, though, and you'd have to find somebody else to tell you.

So there they stood. She was about six steps away from the man, holding Punishment up, with her off-hand hovering over Crime, waiting patiently to be told what to do. A bead of sweat rolled slowly down the side of her face, as she stared at the man in a peculiar way. Not quite an expression of hate, nor one of pity; while one could see a display of both of these emotions in her eyes, no, the true expression in her eyes was interest. The rest of her face was still and silent, as she waited for an answer from the mysterious boy.

Jessica stares Cero in the eyes as the boy explains what a ziamachi is. She mulls this information over for a time, before letting out a sigh and letting the constructed reishi that formed both her revolvers fade back to nothingness. She takes a leaning stance, still staring at Cero with interest in her eyes, and listens to his continuing words with folded arms.

There wasn't much else to do but wait, since Cero was speaking like a machine gun, word after word flew from his mouth. So that's what she did, until it seemed that he was almost finished. She watched soundlessly as he seemed to become more and more passionate, until at last his voice was screaming, and his reiatsu spiked as quickly as his voice did.

The pressure was certainly there before he released it. It was manageable, but then suddenly, it shot up to a level that she wasn't certain was actually possible. In an instant, the world became vibrant and full of blinding colors, and then it went incredibly dark. It stayed like that for a moment, before her own reiatsu had a chance to adapt and it was finally bearable again.

It was like a great weight was placed on her chest. She felt as though her limbs were tied down with giant stones, and that she was drowning. The amount of spiritual pressure that a child that size was putting out... it wasn't normal. She barely raised to a knee, apparently having fallen, which had gone entirely unnoticed.

She stammers out the words, "Yes! I can understand!" her voice in her own yell. She felt so quiet, so small in comparison. That feeling that this person could kill her at any time returned, as she sat on one knee, essentially helpless to the roaring current of reiatsu that was being poured out.