Can you take it? [Shizuo/GameDragon:Private]

”. . .”

Why had she done that? What had motivated her to do something so brash and bold? Animum couldn’t understand the mix of hot and cold that swirled inside her chest for many reasons, one she had very strong feelings for her captain, carter. That one person that had lifted her from her darkest days into the very light. She owed him everything for that and yet, she couldn’t even keep her feeings singled out for him? It was strange to her, that something so simple had grown complex, was it a moment of weakness that she had from sharing those memories with him? Or had it been something else entirely. . . It was really hard to say to be honest. Because of course she herself was quite frankly just so unsure with her emotions, they seemed dangerous to her sometimes, just as much a hinderance as they are an asset, and because of that, even though she enjoyed having them, sometimes she wondered if they truly had been something she was even supposed to have, it was confusing, frustrating and most of all? It angered her honestly to no end.

The feeling of confusion, toxic and acidic as it twitched in her, a insatiable monster that lurker just below the skin, coiling it’s tendrils around the mind, and eroding it away into naked uncertainty, that was how she felt right now, because if she truly had those feelings, why would she betray the man for another? Why did she do the things she did, even though she regretted them, it wasn’t regretting them that bothered her. It was that her body and her heart craved more of it, even if her mind knew that it wasn’t avaible for such interactions, that was what frightened her. More so then a sword pressed up against her neck, or losing herself once more in the chaos, it was these emotions, the happiness , the wanting, and the need. All of them momentarily seemed to creep up on her, assaulting the vice-captain of squad seven with a relentless onslaught that she honestly hadn’t been ready for what so ever.

That feeling of a steady beating in her chest was gone, stuttering and thrumming because of her heightened state of both adrenaline and awareness, it wasn’t that she had felt disgusted during that kiss, quite the contrary, she had craved it, she had wanted it like an addict need’s the next fix, that comfort of someone else’s flesh touching her own, she craved that on a fundamental level she had never even understood even with her immense intellect, she just couldn’t understand it, couldn’t WRAP her mind around it at all. For this very reason animum stood very still, her hand resting on her sword, but at the same time she had just allowed herself to mull over her own thoughts, trying to sort them out as she fought desperately to make sense of this strange situation that had arisen.

Yet even as she was making sense of it she felt so vulnerable, so.. open to the world that it made her heart thud painfully in her chest, each beat forced out after the last because of just the emotions that she was feeling, and she could tell she wasn’t the only one as she viewed kayta’s expression, and how she covered up her face, and to be honest? It truly hurt Animum on a soul-deep level to see that she had once again caused someone pain, someone sadness and yet, at the same time she had felt that maybe that was just how it was always going to be, that no matter what she was , who she was, or how hard she tried, on some level she would always truly be a monster, a lone wolf in the silence, belonging yet not fully belonging on some level no matter how much she wanted to. That stressed her out, plain and simple, she didn’t want to address these emotions that kept swirling in her , dark and dangerous like many thunderclouds.

So as she coughed lightly, animum would begin to slowly work her lower jaw, formulating words so that she could convey to katya what her next task was. Although as she was doing so? She had felt a rather small spiritual presence nearby, one that while not unusual for a humans wasn't quite right, it felt.. different as it could in many ways be called both sinister and at the same exact time be called menacing. She didn’t at first see the source of that energy but she would react to it just like it was a hostile presence because she just didn’t know who it was, and honestly she wasn’t always on the best terms with people that had both strength and power. So for that reason, Animum had felt her body tense up, the blade shifting from it’s lazy position to en garde, the point level with her cheek , and her body would shift in posture, to stand infront of Kayta, the way she stood and the fierceness that she would exude would be severely protective of this girl, and for this reason she wouldn’t even move an inch until she figured out who had seen them.

She didn’t have to wait long though, as out from behind the tree’s came a single man who was wearing from the looks of it a modified version of a shinigami’s uniform or a modified male version of her own uniform for that matter. Both his presence and his posture, muscles, well everything about him screamed that he was a fighter, and because of that Animum still wouldn’t relax her guard, if anything else it would have tightened, her expression variating between neutrality and plain distrust for the moment seeing as she just didn’t know who in the world this person was, as well she sure as hell didn’t know the reason that had brought him to this location either, for all she knew he could be some random heathen who was looking to pick a fight with her, as with those who had attained the level of power she had, there tended to be people who wanted to test that power, to see just how powerful they were when pitted against such a power.


Because of this animum had waited her eyes flicking to that large blade which had been resting against the males shoulderblades on his back. Taking in both it’s size and the dimensions for future reference incase this actually did become any sort of all out brawl however as she was doing so? The individual had begun to speak, his gruffness reflecting in the tenor of his voice, deep and masculine as he made some sort of joke about how he had come here because he had sensed fluxuating reitsu and associated it with either fighting or training, yet had come in time to see the moment of weakness that animum had shared with kayta, and those words barely would be out of his mouth before she had began to smile slowly drinking in the aura he had which had been obviously that of a vizards.. and yet, this was laced with something similar to the energy death gave off, so in response she would release her own energy.

The cascade of electricity surrounding her body being the most apparent thing about this energy release, the second would be the nauseating feel it gave off, given it would almost feel like there had been multiple energy signatures which had finally been plugged together into a single energy source, making it almost impossible to get a good feel for the source of her energy, yet that wouldn’t be the only thing about it, hayden probably could feel the despair that laced within that abomination that was known as Animum’s Reishi, an endless soul-crushing despair that stemmed from a slight demonic signature which lingered within her own natural energy banks. Because of this energy the sky would begin to form thunderclouds, lightning for the moment striking her bodice causing the ground around her to be charred with jet-black ashes.

That smile would only grow bigger because animum as she was at the moment, was barely containing herself to be frank, this man was in so much trouble from that one remark he had made, even if he had been joking. Which on some level she actually knew he probably had been just trying to poke fun at the two of them and make light of the situation, yet the ruling majority of her mind was laced with a rumbling thundercloud of emotions for that remark, the main two being a war between her amusement that he had the balls to say something like that in the first place, and her anger at him for making such a joke after a very vulnerable situation had occured. So with both those factors in play, she wouldn’t hurt him because simply he hadn’t done anything to warrent blatant mistreatement on any level. However she certainly would be projecting that he had really said the wrong thing there and probably should apologies for things got worse.

Now as the energy seemed to continue to radiate off of her she would finally be able to put herself back together enough that she could properly respond to the unexpected visitor, her tone frosty but not mean, it was more a mixture of monotone and slight amusement, as even though she was extremely agitated she was interested to see for what reason this individual had decided to come here even after sensing those energy signatures in the first place. As such Animum finally addressed Hayden.

”..If you want to stretch your limbs i certainly can help you, but the fact is i don’t know you, and before i can grant your request i would like to know, no offense, who in the hell you are hon. “

To be clear? You probably could tell how mad she was by the fact she said hon, given for most this was an honest term of endearment, but for her? It was a way to show others when she was extremely agitated, as animum doesn’t really put any stock in giving others cutesy nicknames like sugar puff, and so on, instead she only uses it on people who she is still trying to be nice to , but at the same time is seriously again angry with. In some ways it can be a tad of her sass showing, and more so a method of coping with the anger, hence why if hayden could pick up on this, it would probably be another indicator that while she understood it may be a joke, she seriously wasn’t finding the joke to be funny in the least.

Finally though she would have turned to kayta, after she felt comfortable enough with this new arrival that she was certain that he wasn’t going to start anything, given he was honestly just standing there, scratching his head in a sign of discomfort or maybe boredom. So she would give him the benifit of the doubt for now, hoping that he wasn’t stupid enough to possibly try something while she was giving kayta instruction, now if he however was stupid enough she’d quickly rectify that, but that wasn’t her main focus at the moment, instead? She would bring her sword to en-garde and say slowly.

”..Next we are going to work on how you focus your energy, im going to strike you with full on sword-swings. I won’t go for exposed flesh, but i will be putting a good amount of force behind my strikes, so your job kayta is to focus all your energy into the weapon you choose to intercept with, if you dont i can’t gurantee both ur arm and wrist remaining attached to your body, so it’s imperative you try to focus as hard as you can on maintaining the energy around the weapon you choose, because i won’t be stopping until i feel you have figured out enough how to accurately get a “feel” for this activity, given if you know how to focus your energy, it becomes easier for you to direct and increase the potency of your powers. “

Animum would have paused to let this first part sink in, before she continued with the mini lesson, to further explain it, and if hayden listened in? Then even though he was at a state that he could utilize his own energy pretty effectively it would be a learning experience for him too, given this wasn’t only going to be a explanation on regular energy focus, this would be a demonstration with her vizard powers as well. So she would continue to speak for now as she slowly eased in all honesty back into her element, the element of being an individual who could use her keen intellect to help the two of them now.

”..Compare your normal energy to a flowing stream, it has power in it’s current even without you doing anything to it when you are just using it. Now if you compress that stream and focus it, you aren’t going to get as wide an area however it you want to compare destructive power, that compressed stream of yours is going to be vastly more potent than the other regular stream that is comparative to the way your energy normally is working. For example.. im going to show you two different blasts watch carefully. “

Now Animum had raised her hand and from it a vermillion red would crackle to life cascading into the form of a single orb that would grow until it was roughly 300 meter’s in size, a massive cero if there was any definition of it, and the very air would whip around it for now. until she fired it into the air letting the beam expand in size as in her other hand she had formed another cero of the same size, but instead it would begin to rapidly condense, until it could fit just on the tip of her pinky. From there? she would raise her hand up and fire, this cero’s beam wouldn’t be as large but as it launched into the air it would smash and then rip completely through the other cero, causing it to disperse with a bang as the smaller more concentrated beam then shot out the other side of the explosion, growing in size until it dissipated finally in the sky.

”..This is the result of focusing your energy, which is the whole point of this next excercise kayta. So i willl want you to focus on your arms hands and the weapon of ur choice, and you will want to imagine that all the energy in ur body is flowing into your arms, as if your arms is the center of your power rather than wherever it is naturally in ur body. To do this though you need to feel confortable with your own power, you need to understand it so that you can both shape and compress it, to mold it how you see fit, because this is one of the keys to becoming stronger. “

As if to prove a point, animum would raise her hand as electricity and raw reishi began to gather in her palm, using her mental calcuations and her knowledge of her own energy she would begin to mold it into the shape of a reishi sword, this sword would burn like a fallen star and begin to expand around her hand until it grew roughly 12 feet in length, solidifying and entrapping the energy within it as she finally would swing at the ground, a very small swing and yet to the side there would be an immense explosion as the reishi run-off and the energy slammed into the very air,

”.. Like in this example i’ve taken my energy and molded it into a sword, compressing an immense amount of energy until it has taken this shape, this is done through the knowledge of my own energy, and then through the manner i’ve chosen to apply it’s interaction with the world around it, while you might not get to this level, this is an example of what you can be capable of if you train extremely hard, now another example is spiritual pressure, watch closely. “

Animum would stand there, as she didn’t change the quantity of her spiritual energy that was radiating outwards, and instead? She would begin to focus it gathering it from the far-reaches and compacting it, causing the area around them to become dense with raw energy, given she has an extreme control over her own reishi and abilities as it’s one of the stronger aspects about her, so as she would do this? The energy would continue to compress turning from blue to red then finally to a black hue that would be around her body while she would in this state tap her foot on the ground, causing a fissure to form for roughly 1000meter’s on either side of her, the ground cracking given she hadn’t used much force, but her reishi , and all it’s pressure had been condensed to an extreme, as she had all of that energy that made up the energy radiating from outside her body, and then compressed it so that it was literally bounce within maybe an inch of her skin if not even closer.

”..See i barely moved, but because of the manner in which i’ve compressed my spiritual energy the damage is amplified greatly, this is another example of what you can do once you get a handle on compressing your spiritual energy, and that is why we are going to work on this, do you have any questions kayta?”

She’d ask as she cocked her head to the side and waited , to discern her answer before she released the energy sword and shifted her Zanpakutō to the side letting the tip rest against the ground.