In the Desert, On a Horse With a Name [Murasaki, Micaiah]

"Hey, you big oaf! Shoo on out of here before I roast you to eat too!"

With one hand, Micaiah flailed Agneyastra around with reckless abandon. It flew around like a feather in her hands, but with her ire drawn to the forefront, the actual weight was into the tons. With her unfocused swinging and lack of technique, the blade did anything but cut through the air. The movements of the wind pushed out from her actions grinded into nearby leafless trees. If kept up for half an hour, the whole area could be deforested. She already knocked over her camp set up and blew out the fire.

The subject of Micaiah's anger was a wolf-like hollow, ferociously snarling at the girl. It was her misunderstanding the hollow wanted a piece of her freshly hunted rabbit, topped with a traditional vicaran honey sauce. In reality, the hollow was practically salivating over her.

"I got here first, you want a hunting ground you can go fuck off to another mountain!"

That was totally incorrect. The hollow roamed these mountains for longer than Shadow Fall existed, encountering and poaching lost and wandering souls. To its own eyes, Micaiah was just the same kind of prey it always waited for.

Of course, the rambunctious blonde was ignorant as ever to the reality of the situation, and by forceful will, ignorant to Maujuda's pleas. The sword chimed aloud, "Micaiah, you have to calm down and stop this at once!" If she didn't, her anger would continue boiling, and at some point she'd hit the ground. The weight of the sword at that point would threaten a whole avalanche, decimating whatever stood at the base of the mountain. Of course, if he had just told her to kill it quickly already, she would have complied, but not even the previous Danava of Thoughts always knew was going on in Micaiah's mind, let alone what the right answer would be to cease her monkeying.

Knowing there was no means to reach out to her, Maujuda looked elsewhere. A shinigami. Perfect. This was one of their direct jobs, taking care of hollows.

It was all too easy to reach out telepathically. As soon as his thoughts went out, he noticed something a bit peculiar about the shinigami. Call it something of intuition, but he felt he had a lot more in common with this one than probably any other shinigami. Perhaps in feeling the presence behind his thoughts, she might notice it too.

"Please, help us. There is a hollow attacking us on the nearby mountain, and it might avalanche!"

He was sure to leave out the important context of who was threatening an avalanche, but the wise old king was sure to speak only truth.

Micaiah felt someone else approaching the area, and her immediate assumption was the hollow calling for back up She wasn't the most familiar with hollow sociology--and evidently the hollow diet--but wolves hunted in packs, so it seemed like a fair parallel. She steeled herself for the approach of another opponent, but they came at waaaay faster than she could anticipate. Like, a blink of the eye sort of fast.

The fact that the new arrival was actually a shinigami, and looked entirely human, didn't immediately remove her skepticism. For what little she knew of hollows, she did know they came in all sorts of shapes and sizes. To her knowledge with mingling in American society, there were hollows that looked entirely normal. Hell, there was even one running an entire city.

Before Micaiah could even tell her to back off, the wolf was dispatched. It was instantaneous, essentially totally unrecognisable. What did they even do? The most she could ascertain was that it was more than a one slash, but it pretty much took the collective experience of all her martial knowledge to know that much. And it wasn't like Micaiah was just a complete amateur.

Fortunately, this astonishment took Micaiah totally out of her rage, and good timing too because what happened made both her jaw and her sword drop. She knew it wasn't just her making a mountain out of a molehill, too. She could hear Maujuda go "Hoh..." in her head. As much as she considered him senile, she still knew he was seemingly all-knowledgeable, so it wasn't often he was verbally impressed.

"That was... that was so rad. What did you do?!"

Micaiah ran up to the spot where the hollow corpse would be if it wasn't entirely decimate. Technically it vanished on account of being hit with a zanpakuto, but as far as she was concerned it was just obliterated into nothingness.

She stared at the spot, inspecting it and trying to see any vestiges of the technique that might give her a clue. Of course, there was nothing she could ascertain. That only left one other option.

"Hey, you ever try rabbit before?"

Bribery.

So what she was hearing was, "yeah, this is something exclusive". Awesome.

At the invitation, Micaiah's face lit up. Her eyes were sparkling in anticipation, and she quickly scurried back to her site to pack things up. She didn't even bother responding to the question of whether she was alright, but the speed and energy in her packing up showed she was in good health. In a subtle outlining glow, the whole campsite vanished one appliance and piece at a time, with mystical cards taking their place. Micaiah picked up a gourd placed next to a large boulder she previously sat on and tied it to her hip. Opening it, the cards were sucked in all together, alongside the Agneyastra sword in card form. The only thing left out was a double-edged sword with a broad flat sheathed on her hip. A subtle demonic energy emanated from it, the same presence laced in the voice that contacted the shinigami earlier.

With a look of pride and excitement, Micaiah patted her gourd.

"I still have a few rabbits that I haven't cooked yet, but I'll still need to skin and clean them up a little bit if you don't mind. Gottem packed up right here, seasoning and stuff all prepped, so just lead the way!"

Don't get her wrong, she knew that the lady wasn't looking down on her. She seemed like a nice person. Thing is, stuff like slowing down for her, was, well, it was also nice. Something a nice and considerate person would do. There was no reason at all to take that the wrong way. And Micaiah didn't. That'd be weird. It's just that, well...

"No, no, don't slow down on my account! Please, the quicker we go the fresher the rabbits will be. I'll do my best to keep up!"

See, Micaiah was a nice person too! She didn't want to make the nice lady feel encumbered with her or restrained or limited or anything. Feeling like a burden was never ideal!"

WHAT the fuck??? Dude, she just, like, disappeared. How far away was the camp, even? Actually, no, that's not important. What's important is that ever second counted now. Every millisecond. Every nanosecond. Though not to the same speed, had Micaiah used her Asura Aspect she could've followed shortly after in a few seconds herself. That's not the point here, though. It wouldn't be the same.

Missing only one beat, the girl quickly put some stride in her step and started running as fast as she could in the same direction. However long it took, however far it was, she started gunning it with only the merits of her natural physical body alone.

Her average speed was still crazy good, and if it wasn't for the absurd exhaustion she was experiencing after a several mile sprint, she'd let it be known how proud she was. It only took around 20 minutes for her to go 5 miles, but it took everything she had. By the time she reached the camp in view, she immediately plopped to the floor and rolled onto her back, her chest rising high for deep breaths. Those breaths were the only thing audible from her end.