Unhealthy Coping Strategies [Santa/Julia]

“I only warned you. I didn’t start attacking until you started growing that shit!”
Julia spat the words back at Santa. How gullible did that Hollow-lady think Julia was? Did she really believe she would just stand down so she could be drowned in flesh, bones and despair?

Before she could release an arrow, something fast and hard hit her and pushed her arm away. The arrow flew away and vanished somewhere in the distance. If Julia hadn’t activated her Blut it surely would have broken her arm. Still...it hurt. It hurt a lot. It was through a leather jacket, a sturdy leather cuff and the Blut and Julia still was sure she would take away a major bruise.

In the same moment the Arrancar charged with a Sonido. Julia reacted almost too late, only a fraction of a second before Santa reached her, catapulted herself back with her own high-speed movement. It resulted in a short, very surreal moment, when both women moved at the same speed, parallel to each other. For this short moment it seemed as if the two of them stood still, while the world around them was a blur. Julia could clearly see the face of her opponent, stare into the intense eyes that seemed to wildly shift color in the rapidly changing light of their movement. Santa would be able to see Julia’s face as clearly: the fair, almost pale, skin, framed by blonde hair, and the greyish-green eyes, in which now fear flickered.

Then Julia extended her movement with another, faster Hirenkyaku and pulled away.

When she stopped she continued to move back, but without Hirenkyakus. Slowly but steadily she began to feel the wear of the repeated use.

Meanwhile dozens of hands started growing, reaching for her, trying to grab her. Panic almost grabbed Julia even before the hands could. She jumped back and fired two, three arrows into the hands, but there were dozens. Even through the fear, squeezing her heart with a cold claw. she realised she couldn’t shoot them all with single arrows.

She drew the string and held the arrow, just a moment longer, and whispered:

“Funkenregen.”

Then she released it. And in quick succession another one. The arrows flew only a short distance, then they burst apart in small flashes of light and ten individual sparks of energy flew away and towards the hands growing towards Julia. The sparks were pretty weak, only a tenth of the strength the original arrows had. But there were twenty of them.

Although she felt the strain with each additional one, Julia used another long Hirenkyaku to get as much distance between her and Santa as she could. When she stopped again her breath was going a bit heavier. A feeling of relief, for being temporarily out of Santa’s reach, pushed back some of the fear, but even thinking about the horrible hands reaching for her sent shivers down her spine.

“Are you really that naive?” Julia yelled towards the Hollow-lady, unsure whether she was even able to understand her. This time there were more than just 50 yards between the two of them.

“Do you really believe I would leave myself open to you and your ‘garden’, so you can grab me and consume my soul? Do you really think I believe you would just go your way? If you aren’t on the hunt, what the heck are you doing in the world of the living anyway? You were the one who approached me after I told you to get lost. You were the one who threw that shit at me. You stand down first!”

Julia wondered if this would really have any effect. Her bow-arm hurt and trembled a bit. And she felt the strain on her stamina. This was only the second time she had to do real battle without a security net in the form of a well trained and well seasoned squad of Quincies protecting the heiress of her family. It was something totally different when you really had to fend for your life. And Jules was far away from her A-game right now. What she felt was about the same an arachnophobe felt when he was thrown into a pit filled with gigantic spiders.

But still, she wasn’t at the end of her rope yet. And she could still kick it into high gear, although that was something she never used in real combat, not even under the protection of her parent’s gorillas. And it was really taxing. but it would especially boost her speed to an incredible level. Enough to outmaneuver the…’garden’. Theoretically.