Clinch River: Come Across with Good Attendance

The bird tilted its head as if curious, though being it was simply an extension of Valentine himself, it was more an indication that he was listening to her, both through her communicative kido and simply through the bird on her shoulder. In his office, Valentine had to wonder what he could actually do for her here. Certainly, he could assist her to some degree, but this was an issue that he knew he had little meaningful way to handle. Closing his eyes, Valentine forced change in that single drone, adapting it to his needs. Not especially difficult, but not something he tended to do around most of his subordinates.

"I'll be here to help when you need, Miss Chiza, and I can have other Lux forces start mobilizing if you think that's necessary. Bear in mind that it may cause an incident, but you're the spiritual expert here. Do you think it merits that?"

It was fairly clear that the bird was a bit strained, speaking in a human manner, but Valentine wasn't worried about a singular drone. He could send another, if need be, but he didn't think that was the only thing he might need to send.

"If you think this is something we can't afford let fall into any other hands, I can start mobilizing, but I doubt we have anyone else more qualified than yourself. This is something of an unprecedented matter."

"Self-evidentally, this has never been seen before on any plane of existence. We've stumbled onto Cthulhu's summer home, here. It has escaladed from an unprecedented matter to an active threat of The Realms. If this energy is allowed to grow out of control, then it will consume the Soul Society and destroy the Balance Of Souls. We can't be wearing kid gloves around this, and while I am not an ends kind of girl when it comes to justifying means, The End is kind of a extenuating circumstances"

"If you need to, I am expendable when every living being in any realm is at stake. Don't hold back just because I am still in here" she told Valantine. Hannah would then...head into where the horrible monster thing had come out from. Time to go have tea with an Old One.

"Noted, Miss Chiza. I'll have our people in the area as soon as possible."

The bird stayed right on Hannah's shoulder as she moved into the tunnel, of course, the tunnel in a bit of disarray at present due to the recent jeep having zoomed through it. Even the recently-decimated barricade in the tunnel was a relatively minor matter, when compared to both the hungry energy pervading the area and, even more notable, the snake-like flesh which curled around much of the rusted, destroyed military equipment. Whatever it had been looking at at the end of the tunnel seemed to have lost its interest, and it turned back toward Hannah as she entered the area, its blank white face still seeming almost child-like in its curiosity toward her.



The face began its crawl toward her, a seemingly endless body trailing out of a split pipe in one wall. The body, or rather the extended neck, wrapped around the rusted vehicles as the face moved slowly, fascinatedly, toward Hannah.

From what she could gather of the surrounding area, they needed a maid or two. Elyss would probably look good like that, all indignant and pouting. Still, fun aside, she came across a monster. Some sort of snake thing with a really long neck. Long necks seemed to be a theme here. It was moving relatively slowly, and didn't have any hostile aura or feel of malevolence. Kido worked on the thing up top, so her barrier should survive at least the first attack, if it was trying to trick her into lowering her guard.

"Do you understand what I am saying?" She asked the thing, walking slowly towards it like she was communicating with an animal. The creature up to was all fangs and no friendliness, so Hannah was cautious and well prepared to burn this thing alive if it turned hostile, but she wasn't going to make the first move.

The masked creature's face seemed to tilt to one side, as if curious about Hannah, though that tilt quickly continued until it was more of a spiral, the masked face moving in a circle until it had ended up tilting all the way back to where it'd started.

Of course, then it simply began moving to encircle her, not seeming especially concerned with her words. Whether or not it had understood them was another matter entirely, but it was also something that would be impossible to discern just from its response. It wasn't even especially clear whether this encirclement was a hostile action, or simply some form of curiosity, but judging from the crushed mechanical equipment that had been left in its wake, the motives of this creature were not quite as important as what it might do.

There was no move of hostility that she could sense from it. It was possible that the creature was just trying to learn things manually. Possible the creature was just like a computer doing what it was programmed without understanding it's actions. A dozen different thing were possible with this thing, and she wasn't just going to light it up because it was curling around her. Her barrier could take a Tactical Nuke before breaking, so she wasn't particularly bothered about it's damage potential.

Though, she could gauge intent by how tightly it squeezed. Grabbing and playing with things was one thing, but crushing got your hands slapped.

"Doesn't seem no even notice the sound of my voice. Maybe it's deaf?" Hannah commented, pondering how else she could communicate. Then, just to be a mad woman, she reached out with her Kaido and began to gently try to 'heal' the monster just in case there was anything wrong with it.

The slow squeeze around Hannah's barrier was certainly tight, and it only grew all the tighter as the muscles of the creature obviously began to strain. Perhaps that in itself would not have been cause for concern, but as it continued to constrict, the same aggressive, hungry energy that filled the area seeped out from its flesh, the barrier slowly, but certainly, beginning to dissolve.

The Kaido, by contrast, created a far more visceral reaction. The energy of the spell was simply absorbed into the creature, though seemingly not in any way that would be called in line with Hannah's intentions. Rather, it was cannibalized by the unknown energies of this place, which leaked from the beast's flesh, and as the kaido began to take effect, the flesh seemed to simply swell, bubble up, grow in an almost cancerous way as it shivered and slipped away from Hannah. It was not necessarily a gesture of fear, and if anything, it seemed almost...pleased.

Its grip may have ended, but now it simply stared at her with those empty eyes.

Hannah knew the energy was corrosive, but this was a degree beyond what she could have reckoned. It damaged even a High 90s Bakudo with but a few moments of contact. And not only that, but it was a Reivore, capable not only of melting and destroying energy, but actively consuming it and growing. Minatumi had lost it's luster in the present day, but a beast like this let loose there when it was still alight would probably threaten the World in short order from the density of energy to consume there.

The lack of hostile intent didn't mean the lack of danger, and in cases like this beast, where it was practically mindless and impossible to communicate with currently, it was possibly all the more dangerous than a conscious, hostile beast. After all, most Hollows lacked hostile intent, as such, more driven by their primal urges than any desire to be violent towards others.

"I'm sorry, little one. There could have been peace if you were born on another planet" Hannah told the thing, giving a sad smile before reaching her hand out and using her Anima Mea, wrapping Heat around the entire corridor. She poured her energy into it, thrice refined by her mastery and Shadow Casting, so that the heat would vaporise him in an instant. No pain, no light, just a sudden hiss and then nothing.

The heat in the area was, indeed, more than enough to vaporize the creature without so much as a moment of pain, though it didn't even seem to register that the situation was occurring in the first place. With that creature removed from the situation, the entryway was now almost distressingly empty, with only a single way forward to go.

"Remarkably impressive, Miss Chiza, though I'd recommend a faint bit more conservative use of your energy, if I were to make an observation. If I'm understanding the situation correctly, it's not likely that you'll be able to recover much in the way of your reserves down here."

Valentine was, of course, simply offering a bit of advice, and reminding her of his presence along the way. He was still coordinating additional forces to move in, but that didn't mean he couldn't keep an eye on his favorite one-in-a-million shinigami, as well.

The path forward was now empty, however, and the only way to move was down the long-abandoned elevator shaft. From the sound of things, it seemed there was only more activity further into the place.

"Would you believe that I am being conservative?" Hannah asked with a chipper tone, carrying on further in. Reaching the elevator shaft, she would descend by Air-Stepping down it, and using the quite moments to shore up her barrier. Her reiatsu sonar was spread out, losing definition in exchange for catching anything moving around out there. She didn't want to be surprised by these monsters.

"I recently created an art called Shadow Casting, which strips the strain of most spiritual powers by a considerable margin. That, along with my abnormally dense Reiryoku allowing me do the same as others with less energy, means that I am using wisps of my power to put these Kidos out. I really hope I don't need to use a Kido at my full power. I don't think the instillation will survive"