Clinch River: Gotei, Rollout!

"Yeah not gonna lie, this is gonna suck…" Amon whispered to himself and his comrades, he paid only half his attention to the figure who now was backing off, with him saying, "Pussy."

The triangular defense scurried about from the first table to the next. Amon was quick while not going too fast for important information to slip on through, and like a bad habit, Amon "slipped" important looking papers into his pockets rather fast. He took mental notes of everything he skimmed through and was careful to pull important names for further reporting and his own research. Whether this place was going to be leveled later or not greatly depends on the situation. Personally, he'd burn everything in the building, the last thing they needed was a zombie outbreak.

Despite his dismay at the information he was looking for, Amon still pressed on with the group, giving hand signals as they unfortunately grew closer to the bodies that were Human. They stunk like literal hell though. As they moved closer every thud from the falling bodies, the writhing of limbs and the ever growing smell were sending off warning signals throughout his head. Amon's Asauchi spoke, which was rare but when he was stressed it came to him in a heavy Spanish accent telling him to ease up. Right now they were close to the threat and despite his eagerness to usually fight, the young Shinigami was very leary on the fact they were fighting possible zombies. He didn't want to get bit today.

"Gaddamn!" Amon expressed as quietly as possible, a writhing body in a crumpled mess through a shattered table was making more of a mess than he wanted. Without hesitation he quickly stabbed the individual through the head, and as soon as he went limp he rolled the carcass off the scattered papers and was quickly rolling through them. He still kept mind of anything moving toward them, or crawling, whichever worked.

The Big Woman

Hanako Yamada

The trio fell into their defensive position, but while they did it she heard Hayden. Although his words seemed to defy her, the tone of his voice said something different. Actually Hanako was glad to hear it. Hayden had been like a silent observer until now, just tagging along. She had grown just a tad worried about him…until now. Yes, there may have been defiance in his voice, but what Hanako had heard wasn’t a Shinigami willing to defy his comrades, but death. That was all that was important at the moment.
When she looked over her shoulder at Hayden their eyes met for a short moment and she reciprocated his grin and nod in kind.

“I think this time you’re understating things.” Hanako whispered over her other shoulder to Amon.

When the ‘rain’ began she knew that she had been right. The instant the bodies hit the floor Hanako was reminded of rain and it, together with the smell, almost turned her stomach. Luckily she was quite used to suppressing feelings and bottling them up inside. Feelings of disgust and revulsion were no exception. It would probably haunt her in her dreams for a while, though.

What came down from the rafters was no longer human…but it once was. Their shapes were humanoid, although they were disfigured and mutilated, barely recognisable if it weren’t for remnants of clothes. Hanako’s first impulse was to call these beings corpses, only that they weren’t. They were living, somehow, in a tormented perversion of existence. Much to Hana’s surprise, pity was mixing itself in with the revulsion. Even the existence of a Hollow was less tragic, less senseless, than these mutilated beings that had once been human. If she slew a Hollow it would be cleansed of its sins committed since he had donned the mask, and the soul it had once been was sent back into the soul cycle. These zombies would lie here and rot, the souls inside them probably so far deteriorated that neither Plus nor Hollow could spring from it. Damn it, even if she, Hanako, were to be eaten by a Hollow, she would become part of it instead of just rot away and turn to dust. It was maybe a grim, cynical way to look at it, but almost everything was better than the existence these former humans had to suffer.

With a quick movement Hanako was at the pile of fleshy debris that had come down next to the door they had entered through. A fast and precise cut separated the head from what was left of the body. In an instant she was at her comrade’s sides again. Her eyes went up at the rafters and a moment of pointless rage at the rest of the creatures flared up inside her.

But then she saw another shadowy figure up there. She knew it was a figure only she could see. It was big, its proportions not entirely human. And although it was shrouded in darkness she knew that it was clad in an old style samurai armour.

”Control…” Bakumusha said to her. His deep and calm voice was as pleasant and calming as ever to her, although there was a sense of urgency behind it this time.

Hanako gave a slight nod, the movement barely noticeable, and he disappeared from her vision again. She had understood. Rushing into battle and attacking these things out of a misguided sense of revenge could do more harm than good. They seemed to be fragile, but that could be a misjudgment and they outnumbered the group ten to one, easily.

It was rare that Bakumusha spoke to her when she wasn’t visiting him in his realm. He only did it on occasion, when he felt it necessary, being a teacher that preferred to teach with patience and measure. It was interesting that recently he had started to show himself as a shape or a shadow in her view but in the real world.

“Breach…” Hanako said in a low voice over her shoulder. She rarely called Amon by his last name, her usage of it now emphasising the urgency of the situation.
“We need to get out of here.”