Crouching Dragon, Hidden Tiger[Saber/Kenichi]

Such small areas were all over the place, even in a place like Japan. It was always something that she had found.....interesting. When she was alive. Right? She barely remembered, but something.... amused her about the place as she stalked through the area. It was always a test to do this when she did. To slide herself between the realms. Just barely beyond the veil of the world of the living, and hunting by what she could sense.

So many hollows threw themselves into populated areas, and she had to admit: It was tempting. To just force herself into such a place. To throw herself bodily into the masses of people. Why not ....just gorge herself? But something deep within her resisted such things. No.... there was something MORE than just hunger in her. She was more than happy to settle for a slower.....steadier pace of meals. IT was what had her stalking down the side of a building, carefully watching as the hazy form of a plus hovered over the crumpled body on the ground.

"Wh...what happened? Where.... I...oh my god....what...." That horrified voice made her .....happy. Initially, she had been ambivalent to how her victims FELT when she devoured them. But something about that panicked....frightened .....Despair.. It reminded her of something. Something she hated. And when she lunged in and removed the woman's head, shoulders, and most of her chest from the rest of her body, the dull, wet crunch, and the silencing of that fearful voice somehow felt.... better. And now, she had come to vastly prefer it. IT was for that very reason that she had simply....knocked the young woman she had been whispering to off the roof. And as she devoured the rest of the soul, she let her gaze lazily shift to the crumpled mess that had once been a person. She ignored it as water spilled out of her frame and wrapped around her body, until the hollow's body was all but entirely gone, nothing but a slight shimmer as she promptly stalked into a garganta and began heading out through the city.

She didn't eat as .....well as many of the bolder types of her kind. But unlike them, she also lived longer. Ignoring the dull throb of spiritual pressure in the far distance. Some of her peers HAD been in the area, hunting alongside her. But a nearby city had grown active. A shinigami. MAny of the hollows had run off there, to try and group up and simply feed while others fought with them. She had not joined them. A good number no doubt would be slain, maybe even all of them. She was all too happy to keep to herself and simply keep with her steady supply of meals.

And as she stalked....she sensed something....else. It wasn't a soul that FELT particularly....substantial. It wasn't the scent of something she would coax into an early death. But her last prey hadn't gone .... as she had liked. She had TRIED to get the woman to just jump off all on her own. But she had wound up having to just take it into her own claws. As she slithered out of the void, she kept her spiritual pressure suppressed and kept her form hidden as she kept incredibly still. So that slight shimmer would be much harder to spot... and watched as that young brunette walked down below.

The woman she'd killed and eaten's body was a good mile away. Unfortunately, ever since she'd started killing, a lot of the people in town had begun walking in small groups. The humans thinking it was some sort of serial killer. IT was annoying. She had even considered just moving on to another town. But at the very least: this young thing had shown up. Hardly a meal. But at the very least: practice~

"Hello there, are you lost?" It took an effort. To constrict her throat in such a way that heightened the pitch, and masked that monstrous echo in her voice so that Kenichi would hear what sounded like a young woman's voice. A guise that worked fairly well, given how rarely hollows talked, her voice thrown so that it sounded closer to the ground, to keep him from looking up into the shadows where she was camouflaged.

She fell silent when she saw that bit of container fly across the alley and land in the dumpster. He seemed pretty apt... perhaps this man was even a worse meal than she'd imagined. Already she was thankful that she hadn't set her mind to eating him. All muscle and no soul, disgusting. All the same, she kept such revulsion out of her voice as she spoke again.

"Oh....you ...spoke to me. Nobody ever speaks to me.... they usually run away. Are....aren't you scared?" That voice quivered. The soft, timid voice of a lost girl. The kind of thing that always dropped guards. " My name.... I don't remember my name. But I like the name Sasha." Her latest victim's name. All the same, she remained entirely still. She hardly wanted to spook her guinea pig after all.

How....... amusing. "I hide.... because I'm afraid. And unfortunately, I don't think that's the case... I wish I were free." She replied. Words she'd stolen, and yet... "I don't fear you. I just ..... don't think I can trust you. " She ....carefully, slithered down the length of the wall. Slowly, silently, partially liquifying her body so that she glided down the wall rather than prowling on her claws, and moved to settle off to the side, making sure to keep a slight distance and throw her voice slightly elsewhere.

"You...... SEEM nice. But lots of people seem that way. .....Can you keep a promise?" She ventured. Already constructing a mental outline of what to accomplish. He had barely any spirit, killing and eating him wouldn't accomplish much. No, what she needed practice in would just be general conversation. And this one seemed just like the disgusting type to know just how to talk to people incredibly nicely. She daresay, he might have been able to help the REAL Sasha potentially. His personality would be a perfect base to learn from. She just had to be careful.

Excellent. She'd been able to shift the burden of trustworthyness from herself onto him. Sure, it didn't mean he wasn't on his guard, but it DID put him in a position to prove himself. She had no idea how far that would actually carry anything. But it wasn't like she was trying to push THIS one off a building. This was just practice. "Tomorrow.... could you come here tomorrow in the afternoon to see me again?" She asked in her thrown voice. She needed a plan, but also some time to ....digest this fellow's strange personality. A good 24 hours ish. That at least would give her some time to hunt and figure out this strange fellow. First and foremost was information extraction. Even if HE wasn't someone she planned on eating. That didn't mean he couldn't be a useful tool. But.... she couldn't just start pumping him for information. That had gotten her injured before. It aroused suspicion.

So for now, she simply settled for setting up another meeting. One where she would be more ...prepared.

Those eyes marked the path of the young man as he agreed to meeting with her once again. A slight hmph escaping her once he'd actually left. Excellent. Once she was certain that he had left she promptly slithered off into the distance, narrowing her eyes slightly as she began to plan and contemplate what to do. Nothing too risky of course, especially not with that idiot gullibility. Sad as it was, the especially stupid ones were usually the most dangerous. A number of times her attempts at trying to be ....sneaky were thwarted when the dull would sometimes surprise her. Like unwittingly bringing a friend or something. Funnily enough, it was the smartest that were usually the easiest to trick. The smartest, and the most confident.

"Isn't that right?" She glanced toward the gasping hollow she'd stopped beside. The creature was weak. It had been bleeding for days, the little unfortunate thing having tried to regenerate for some time, but failing to do so significantly enough. Taurbatusk was an ugly, greedy centaur-like hollow. One that she'd tolerated being in her territory. At least in so long as they had stayed out of her way. But even now, that creature hissed and wheezed in fatigue. Saber had taken her time. The big oaf drew far too much attention to himself. And so had gotten into a scuffle with a shinigami. She would give him one thing: the hollow was fairly strong despite his stupidity. The big idiot had actually won. Barely as it were. Of course, eating the shinigami was nothing Taurbatusk would ever get to enjoy. She'd immediately snuck in and shorn the big idiot's legs out from under them, and then ate the shinigami infront of them. That had been a full day prior. But Taur was still a fighter, and when she drew close, he would often thrash wildly. But now, being unabel to regenerate the large wounds, he was ...weaker. More helpless now.

"Ah, my apologies. I was just thinking about how the arrogant are easy to trick." She chuckled lightly, as Taur simply growled in weak resistance. Trying to murmur something to her, but she wasn't interested in that. "Nothing to say? You were so vocal before." She glanced around, noticing a few traces of reiryoku around. "Ahhh, a few stray holows must have tried to pick at you. Such a shame you didn't injure any of them enough to eat them. You might have been able to recover your injuries. But it seems that they only managed to further wear you out." She murmured, slowly closing in on them. They tensed, and flumped onto their side, an attempted thrash that only ended in them collapsing onto their side.

"I told you that I didn't want a fuss in my territory. But you're stronger. You can do whatever you want. Well, you don't seem very strong now, do you?" She ventured as she let the air crackle around her, her invisibility peeling away as she looked over her shoulder to the city in the distance. Then back to the injured hollow in the woods. And then, in a sudden vicious LUNGE, she clamped her fangs around the entirety of the hollow's skull and WRENCHED. Prying it's head from it's shoulders in one, sudden, vicious surge of violence that was completely unlike her normal behavior. A sudden, unexpected attack, and the corpse collapsed completely, slumping to the ground as she began to gorge herself, and in moments, the beast of a hollow's body was entirely gone.

And Sabertooth smiled to herself, as water coiled along her frame, washing away the blood before wrapping around her, rendering her once again invisible. She had the full evening to digest and consider how she would handle meeting that young man tomorrow. She always thought better with a full stomach.