The Assault

Takeshi spread his arms sideways, and made a grinning expression on his face that showed a bit of arrogance. “Who knows, who knows? I can try to convince you otherwise, but in the end you would only have my word for it,” he then looked at the captain “and something tells me you wouldn’t trust it.” The captain made some distance between them. “So you are up for a fight I see. Fair enough.” But even after saying that, he did not take any sort of fighting stance or anything similar. He just stood there for a while. This was on for a short time before Takeshi used the fast shunpou and made an axe-kick aiming at the captain’s head. His grim was somewhat wider now.

Kurokotsu let out a childish giggle as he lightly moved his Zanpakuto out of the way of the Hollow's teeth. "You should know better than to try to do that to something as small as a dagger, foolish Hollow. Wakizashi and daggers are some of the hardest weapons to take away from a foe, since you could never hope to find as good a hand-hold as the one the wielder has." He said, flipping his Zanpakuto in the air and then flinging it straight between the Hollow's eyes.

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"Yes, Captain Ranryou? Limiter removal, we'll get right on it. Give us about five minutes to fully authorize it." A female voice spoke sharply, the sound of keys being struck furiously heard in the background. "Make that seven, we are having a few issues right now. Over and out, sir." She finished up, ending the transmission.

What in tarnation's going on?! When the other figure with a zanpakuto had appeared, Levi had assumed that he was some kind of undercover shinigami since he was dressed in street clothes. But now the captain and the other guy were fighting each other. "Well, guess I'll have to fight that hollow by myself." Levi could feel that this hollow was stronger than many others he'd fought, but he still didn't want to transform.

Levi decided to make use of the bulletless minigun. He began to swing it by the empty ammo belt around his head, like a chain mace. When he was swinging it as fast as he could, he let go, and the 150-kilogram gun went flying towards the hollow, infusing it with some of his energy so that it would fly farther and with more force.

"Well, that's new," Kaiser said, as he saw the spell doing its work. As the barrier was surrounding the Menos, Kaiser held his sword up and closed his eyes, concentrating. "Cry, Hell," he said, and the sword suddenly glowed and became longer, going into its Shikai form. Suddenly, a Shadow Aura surrounded Kaiser and his reiatsu became incredibly hard to correctly detect. He then looked down at the ground.

"Everything has a Shadow... even the Hollows," the Captain said and he watched as his shadow grew longer and wider, until it reached the protected Menos. He also watched as he shadow merged with Meno's Shadow. Kaiser then bent over and was ready to draw his Zanpaktou. As soon as he was ready, Kaiser slashed at his shadow and the blade of the sword actually went into the Shadow. If his Wormhole Trickery technique worked, the Adjucas was about to get a very nasty surprise.

Sorva frowned when he saw the Shinigami release his sword. His confusion turned to worry when suddenly the Shinigami's shadow and his own shadow melded together. Right as he saw the Captain go to stab his shadow, he figured out what the ability was. He quickly dodged to the right right as the sword came out of the shadow. However he was a little slower then necessary and the sword slashed deep into his arm, almost completely severing it.

Screaming in pain, he shot several feathers with much more powerful energy right at the shadow. He wanted to see if this was a one-way pathway.

---

The dagger buried deep into the hollows skull as he groaned in agony. He could feel himself being destroyed, if he took even a little bit more damage, it would be the end of him. As a last ditch move he opened his mouth as wide as he could, his five rows of teeth aiming at the shinigami. With a release of power he shot all of his teeth at the soul reaper. He didn't know if it would work, but he hoped he could at least do a good amount of damage due to how close he was.

---

"Seems that the human still wants to fight." Yukus murmured to himself. However, he laughed as the human threw his weapon. Physical objects would do little damage to someone as strong as him. He stood still waiting to have it bounce off and hopefully demoralize the human. What he hadn't counted on was the amount of energy infused into the minigun.

With a terrific smash, the minigun slammed into Yukus nearly knocking him out immediately. Staggering in shock and pain, he backed up further away from the human. He had originally though it had just been a special anti-hollow weapon. But it seemed that the human could infuse physical objects with energy.

Despite his pain, the menos still felt calm. It seemed that the shinigami and the other person were in the middle of fighting. They would keep each other preoccupied while he dealt with the human. "Your soul will taste wonderful in my stomach." With those words, Yukus punched the ground next to him with one of his fists. There was a brief flash of energy and then it seemed that everything went back to normal. However, where Levi couldn't see, the piece of ground had been branded with a strange symbol.

"It seems you underestimate humans, big guy." Levi now had no weapon, and the other two were still fighting each other. Plus, the hollow had punched the ground next to him. It could have just been a show of force, but Levi had learned from experience that hollows rarely do something without reason, especially in a battle. Well, guess I have to use it after all.

Levi took off his shirt, revealing a barrel-chested body. He gathered his energy and then released it. A shockwave of energy shot out from him, smashing all the windows in the area. When the dust cleared, Levi had his bone cannons jutting out of his shoulders. He grimaced from the pain, but stood prepared for whatever the hollow could dish out. "You won't be eating any more souls. I'll put an end to your misery."

Chuckling lightly, Kurokotsu held both his hands out in front of himself. "Bakudo number thirty-seven, Enkosen." He said quietly, the disk of pure reiatsu gathering in front of him and deflecting most of the fangs. One of them managed to break through the barrier, but Kurokotsu lightly twisted his body to avoid that last one. "Now I'm angry, dear Hollow. So, I think I'll show you the true form of the one who will kill you." He said with a smirk, jumping up and grabbing onto the handle of his Zanpakuto. "Unfurl your wings, heavenly being. Twist their ambitions, demonic host. Hekikaisou." He called out, the blade extending as it was still buried to the hilt inside the Hollow's skull. Hopefully, it would shoot straight through to the other side of its head as it went from a wakizashi to a full-blown broadsword.

The hollow just sighed as none of his attacks hit. It was the end, even a crazed monster like himself knew that. As the blade pierced through his skull he closed his eyes. The hollow mask disintigrated and his spiritual body collapsed. An old man was left behind for one moment. He nodded a quiet thanks to the captain before ascending to the Soul Society.

---

"What the fuck?" Yukus asked, dumbfounded. "What the fuck is that?!" One moment the human starts stripping, the next he suddenly has cannons coming out of his shoulders. He had never seen or heard about anything about this type of occurrence before. He had found it weird that a human could even control spirit energy, but now suddenly he was transforming?

"You look more like some weird hollow then a human right now you know?" Yukus called to Levi. He was trying to provoke him and get him near. He could attack from where he was with any of his attacks, but he really didn't want to catch the shinigami's attention again. However, he did send two balas at the human. Either the human would get closer to avoid them or show what those cannons could do.

Kurokotsu sighed as he willed his Zanpakuto back to sealed form and slid it back into its sheath behind his back. As he did, he noticed an extreme raise in spiritual pressure coming from somewhere near him. With his disguise fully gone, he used Shunpo to appear about twenty feet behind the strange man. The first thing he noticed, he was definitely human. The second, he was shirtless. Third, he was damn cute. Then, in his daftness, he finally realized the weirdest thing of all...he had cannons coming out of his shoulders.

Picking his jaw up off the floor from all of that, Kurokotsu slowly regained his composure and began to watch as the human engaged in battle with one of the Adjuchas. 'Well, I definitely want to study him...Question is, where would I start?...' He thought to himself, a creepy smile overtaking his features.

"Maybe so, but I'm definitely more human than you." Levi wasn't going to bite at the hollow's bait. It was obvious from the hollow's humongous arms that it was a close quarters fighter, and getting closer to it did not seem like a good idea to Levi. Besides, Levi was a long range fighter, as his transformation suggested.

The two balas didn't even faze Levi. His cannons glowed for a split second before he released two energy blasts of his own, roughly equal in power to the hollow's balas, so that the balas collided in a shower of spiritual energy. Levi then proceeded to shoot a devastating barrage of energy blasts at the hollow. I'm not playing into your little trap. You're the close range fighter; you come to me.

Yukus sighed a little. He really didn't want to use any attack that would alert the two fighting shinigami. Then again, they did seem to have focused most of their attention on each other and were really just ignoring him. Probably would stay that way regardless of what he did. Seeing the barrage of attacks coming he sent out another cero, moving his head around to sweep the area and destroy the spread of projectiles.

Then, as if to piss him off further, another Shinigami came over towards the human. This day just gets worse and worse huh? Where the hell are all these bastards coming from? Don't they have subordinates to beat up or crap like that?" Luckily, this one seemed to be more focused on studying the human rather than fighting. This seemed to be a bit of a habit of the shinigami recently, maybe their job of "kill all hollows" had been changed to "lets just be arrogant bureaucrats and ignore the beings that could blow up the city".

He punched the ground to the right of him with his other fist, another flash of energy occurring for an instant. He was always glad of his appearance. Most people usually thought he was a close-range fighter. While he was decent at that, his main power was more useful at long ranges. He grabbed the two branded pieces of cement and chucked them at the human. Adding to the chaos, he also shot five balas so the human would have to deal with lots of fast moving targets.

And the trap is ready.

The captain dodged the attack no problem, as expected. He then did a spin, got in the air and made a kick aiming at Takeshi’s face. Earlier on, Takeshi noticed the captain smiling briefly, so wondered why that was. He saw the kick coming straight for him, but it was slow enough for him to dodge. Leaning back and dodging the kick matrix-style, Takeshi noticed the symbol on the captain’s back. Second squad huh? So that’s why he was smirking. Guess I’ll turn this into “let’s see when he takes out his sword.” Takeshi himself made a little jump and a spin and made a swipe with his arm, aiming the back of the fist, once again for the face. In the whole process he got a brief look at the human, who seemed to have transformed. But he believed that the guy could handle himself, so Takeshi, in turn, would focus on the captain. Let’s see if he goes as far as removing his limit. His expression still arrogant.

Something's wrong. Levi felt sure of it. He was missing something important, something that he should have picked up, but he didn't know what it was. Levi's cannons began to rotate as he prepared his technique. Better watch out for this hollow. He easily shot down the balas, then began to shoot at the cement blocks, attempting to break them apart. He did not make the connection that these blocks were ripped from the area where the hollow had punched the ground earlier.

Nodding slowly, Kurokotsu quickly took out a tiny notepad and wrote down what he observed. First, he made a note about this strange human who could gain cannons on his shoulders and fight Hollows. Then, he described the powers this Adjuchas seemed to have: A decent ability for Bala and the ability to rip cement clean off the ground and throw it with such force. "I wonder...what other tricks does he have?..." Kurokotsu whispered, slightly perplexed. Most Adjuchas-level Menos had more tricks than this one. So, either he was a weakling, or he was just holding out on his stronger techniques.

Well it would seem he wasn't a pushover as he had earlier thought. He even had enough skill to both dodge, and counter his attack. Although that was to be expected from someone with the level of reishi he had. he knew what he was doing. but the 2nd Squad Captain wouldn't be one to be defeated by simple hand to hand combat. As his enemy dodged his Captain flow him with his eyes. His body still in the spin of the kick. As his enemy made his jump, and came around with a back-handed fist the 2nd squad Captain would copy his earlier dodging attempt, but with a twist.

Quickly solidifying the reishi around his feet the Captain was able to make a standing floor below his feet. having finished his spin, and slowly floating to the ground as his enemy jumped to his level. As the back-hand came the Captain would bend back at the waist. Dodging the arm, and bringing his right leg up to block, and stop the motion of his opponents limb. Then with another mid-air maneuver the Captain would use his left leg to completely trap his opponents arm in a leg lock. Which would quickly turn into the Captain solidifying the reishi around his hands. Letting him gain traction on the very air. With a twist, and spin the 2nd squad Captain would try, and launch his enemy into the near by building. Which would take him flying past the human, and hollow from earlier. He wouldn't even be surprised with the man hit the hollow during his flight. It didn't matter. He still had 6 more minutes to wait before anything interest would take place.

A few quick moves and Takeshi found his arm in a lock. Takeshi’s trajectory would involve smacking into a building, possibly hitting into the Adjucas beforehand. He didn’t really care, but somehow, being launched through a building had little appeal to it. The throw was a success, at least the first part of it. Takeshi was launched, yet didn’t panic at all. As soon as the captain let Takeshi go, Takeshi in turn, got the captain by the end of the Haori and pulled. This would force the captain to move towards him, and at the same time, him towards the captain. In the same instant, he got his legs close to him and made a dropkick, yet again aiming for the head.

Being grabbed was the last thing Ranryou expected. As his hoari was pulled with the male Ranryou knew something was up. Sstill however a smirk found it's way to his face. With a sudden twist the Captain would come out of the Haori. the kick now hitting him in the abdomen. Still however the Captain took hold of the leg, and smiled. His free left hand held out straight. Directly facing his enemies face. "Hado #31 Shakkaho!" From his palm a red ball of energy formed, and a split second latter it fired. not with enough to kill the man but to do enough damage, and put distance between them.

His leg got caught and a kido was aimed at him. Takeshi held out his hand as soon as the spell was fired. A small explosion between the two of them and and they were covered by smoke. Knocking the hand off with his other leg, Takeshi jumped out of the smoke screen, stood up straight and looked back at it, waiting for the smoke to fade away. After it did, he then looked at his palm. There was a small burn on it, but no more than that. The reason being that he coated his palm with a bit of reishi when the kido hit. The thing was that he kept his reatsu low, on a level which was something between a lieutenant and a third officer maybe. “Honestly captain-san, you have to kick it up a notch.” He was looking at his hand, opening a closing it a few times, and had a smirk on his face “Because you’re making this so easy…” he looked the captain straight in the eyes, with more arrogance than ever “that I’m actually getting worse.”

Sliding from the cloud of smoke Ranryou came to a sudden stop 20 or so yards from the opponent. He just needed to by time for the release. He didn't really feel up to fighting this guy, but he also didn't know a thing about him. be he enemy, as it seemed, or ally. Currently all he knew what that he was a Shinigami, and that at least the level of a Vice-Captain. So he was obviously finding something. "Could the hollow have been attracted by his spiritual pressure. Maybe the humans also." Sensing through the smoke Roga know knew another was present. It had been present for sometime. A fellow Captain. Dokueki. "Oh wonderful!"

Shortly after the Captain looked thorough the fading smoke at his opponent. It would seem his hand was a little burned. As expected the Captain knew this. With the limiter the Captain was on his toes, but so far his enemy hadn't given him a reason to get serious. And nearly not enough to get the always ignorant Mizuchi to get serious. He was quiet so he was sure he wasn't concerned about the fighting. Meaning if now if he used his Shikai, it wouldn't be more then 15% of his strength. "Damn!"

Straighting up, and rolling his uncovered left arm Ranryou slowly walking up to his hoari, which he had twisted from his enemies grasped before the explosion, picking it up, and flapping it a few times. Putting it back on before turning towards his opponent.

"If you get any worse you'll find yourself dead. However, before your skill grows to decrepit, I would like to ask you this: Who are you?"

Kaiser stepped back just enough to avoid getting skewed by the feathers. It helped that his shadow was stretched away from him. Kaiser thought a bit, then decided to try something else. He then clutched at his chest and stumbled a bit, feinting a heart attack. He then fell... right into his shadow. He disappeared into the shadow, which seemed to blend into the Hollow's shadow. Kaiser then rose through the melded shadows inside the barrier and behind the Menos, silently. As soon as he could, he sliced at the Menos's stomach and neck, looking to sever both.

Sorva wasn't even remotely tricked by Kaiser's sudden feint. He moved forward as the Shinigami fell through the shadow pulling some of the feathers from the outer shield to push the zanpakuto to the side of his body. Instead of being decapitated, he just got a decent cut on his back. However, he mentally cursed as the effect he hoped for didn't happen.

Damnit. So many feathers in the shield and I use some that don't have the special property to them! However, this is interesting. He is closer and has a higher chance of killing me in close up fighting, but it is much easier to smash him with the feather shield. And even if the slicing ability doesn't. do that much damage, the acid from that other hollow's gut should do some damage.

With that thought he sent five high powered feathers at the Captain. At the same time he started to bring the feather shield in closer. Lets see who gets killed first.

---

"GOT YOU SUCKER!" Yukus cried as he clenched his fists. The brands on the cement glowed for a moment before releasing a huge beam of energy directly out of the brand. Both had the strength of a cero and were hurtling quickly due to the extra speed from being thrown.

Yukus' smile slightly faltered as he realized that he had misjudged when to set the ability off. While one of the ceros was flying right at the human, the other's brand had tilted right as he set off the attack. Due to this, it was now hurtling right above where the humans head would be. At least it will keep him from just jumping over the other one.

Crap! Levi's eyes widened as the two cement blocks thrown at him grew bright and two ceros shot at him. Luckily, his cannons were fully rotating now, and Levi unleashed thousands of thumb-sized energy blasts, tearing apart the cero aimed directly at him. However, he could not shoot apart the second cero, which shot right over his head and burned the top of his hat.

Levi was hitting himself for letting himself be fooled by the hollow's appearance. Didn't his mother always tell him not to judge a book by its cover. But more importantly, his favorite cowboy hat was ruined. "And I don't have a replacement!" Levi took off the remnants of his hat and looked at it longingly. Then he turned back to the hollow, steam figuratively blowing out of his nose. "You just made me mad, buddy." With that, Levi aimed his cannons at the hollow and shot thousands more blasts in its direction. The hollow wouldn't have such an easy time blocking these blasts with its arms like it did with the minigun; not unless it wanted its arms blown to bits.

Kurokotsu quickly put his notepad away, walking slowly up to Levi once the energy blasts had faded. "Name's Kurokotsu Dokueki, but now's not the time for formalities. I see your hat got burnt to cinders and it seems like you need some help here. Want a little bit of assistance?" He asked just loud enough for the other man to hear, pulling his Zanpakuto out as if to show he was ready to go.