Akane wasn’t prepared for an attack upon the human world, not at the scale she was witnessing through the slight gap in the blinds. Rei left without much explanation, beyond the command to ‘stay put’, and had ensured that there wasn’t any escaping the old defunct branch of the Continental they had been using as a temporary base. Akane wasn’t about to just stand back and let her handler do all the work though, eventually finding a spare key stashed away to get the doors unlocked.

She rushed into the streets of outer Tokyo, mostly empty beyond a few straggling escapees running away from the mayhem. A lingering thought plagued her mind, what if they had been drawn to her? Akane had been preyed upon by enough of these creatures to realize that her condition was like a lure for them. The bracelet on her wrist had done a good job at containing this energy signature for the most part, or so she thought.

A light beep emitted from the metallic band on her wrist, indicating a heightened level of energy. “No no no! Not now!” The danger of the situation had her more anxious than she would like to admin. Causing her spiritual power to surge as a result. Akane tapped and prodded at the device looking for some sort of interface to use only to be left frustrated and suddenly all to aware she had been tracked.

One of the creatures crawled out from an alleyway, its pale body and sickle claws coated crimson. It towered over her easily, even if it was some sort of quadruped. It’s pitch-black, spindly form contrasted with the bone white mask. It gnashed jagged teeth and unleashed a harrowing roar.  Akane backed away instinctively, realizing now that she perhaps should have listened to Rei this time.

As she had suspected, it was well aware of her by now and the near glowing yellow eyes were trained squarely in her direction. It lurched forward, turning into a sprint that tore up the road and tackled abandoned cars aside like they were toys. Her heartbeat raced, she wanted to run away but knew that it wasn’t an option. So, she had to fight here or die. There was no other option.

Akane stood her ground, squaring up with the creature barrelling toward her. Knowing she only had the once chance, she put her troublesome energy to use. With little more than a swiping motion towards the hollow’s mask manifesting a bright crescent of condensed energy that tore through the air to strike the target.

The hollow stumbled when the destructive energy collided with it, cleaving through the mask without so much as a whimper. A lucky hit, but Akane wasn’t about to relax.  With her resolve steady, she headed further into the city. Passing by the fleeing inhabitants despite calls to run, and every instinct screaming that this was a bad idea.

Santiago Hambruna had decided that he was going to the Human World to explore the area, maybe even find a tasty meal of Spiritual Energy enriched flesh, as the though made him drool as the Garganta opened into the human world. He didn't realize that other Hollows had followed him, almost making it look like an invasion force as Santiago was the only Human-looking being among the monsters that swarmed the area.

He had been exploring the area called 'Outer Tokyo' for a bit, he found some Humans that smelled like they had strong spiritual energy, but once he had a taste he almost vomited from how little energy they possessed until something on the wind caught his attention. His mouth drooled as he smelled a large quantity of spirit energy, and whomever it is, they are able to use it.

His mouth widened into a feral grin as he found worthy prey of his time, sheathing his Zanpakutou, he would start to head towards the person he senses with steady jumps of Sonido from rooftop to rooftop, leaving a scene of carnage behind him that would make the backroom of a butcher's shop look alot more mundane than it should.

His Hunger was driving him forward, as he felt like he has been starved for his entire life despite just eating. After all, his Hunger is never ending and the Hollows that followed him to the Human world have been avoiding him as he slaughtered some on the trip through the Garganta just to try to slake his hunger, and did not want to be next.

Akane moved swiftly through the chaotic streets, the people in the area had fled leaving little more than smoking debris and the unfortunate remains of those who didn’t make it out. Something was making the hollows around fearful enough to flee and try to feed elsewhere. She ignored the instincts telling her to flee and pushed on until she came across a true bloodbath. Crimson smears and broken bodies littered the abandoned streets, leaving her alone. By now Akane regretted ever trying to escape the safehouse, if that one close call hadn’t been enough to deter her this certainly was.

She found herself in a small shopping district, a walkable street with plenty of abandoned shops and establishments. The owners were unlikely to be around anymore. Akane could only hope that they had managed to flee.

A brief burst of movement in the rooftops alerted her to the prescense of another creature, one she wasn’t so familiar with. At least she thought it was a creature, from a distance it was hard to tell. Wishing more than ever that she’d see Rei appear now to tell her off for escaping, Akane prepared for a fight. Her spiritual energy was fluctuating wildly, the overwhelming pressure of it causing nearby windows to shatter as she passed by looking for somewhere to hide and bunker down until this all blew over. Little did she know she was already close enough to be seen, and there was hardly an area that could hide her energy signature now.

What the Human didn't know, was that Santiago already found them, and he was drooling alot as he sensed their spiritual energy. There's so much, and he is going to enjoy feasting on not only that energy, but their flesh as well.

He would use Sonido once more to get inside an alleyway, now walking out of the opening, his Zanpakutou in hand and using it like a walking stick as with how it was designed, it can be mistaken for one due to it being a seemless design yet they only odd thing about it is the head piece seems to look like the ball joint of an adult leg bone.

To any Human who can sense Spirit Energy might have a problem sensing his as he was trying to hide his enough to lure them in as he let's both the shadows cast by his hair and his own hair hide his mask as he just looked like a very tall old man as even though slightly hunched, the hunch was only to hide his full 6'5" height.

He couldn't hide the design of his cloths as they no doubt look far different from those normal citizens wore, but he hoped the idea of a frail old man wandering the streets of what looked like a warzone would spur the Human to assist him and come closer.

"Oh dear... Where did everyone go? My, there's so much blood.... So much death..... What is going on here?"

It took Akane a moment to recognize the figure of a rather tall old man wandering his way slowly into the carnage. From a distance his strange clothing and other oddities weren’t quite so easy to pick out, and her ability to sense energy had always been awful. It was difficult to try and sense for anything over her own energy. “Hey! You need to get out of here!” She ran forward without thinking closing the distance between them. Akane wasn’t about to let some old guy get stuck out here, and her insistence on playing the hero had her ignoring the instinct to run.

At least until she got close enough to properly see him, but by that point it was probably too late. While she couldn’t hope to really notice the difference, a hollow’s presence was unmistakable. Though he didn’t look like one. Akane had never interacted with an arrancar before and was unable to parse this information in time. Maybe it was just some lingering energy from the attack? She shook her head, keeping a little distance. “Are you alright? You need to find somewhere to hide, quickly!”

She was hesitant to get any closer, that was clear enough, but from where they were now there was no need to keep up the charade any longer.

Santiago continued to act bewildered by the carnage, listening to the human as once they were in range, he couldn't help but smile as he grabs the handle of his Zanpakutou. In a quick and fluid move he performs a slash at them. His aim would be at the humans right arm as if Akane was perceptive enough, they could see that the swords blade was off for it is not a single sharp edge, but something akin to... a multitude of saw teeth.

If the strike connects, the blade would grab and tear at Akane's skin and muscle, hitting hard enough to where Akane soon feels the sheer strength the frail looking man truely had, leaving a rather nasty and brutal gash that is no doubt bleeding quite badly as Santiago now sits up straight, his hair moving to reveal a dark grey mask, atleast a fragment of one that goes over his eyes like either glasses or a masquerade mask if it didn't look like alot of the original mask was broken off.

His tongue lulled out of his maw, and licks the blade in the same direction the blades teeth pointed to not shred his own tongue as eventually a red slurry of blood, skin and muscle is on his tongue which he quickly pulled into his mouth and swallowed it, the surge of spirit energy caused his own to be revealed, like one with spirit energy meets the great pressure of another, Santiago's Reiatsu came crashing down on the human as while Santiago wasn't paying attention, the large hole on his abdominal area was exposed.

"Oh... Oh there it is!!! This energy.... The flavor, the mouth feel.... Mmmmm such a delicious meal!!!!"

Soon Santiago's supposedly blind eyes fell on Akane as a feral smile crosses his bloody lips, exposing teeth that are now stained Crimson.

"Whats your name, please tell me!"

His expression was genuine, he was acting like he wanted to know the name of the person he quite literally tore a chunk of their arm off and ate it right off the implement he used to do the deed.

Akane’s failure to identify the enemy before he attacked cost her, while she attempted to condense her energy and push it outwards to clash against the incoming strike, it wasn’t enough to stop the serrated edge tearing into the arm she used to defend herself. She stifled a pained gasp, stumbling back away from this new foe. Fear seemed to be impossible to stave off by this point, but it wasn’t like she could run for this thing. She ignored the warmth of the blood trailing from the torn flesh of her forearm as best she could.

She braced against the suddenly increasing spiritual pressure, it was odd that anything was noticeable over her own, but something must be boosting this creatures’ abilities. Akane gritted her teeth, thinking over how she was going to get out of this one.

The hollow went on talking about the flavour or something, it made her skin crawl. It made the state of the bodies around here make some sense. As grotesque as that might be, she wasn’t ending up like that. “This ends here! You aren’t going to hurt anyone else.” Akane’s statement was followed by a swift open-handed slash, as if chopping the air, aimed diagonally across the hollow before her.

While the physical attack was nowhere near, it also wasn’t the point. Akane’s energy coalesced into a fine edge that tore through the air in an attempt to strike it and maybe put it down. It worked on the other Hollow and this one wasn’t nearly as large. As much as she hoped though, even if it did hit it was unlikely to slay the hollow outright. But the distance between them wouldn't give it all too long to escape her attack.

- Abilities Used -
- Edge Projection: Cero damage, 1 post cooldown.