All Around Jingshan

Under the Guilty Pagoda Tree
Nestled beyond the confines of the Forbidden City was Jingshan park, enjoying a moment of peaceful stillness in the absence of the usual swathes of tourists passing in and out of its perimeter. In the heart of the garden, a man stood beneath the infamous, a small pearl resting in his palm. A smooth, shape-less black that threatened to swallow everything up in its depth. An ominous aura emitted from the stone, a primordial sensation of sorts that instinctively triggered in all of those within its presence somewhat befitting the eery light that had begun to emit from its form.

Forged from the scraps that remained of the dead, these stones were to serve as a link between the Coven's realm, Home and the mortal realm. Slowly, the powers of the stone would draw them together and allow the essence of the other world to overwrite that of the mortal plane, supplanting its existence in total. To ensure this process went undisturbed, the mage had decided upon taking precautions. Such that now, when he pressed the stone upon the pagoda tree before him, it sank into the bark freely, swallowed up within its confines. Light radiated all around the park, revealing some manner of spell at work, he had subtly altered the properties of the world around him, but the light dimmed quickly and the rules of the park returned to normal, leaving the small sphere perfectly well hidden, deep in the depths of the tree.

"To think I'd find something like this here", the mage mused, his voice deep but carrying an almost soft, melodic air to it. "Perhaps the master had planned it this way".

The sky had begun to darken under the sphere's, a lodestone, influence, so too had the ground begin to transform around the tree, conforming to the unusual landscape of Home. The mage's robes billowed briefly as a small gale began to blow through the air. He removed his hood to reveal his rather impressively feathered headdress, now gently bristling under the breeze.

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A few miles away, another man popped into existence. Though unlike the first, he didn't look like he expected it. The small blue haired man just looked around in confusion. A minute ago he had just been giving his friend, and supervisor, drugs. Now he wasn't in Kansas, or Soul Society for that matter, anymore. "Well this is new..." Chitose said to himself. He'd experienced a lot of things in his life. Instantaneous teleportation without warning was not one of them.

Looking around, he got his bearings. "Well, clearly I'm in the human world. I've now deduced I am in some part of 10% of the known multiverse. Is that a McDonalds?" he said as he noticed the restaurant right in front of him. "I got it, they sent me to America. But I don't have a gun... This may be a problem... Oh well, time to act natural." He walked into a nearby alleyway before pulling out what appeared to be a balloon. Blowing into it, it quickly inflated into a Gigai, a physical body that Shinigami could use to pretend to be human. This one was dressed in a white T-shirt, Camo-Green cargo shorts, and socks and sandals. It even had an oversized waterproof wrist watch. Getting into it, he went into the Mcdonalds and ordered a McFlurry. Then he realized something...

These letters were in Chinese...

"Stupid capitalism, you tricked me..." the small man mumbled as he realized, he wasn't in America... he was in China. "Well I suppose that explains all the Chinese people." he paused for a moment before paying for his ice cream. "Welp, time to figure out why I was sent here." With that, he left the restaurant with his McFlurry in tow, ready to confront the day.

Or a person. A very angry person, no less.

"What the heck are you doing, idiot!?"

A young Asian woman in the unmistakable uniform of the Gotei 13 appeared before him all of a sudden. Asuka Shimizu, Lieutenant of the Tenth Division. A talented, high-ranking officer, diligent, dutiful and with a great latent potential ready to unlock. A high-ranking officer who had just witnessed the death of the Captain-Commander, enemy take-over of the Soul Society and the ensuant displacement of the Gotei 13 forces. To say that she was upset because of the situation was an understatement.

"Do you have any idea what's going on!? Why the frick are you eating junk food and chilling as if nothing's happened, huh!?", she continued to yell at the Seated Officer while flailing wildly with her arms.

Only after a short while did she begin to calm down. She briefly looked around in obvious confusion, then assumed a more confident stance when addressing the fellow Shinigami again.

"You... ugh, Wasuchiru-kun, right? Listen. There's a Covenite sorcerer not that far from here, performing some sort of... magical ritual with a floating... black thing. I wager something's bad gonna happen if he can proceed undisturbed. So, how about you come with me and try to stop him before the whole world turns inside out, eh?"

She pointed in the general direction of the potent spiritual pressure signature emanating from the aforementioned evildoer. Then, she placed her hand at the pommel of her sheathed Zanpakutō. She glanced at Chitose inquisitively, though with a rather stern face expression.

"He's like, over there. You've got any useful combat ability, by the way?"

Chitose just stood there sipping on his McFlurry while the LT went nuts. I wonder when she's gonna calm down.. He then started mentally counting. He got to fifty before she seemed to be running out of steam. He even managed to finish his ice cream by then.

Once she gave a pause so he could get a word in, he put his hands together with a sigh. "Look. The last two times I have seen a member of that organization, they have been leagues above me in terms of power. Unless you have a Bankai I don't know about, which would be nice. I am usually happy about the hidden, Oh I've had a Bankai this entire time Ha Ha Ha bit. We need a plan. I also have a bad feeling about that guy. Don't know why, but his power seems familiar. That's probably a bad thing. The world is a big place. Unless their magic accelerates by a ton, we have time. Now calm down. Getting yourself killed helps no one. Especially Captain-Commander Kyoraku." He spoke to her at first respectfully until the last part, where it was as if he was speaking to a child. Invoking the late General's name wasn't pleasant, Chitose actually liked the guy. But it was a sting that he felt was needed to get her to focus.

He went back to a polite tone "Now, every spiritually aware organization in the region is probably going to notice the rather powerful spiritual presence in the middle of a major city. If we are lucky, we can convince some of them to come and help us. If we aren't, we can try. But my opinion is if we can't get anyone to back us, we try and find a captain. There's gotta be at least one on the human world. As for combat abilities..." he trailed off. "I'd rather not talk about that in the open." He had a feeling he wasn't going to be able to keep his Shikai secret any longer. Which annoyed him far more than most would realize.

Asuka did not appreciate being admonished, by anyone in general but especially by a lower-ranking officer. Usually, she was the one to scold others, as she had done just a moment ago. Nevertheless, she did listen to Chitose with pouted lips. Then, she bit the lower one at the mention of the late Captain-Commander. She liked him as well, although more in a manner a young woman could like him. There was a lot to process from the recent events. Unfortunately, the situation did not seem to be getting any better since then.

"Of course we need a plan, silly, that's why I asked for your ability", she replied while rolling her eyes. "And it's definitely not the time to have any secrets about that."

She turned away from him to gaze into the distance. She placed her hands on her hips and began tapping her foot on the pavement.

"You may be right that we won't be able to beat him even with a good ambush, though", she admitted reluctantly after a short while. "I'd know if there were a Captain nearby. I wouldn't ask you for help if that were the case. There may be some other people more or less willing to help us, but are you sure we've got the time to find them? I've learnt the history of the Soul Society, you know. Waiting for things to happen and taking one's sweet time when they do is the doom of the Shinigami, with the most recent example... transpiring right now."

Eventually, she looked back at the 6th Seat who, despite being short for a man, managed to be noticeably taller than her. She was compensating for that with her face expressions, though.

"So, have you got any contacts in China? Because I don't."

"I mean, the guy who made the McFlurry looked familiar for some reason. Not sure where I have seen him before though. Uh, I know there are Quincy in China, the question is whether or not they know the Quincy I know. If they do, then yes, if they don't... I mean the main Quincy organization Stunde is sort of on our side? Though whether they'll back the shinigami over this Coven... I have no idea. We did kill a ton of them." Chitose responded. He neglected to mention he hadn't seen his Quincy friends in over a hundred years, and wasn't even sure if they were still alive. Shinigami didn't travel to the human world much beyond official business, and Nemu had been much more careful with her paperwork than Vice Captain Hiyori ever was. He did still send them small birthday presents every year though, so he had that going for him.

"The time, its more do we have a choice? We go there and die, well it's not like it would make a difference from if we had waited." he continued with a shrug.

"As for secrets. It's less that I care if you know, and more I'm concerned as to what would happen if the Central 46 were to ever find out exactly what my sword does... I've kept my shikai hidden for 200 years for a reason." He said as he grabbed the Liutenant's wrist, dragging her into the alleyway next to the McDonalds. There he gave her a basic display of his shikai, showing how it made his Mcflurry cup basically indestructable before cutting it's shadow, causing it to fall into halves. "Seika no Hikage reverses cause and effect between an object and it's shadow. Living objects can still move, but overall an object can't change it's shape, or have it changed, except under the most extreme of circumstances. So if I was to touch your sword with my shikai and you attempted to release it..." he trailed off to let her fill in the blanks.

The thing was, Asuka was not one to wait for an issue to solve itself, or to shy away from danger. True, she was in no hurry to die... but she was a soldier, after all. She was determined to thwart the enemy plans. Especially after what they had already done within such a short timespan. She was not fond of the idea of searching the area for friendly Quincies to help them all the while the sorcerer remained imperturbed. Once Chitose explained the ability of his Zanpakutō, though, that got her thinking. She supported her chin on the palm of her hand and started tapping her cheek with the index finger.

"All right, I've got a plan", she said eventually after letting out a short sigh. "We might look for some reinforcements and let the sorcerer finish his ritual, with no idea how to undo it when he's done. Or, we might take the risk and attack him, now. If we both use our Shikai well we might pull off a successful ambush. Or die trying, whatever. Anything's better than just standing here idly. So, here's the plan."

Afterward, Asuka described the best strategy she could come up with given the urgency of the situation and the knowledge of their Shikai powers.

"So? Attack or kick about?", she asked, somewhat exasperated.