Bullets, Hornets, and Rosemary

Act 1
Marechiyo Ōmaeda had never run so hard in his life.

His legs numb, his uniform stained with rain and sweat, his unsheathed Zanpakuto waving about wrecklessly with abandon, the Vice Captain of the Second Division ran as fast as he possibly could all whilst practically dragging his younger sister with him. The two siblings made their way through a dense, storm-ridden forest, wildly sloshing and smacking their way through mud and puddles, bounding over fallen trees and overflowing streams, and blazing through large and sharp branches with not a care in the world for what potential scars it would earn them.

The young teenager was in just as sorry a state as her brother was; her kimono was covered almost head to toe in a foul combination of sweat, dirt, and spots of still fresh blood gradually being washed away by the falling rain. Her eyes cracked and red, heavy from almost nonstop crying at the tragedy that had just taken place, the one they were desperately trying to escape.

"Don't...don't fall behind me, Mareyo!!" Marechiyo shouted, looking back at the young girl with a panicked expression. "We have to... get as far... away as we... can! Gah my sides are killing me!"

"I-I can't... I can't... brother...!" Mareyo started to reply, before her legs started to give out from under her, now being full on dragged through a wet and miserable earth lifelessly.

"Mareyo!" The heavy-set Vice Captain said with alarm, stopping his relentless retreat to attend the young girl's needs. "Listen, listen to me, hey!" He said as he quickly rested her against the trunk of a tree, lightly patting her cheeks in an attempt to keep her from fading out due to exhaustion. "You gotta stay with me, okay?! This is no time to be losing your composure!!"

Mareyo was able to regain herself, partially, mostly due to her annoyance with her brother's coaching. "Y-You're way less composed... than I am, brother..."

"SHH!!" He loudly shushed her, putting a finger to his mouth. "You gotta be quiet, Mareyo! Do you want that monster to come out here and find us?!"

She could only roll her eyes in response. Under normal circumstances, she would be laughing at her brother's antics, but their current predicament was far from normal. Looking back in the direction from which they came, tears began to well up in her eyes and her lips began to quiver. "They... they're all gone... I can't feel any of them..."

"Hey, hey..." Marechiyo, now with a more calm and reassuring tone, placed his hand on his sister's shoulders, trying to divert her attention back to him. "Listen, you can't feel them now because..." He paused, not sure if he could say anything that would truly reassure her under these conditions. He didn't want to lie to her, but at the same time he didn't want her to potentially hurt herself with grief. They quite literally were not out of the woods just yet, and even he knew that both of them needed to stay focused and on their toes.

"Don't worry about that right now, okay?" He said, smiling slightly and patting her lightly on the head. "Let's just worry about getting to safety, alright? The Second Division Barracks aren't too much farther from here. Captain Suì-Fēng will help us get to the bottom of all this, okay?"

The young girl sniffed, wiping her face and standing herself back up, using her brother's arms as support. Marechiyo, realizing that Mareyo was far too weary and tired to keep trekking on like this, scooped the girl up in his arms and resumed his sprinting deeper into the woods. While he may have assured Mareyo that they were headed in the direction of safety, in truth he had no idea which direction they were heading; he just wanted to get as far away from their former home as possible.

After a few more minutes, the two of them stumbled out of the woods and into a fairly large clearing, one that seemed to stretch on endlessly for miles, littered with sickly white flowers that breezed about in an eerily calm manner despite the storm above them. Marechiyo had now hit a complete roadblock; not only was he completely uncertain of where he was going, but now he was absolutely uncertain of where they were now.

But even amongst his encroaching panic, the falling rain, and the occasionally beat of thunder, he could hear it.

''Clink.... Clink...''

The sound.

''Clink.... Clink...''

The same sound that became the genesis of tonight's events.

He turned around slowly, the sweat and rain on his face almost freezing in place as he faced the direction he and his sister had just come from, backing up carefully and further into the field.

"...They gon' hang me... in the mornin'....a'fore the night is done..."

And then came the voice, that dreaded voice. In his retreat from the horrific events that had transpired at the Ōmaeda Clan Estates, he had failed to truly make out just what it was that had attacked them, but with this voice, and the Spiritual Pressure that was slowly manifesting itself before him, he could tell that this was the source.

"...They gon' hang me in the mornin'... I'll never see the sun..."

The being was now fully revealed before them, steadily emerging from the darkness of the treeline with a pair of sinister, glowing red eyes. It resembled a wild west outlaw, or at least the corpse of one, with pale white skin that was dotted with faint grey blotches, all concealed underneath of a torn and ragged brown cloak. Once the being had fully made himself visible, standing at the edge of the field, he revealed a wide, toothy yellow grin as he addressed the Vice Captain and his sister.

"Evenin'."

In Progress