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This article, A Complicated Visit, is property of Rage Shenron. |
In an Arcade somewhere within Karakura Town sounded a highly indignated snort; a white haired man had to his horror used up all the gaming chips without having acclaimed a single victory of any sort! With another ridicolously exagerrated groan, which attracted the attention of every human in the building no doupt, he sleazily walked towards the entrance, his head bown in defeat.
Alejandro's luck had seemingly worn out, not that he usually won the games, but he could at least win once or twice on a visit to the Living World; human games were so challenging, but there wasn't much of an option concidering that Hueco Mundo had no Arcades, as horrible as it sounded.
Alejandro walked into a snickelway with his hands planted firmly in his pockets, and when he was sure that no one had followed or noticed him he exited the odd faux body which he had "loaned-and-conviently-forgotten-to-return" hid it, and walked back in front of the Arcade.
Alejandro growled at the building, before he raised his right hand to face the structure, as he began to accumulate green Reishi in his palm, soon taking the shape of a moderately sized orb of swirling green energies; Alejandro was just about the fire the Cero when his thoughts finally caught up with him; while it would no doupt be really satisfying to just blow the whole thing up, if he did so the place would no doupt be swarming with Shinigami rather quickly and that'd just be such a pain in the ass. Alejandro instead prepared to open a Garganta.
"What do you think you’re up to", a man with the tattered black cape yelled at the white haired man, who was about to fire a cero. He was looking at the arrancar from the rooftop of the opposite building of the arcade, he jumped off and gently landed right beside the white haired man, and grabbed his hand quickly before he could fire a shot.
Alejandro looked at the hand as if it had just bitten him, he didn't answer the question of his assailant however; opting instead to let an orb of green energy subtly take shape some yards beside the man in question; the orb charged itself up at an astoundingly fast pace; before it fired a thin streak of condensed Reiryoku towards Alejandro's adversary, the beam was thin and could quite easily be avoided - provided that the assailant let go of the Sèptima's hand first; it was aimed towards the mans abdomen, something which could easily prove very dangerous should it hit.
Alejandro smirked in presumed triumph at his opponent, when the latter released his hand to dodge the first Cero, he'd simply blast him with the previously generated one, oh how he loved to put opponents in a pinch!
Saigo deflected the spiritual energy based attack with nothing more than his sealed Zanpakuto, and redirected the attacked towards the sky, in order to not cause any civilian casualties. He tightened his grip even further, as he attempted to get the white haired man’s attention, "I am going to ask you again, who are you and what are you doing here", Saigo asked with a menacing tone of voice.
Alejandro struggled against the assailant but to no avail, closing the distance between them Alejandro proceeded to speak, a faint green light subtly taking shape in his eyes; "I'm Alejandro Nuevo, an Arrancar whom came here in order to visit the Arcade, my homeworld is rather dull you see" - with a smirk Alejandro's eyes shone up brightly with a green light - as two potent beams of Reishi quickly accumulated themselves and shot out towards Saigo's upper chest, aiming to pierce him clean trough, the close proximity of the two would make the attack pretty much impossible to block, albeit he could likely dodge it if he let go of the Arrancars hand.
In that precise moment Saigo let go of the arrancars hand, the energy blast barely missed him, Saigo re-appeared behind him, with his Zanpakuto aimed at the arrancars back.
"Now you listen to me, if you try anything like that again I’ll make sure to put a hole in your stomach the next time. If you’re bored, then I don’t mind taking you down, but not here, open the Garganta, we can fight to our hearts content within the deserts of Hueco Mundo", Saigo coerced his opponent into doing his bidding, or else there would be dire consequences.
Alejandro groaned but he still did as he was told, with practised fluidity he tore open a Garganta, making it into a clearly discernible pathway trough the sea of swirling black energy; as the two of them passed trough to Hueco Mundo it wasn't the white dunes of sand that caught Saigo's eyes, but rather enormous stone trees and branches proving that they were indeed in what was known as the Forest of Menos.
Saigo removed the Zanpakuto from his opponents back, and made some distance between the two, "I am Saigo Murakami, and I will be your opponent".
Alejandro rolled his eyes before he vanished in a sudden blurr, a tearing sound was heard as the air rushed in to fill the empty space left behind; then only silence, before several arrows of green Reiryoku shot down from various angles all at once, amidst the trees Saigo would glimpse several moving figures, moving along the branches of stone and bombarding him in unison. The green arrows seemingly detonated in a violent release of Reiryoku upon contact with the ground.
As this spectacle unfurled; Alejandro repositioned himself stealthily some yards behind Saigo, a green bow composed entirely of Spiritual Energy in hand - staying true to the Discipline of Kyūdō, Alejandro drew the bow with his left hand as far as it could go, before releasing; Another arrow, much more potent than the ones before was shot out towards Saigo's exposed back at great speeds, aiming to skewer him while he was busy with the rain of arrows from above.
The white haired arrancar was fast with his attacks, Saigo noticed several beams of spiritual energy coming at him from different angles, and he managed to dodge the first set of arrows by moving accordingly to their reaction time and speed, he distanced himself a few yards away from the area that was engulfed with a barrage of explosion, as a result of his spiritual arrows.
He could sense that his opponent had merely used the previous set of attacks as a distraction, and the arrancars true intention was to attack him from behind. As someone of his experience would know, the backside is the most venerable spot for any living creature, using quick reflexes and thinking, Saigo turned around and stopped the incoming arrow with his Zanpakuto, and redirected it towards the upper levels of the forest.
The attack generated an even more powerful explosion that before, the denizens of the forest were certainly rattled by all the commotion caused by the two warriors. Once the dust cleared and noise from the explosions settled, Saigo began to assess the current situation, "is it even possible for a Hollow to use Quincy like abilities, I’ll have to be careful with this one, despite his power level, there is more to this arrancar than meets the eye".
Alejandro snorted at his opponent, he really hated to fight against strong opponents - it took so much effort to make them break - he had known from the start that his opponent was a good deal stronger than he himself was but hadn't expected him to block those attacks, he had to focus more on his surprises.
Alejandro vanished once more, creating a long tangible stream of afterimages, whom mimicked his movements precisely, looking down below at his opponent he proceeded to release a barrage of Balas seemingly pointlessly in the sorrounding environment - the Balas did however stop in midair before they reached their percevied mark, illuminating the area like countless small green stars.
Alejandro then awaited his opponents next move, biding his time to formulate a good strategy.
As the blasts of Balas rained from above, they indiscriminately attacked anything unfortunate enough to get caught within their blast range, however Saigo had managed to escape the after effects of the blast.
Using flash steps, Saigo appeared behind his opponent, with one hand on the arrancars shoulder, he nonchalantly asked, "now then Alejandro, tell me who are you working for, someone with your impressive abilities must be part of an organization".
Alejandro didn't speak, but instead vanished in a sudden blurr, seemingly what Saigo had caught on to was one of the afterimages the Arrancar had left behind, as the afterimage vanished however, Saigo would note that the Balas that had been shot earlier hadn't fully detonated, and instead were suspended in the air, in total numbering in the dozens.
A laugh from somewhere resounded in the dead forest, before each of the "Bala" combusted upon themselves and released in the form of a cascade of Cero blasts whom came from every conceivable direction, except for one, namely 30' degrees to his left and positioned behind him; this area was however soon filled by a great wave of electricity which rolled out towards the Shinigami with great force, Saigo, would perhaps know the spell cast as Hado #63 Raikōhō.
As the wave of energy enclosed further upon Saigo, Alejandro flashed another self-assured smirk as he chanted "Sprinkled on the bones of the beast! Sharp tower, red crystal, steel ring. Move and become the wind, stop and become the calm. The sound of warring spears fills the empty castle!" - this caused the spell to effectively double both in speed and power, and the large wave of energy crackled as it increased to a massive size, attempting to obliderate the Shinigami all in one fell swoop.
Alejandro fell to his knees at the stone-branch that supported his weight, an aura of electricity sparkling around him as an aftermath of the spell he had just cast. Man, Kidō was tiring. Alejandro couldn't afford to rest though, as he muttered another incantation, his voice supressed by his own spells thundery roar: But soon, six rods of light appeared around Saigo, attempting to slam themselves into his midsection to render him immobile and thus make him defenseless to the massive wave of energy heading his direction.
"Don’t think you’re the only one who can use afterimage techniques", the Saigo that was standing on the battlefield faded into a blur and the real one was already standing behind the arrancar, "now then I am going to ask you again nicely, who are you working for", he asked with the Zanpakuto pointed at Alejandro’s back.
Alejandro growled in defeat, before he spoke "Fine, I yield to you, I'm the current Sèptima Espada and I'm thus subjected to the higher ranked of my brethren" He hated to yield, and he especially loathed losing twice in one day, once in a multitude of video games and another in a battle with a classical "Do-gooder" , nope, this really wasn't his day.
"I see...so you are the seventh Espada, I’ve wanted to meet the newest generation of the Espada, how convenient for me, but I should tell you, that even though you managed to hide your spiritual pressure very well, even in that Gigai body, you should really learn how to keep your emotions in check, if it wasn’t for that little outburst of yours, I wouldn’t have even noticed your presence in that Town. But this gives me the opportunity to have a look around in Hueco Mundo, it has been a while since I came here". Sago removed the blade from his opponents back and flash stepped a few feet away, increasing the gap between the two, he unsheathed his Zanpakuto, and then proceeded to stretch his arms and legs.
"I have to give you credit Alejandro, you really surprised me when you launched those Quincy like arrows at me, for a moment it felt as if I was fighting a Quincy, something I haven’t felt in a really long time", Saigo reminisced about the time he had faced a Quincy in battle. "Now if you would humour me, how exactly is it that an Arrancar such as yourself came into possession of such humane powers? Well we all know that aside from the standard Cero, Hollows have a large number of unique powers and abilities, each with their own set of skills". Saigo finished his warm exercises and continued on with the conversation.
Alejandro didn't get up but simply re-adjusted himself so as to face Saigo; the Shinigami didn't seem to be planning on killing him, otherwise Alejandro was positive that he could long since have managed to accomplish just that long ago. Alejandro proceeded to speak instead "Well, In life I was a Quincy myself, before I died in the Quincy Massacre at least, and sometime after I removed my mask I managed to reclaim my lost memories and with that, my former former powers." Alejandro finished, it was a pretty general explanation, but he didn't feel compelled to tell him anything more about the subject, the fact that he had retained his memories had made Alejandro even more suspicious of Shinigami, as was only natural.
"I see..... that’s a very interesting story, but it seems you don’t like talking about the past, so I am not going to pry any further, but before I finish I have one last question, do you remember the Shinigami responsible for killing you former self".
Alejandro grinned for a moment before responding "No, the one whom killed me is but a faceless blurr now, the Quincy Massacre was over two centuries ago, after all"
"What would you do if you found out that the Shinigami responsible for killing you and your former comrades was standing right in front of you?".
Alejandro actually pondered abit on that before he finally answered "Depends wholly upon what I'd gain from letting them live, or subsequently killing them: I've acclaimed great powers after my death and that is what I find to be most important - besides, despite how I may appear I don't hold grudges for centuries"
"Well that’s good to hear, seems that you’ve let go of what you were in the past and embraced what you are now, an arrancar. Alright then let’s continue shall we, or do you have anything you would like to ask of a shinigami, it’s not every day you get to meet one under these circumstances". Saigo was done with stretching his limbs and grasped onto his blade, despite the curiosity he decided that it would be best not pry into the arrancar’s past, so he just let it be at that.
Alejandro had not stopped planning his assault for even a single moment and as he predicted that Saigo had somewhat lowered his guard due to the "chatting" - Alejandro raised his palm towards Saigo as he muttered "Hado 34# Kongōbaku!" a massive ball of flame was procured out from the Arrancar's raised palm as it moved at great speeds towards the Shinigami and as it moved towards him Alejandro leapt backwards and effectively out of the spells blast range; and even as he leapt trough the air his voice resounded clearly "Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Rage and Compassion, spinning wheel, the eye that looks far, the wind which howls, converge, compel and unhinge the shackles of yer undying fury!" the already huge ball of flame flash-grew to a truly immense size; roughly the same size of a house - Alejandro was by no means done yet though.
Raising his palm out towards the roaring ball of flame, the Arrancar proceeded to release a burst of his Reiryoku towards his spell; which caused the gigantic fireball to explode into a devastating blast of fire and brimstone, before it all converged and culminated in a mighty explosions that served to level a large portion of the sorrounding woodland and propel the original caster many yards away and crashing into one of the stone pillars quite unpleasantly! Groaning and cursing beneath his breath, Alejandro turned his attention back to where his opponent had been, searching for a trace of life.
As the smoke from the destruction caused by the arrancar’s attacks cleared, Saigo was still there standing on the same spot with his Zanpakuto in his hand and some minor bruises, "interesting not only can you use Quincy abilities, but Kido too interesting, but I suggest you think of a better strategy, it will take more than mere kido to take me down, Sèptima Espada".
Alejandro stood up once more, as he calmly unsheathed his sword, holding it up in front of him he served to make a quick cut at his palm; blood trickled down on the ground beneath him as he, with that very same hand proceeded to procure a cero: This Cero however was vastly different from before and it quickly grew to a large sphere of magnenta-colored energy before Alejandro finally fired it, the sheer recyle of the blast sending him skitting along the ground!
The blast soon eradicated the majority of the "woodland" around the duo, and the blast also seemed to spin like a razor and generally behave rather oddly due to the sheer speed and power the Cero had; and the great power that was behind it also served to strengthen the notion that this was in fact a Gran Rey Cero.