Rescuing Wild Animals is Dangerous Work [Closed: Meridith]

[Goro Tachibana]

Goro hurtled into a building, debris raining down around him as he sat in a crater of brick and mortar. Shrieks from below pierced his already aching head, pathetic helpless voices rattling his brain around in his skull like the clapper of a bell. Dust stung his throat and he coughed up a wad of phlegm and blood. It was supposed to be an easy assignment, made easier by the interference of a Quincy and her human friend who had already dispatched one of the two targets for him the day before. It was assumed that the Hollow duo had banded together to make up for their weakness, but the ferocity of the remaining monsters assaults made him question those reports. Then he began to question his own ability and the fire was stoked once more.

Using his blade as a crutch he separated himself from the rubble and took stock of his injuries, the great beast outside, still roaring and lashing out at anything that moved. A cracked rib possibly, from the sharp pain in his chest whenever he inhaled; and a gash above his brow that wept blood into his eye. He wasn't sure which was worse. Aside from that he was bruised and cut all over. Taking a shaky step that lead to a stumble towards a broken water pipe, Goro shoved his head beneath it and forced his eye open to wash the wet dryness out. It flooded the wound and stung like a bitch, but it did the job. It smelled fresh so he took a gulp to cool his temperament and shook the excess out of his loosened hair.

Hurt, haggard, and angry, but very much alive, Goro hopped from the hole he'd made in the top corner of a local bakery to land in the street below, panting hot heavy fury into the air and fixing his gaze on the creature. It was huge, easily as big as the buildings it toppled, and every inch of it was white, haphazard strips of colorless fur creating a patchwork of leather and fuzz all across its body. On all fours it almost looked like a canine, a tail tipped with sharp barbs flailing into buildings, lampposts, and shopfronts. Back-up was the sensible solution, but no sooner had the thought came to him than he felt the presence of his Zanpakuto reaching out to take the hilt of his blade.

"No." He breathed, still recovering from fatigue. He jerked the weapon up from the ground, as if he were pulling it from Nisekunshi's fingers themselves, and readied it in front of him with a single hand. The other was touched lightly to the flat of the blade and he began muttering the incantation. The surge of spiritual power caused by the spell caught the monstrosities attention and with an open slavering maw it exposed rows of razor sharp fangs and bellowed a horrific inhumane cry that loosed sickly green smoke from between its teeth. It charged, tearing up brick and stone and metal, but Goro suppressed the fear by shouting the rest of the incantation into deaths face.

"Hado Number Eleven! Tsuzuri Raiden!" 

Electricity sparked from the Shinigamis palm and arced across the length of his Zanpakuto, crackling light chittering like songbirds. Gripping the hilt with both hands he hurled himself at the beast once more, still screaming the fear into submission as he brought the blade up into a leap. 

Where before there had been an open maw and a pair of crimson primal eyes, there was a mass of great spikes hurtling up to spear him from the sky. Goro had expected the beast to charge blindly, instead it wheeled and whipped its tail. Doing his best to salvage the botched attack he swung and the electricity surged on contact to envelop the Hollow in blinding white light. The force of the tail swatted Goro to the ground and his body bounced against the cobbles as his enemy screeched in pain. 

Blood from his forehead rushed to escape onto the ground and he coughed another splutter of it as the pain cracked open his chest. Another rib, or the same? 

Like a beam of light in the darkness Goro became aware of another presence, this one decidedly outside of his own soul. He couldn't focus, battered and bruised as he was, but he could feel the spiritual surge of somebody readying for combat and a hot flush found the parts of his body that his blood hadn't. Had another Shinigami found him? The stubborn fool dug his nails into the dirt between the cobblestones and pushed, shoving the planet away as hard as he could and lifting his torso from the floor. His blade came next, sunk into the stone to give him leverage, and he pulled himself up its length to stand shakily to his feet for the second time.

Rage wiped his past away and in his foolishness he repeated it.

"You touch that Hollow and I'll kill you!!"

[EXP 5][Total: 5]

[Meridith Sheppard]

She stayed another night. She wanted to head out but something in the air told her she should stay. It gave her time to tend to her knee, and rest her arm. Everything still hurt but it was dull, ignorable. No injuries that would slow her down. So, she got a good night's sleep, eased of the burdens she carried and woke up the next day ready to say goodbye. This wasn't her destination, just a stop on the journey.

She toured the city again, another walkabout. Her last encounter had given her a lot to think about, had helped her focus herself in a way she needed. It had already been worth it, right? If her family dragged her back home, or the Shinigami emerged to punish her or the Hollow showed up and this time she lost she had saved a life. But she had no intention of going down yet. She'd keep going, she'd eradicate every Hollow she found and she'd help every person she could and there'd be a mountain of souls her life would have aided.

It wasn't at that moment. She had gotten her lunch, eaten it against a backdrop of monuments, enjoyed the site of life and began to make her way back to gather her possessions and depart before she felt the tremor against her skin. It was a distinct and increasingly familiar sensation. A feel of poisoned radiation washing over her made her hairs stand up like blades of grass in the wind. Another one? So soon?

One they could have missed but a second? How could they possibly not find the second? She had lingered, but perhaps a moment too long? It didn't matter. Midday, the streets were busy. She could count on there being a response but she couldn't bring herself to leave it to chance.

And so she went, hurtling down the streets for the second time in a second day racing towards danger as fast as she could possibly bring herself and arrived at the sight of the scene she most feared.

A Shinigami locked in battle with Hollow and it didn't look like they were winning. Hurtled into a building she moved to make her stand but stopped herself.

The Shinigami wasn't dead, and if she acted now he would see her and...what then?

She heard the stories. She memorized the names on the family tree. She knew her ancestors, knew their faces, knew the names of the children. She knew which branches ended, abrupt, during the years. She could trace the potential of her family, of her very life and how it had been cut short. She had not known personally the weight of the Shinigami's blade turned against her, but she had worn the consequences of those events as they cut through her family and altered the course of the potential of her life and the ones she loved.

What could we have been if not for them?

Shinigami were the enemy and part of her wondered if not for the people and the danger they were in if she wouldn't have quietly waited for the outcome of this battle to resolve itself...

and finish off whatever remained herself.

But the thought was fleeting because no matter she might have felt about the two of them fighting there were people in danger. With the Shinigami indisposed the creature turned its attention on the people who remained in panic, unknowing what it was that hunted them. She rushed forward performing the same maneuver that had saved her the previous day, albeit with a little more elegance and pulled down a younger man who had found itself unwittingly at the other end of the Hollow's hunger. It locked its eyes on her as she danced backwards and urged the young man away. It didn't take him much to move.

The Hollow only had a moment to consider how it would devour Meridith before the Shinigami seemed to find its footing and engaged it once more. She melted away, around to the damaged structure he had just occupied moments prior crumbling with the damage his body as projectile had dealt to it.

Gintō was made with a purpose. The silver tubes housed raw potential but working them required focused intent. She had some talent with it, but not nearly so much as those in her family. The tubes she had on her now had not been made by her, she had stolen them like a shameful thief in the night. Careless, in her last encounter, to have abandoned her bag in her pursuit. Lesson learned. Sewn pockets in the lining of her jacket allowed her easy access to two such tubes. The amount of power within them presented a dilemma of ease and challenge. She had the power she needed, but the power was harder to shape. She aimed a hand flat toward the ground and formed the perimiter. Dim blue line burned it away against the floor of the building as debris dropped ominously onto her head, covering her with dust of a building that threatened to collapse on her at any moment. She could hear the voices, this building was far from empty. She drew upon the capsules.

Bright blue light shone from the window filtering into the perimeter she had formed and then followed the perimeter's direction. Blue light poured into the structure, through the cracks the parts bound themselves together, not an imitation of the shape of what was but enough to keep the fragile pieces together. Long enough to get those still within out safely. She would have never been able to pull this off herself, thanks only to the power of those that came before her she was able to utilize a Ginto to reinforce the structure.

She turned her attention back to the fight, shifted over in the shadow of the structure and observed. It wasn't going any better for the Shinigami.

He was...

A Shinigami. Black robed and Zanpakuto wielding and...

He was hurting. He was bleeding and struggling and he was fighting on and...

She shifted forward unconsciously and-

His rageful cry shocked her back a half step. He had noticed her and threatened her too. So that was it then? Who could blame her for staying back and waiting for the natural conclusion? He wanted to fight it, so...let him fight it. He was Shinigami, right? This was his duty, right? She had worked quickly to make sure the people nearby would be safe so why not let this play itself out?

Maybe he'd win? What would I do then...

He wasn't going to win. Then shouldn't I...

Hollow, a slavering beast with a vicious crooked maw had come looking to feed on the flock. A protector, imperfect and callous had come to protect it. It descended now upon its desired prey, the protector himself. The prey wasn't helpless, it had fought the good fight but some stories end in tragedy. Would this one? Did she get to decide?

She threw herself forward, gripped tight was the second of a silver tube which she launched forward with all her might. As it impacted with the creature it exploded, tightly packed Reiryoku inelegantly bursting forth in semi-translucent blue flames which threw the Hollow away. It wasn't enough to stop it, blind with rage it lashed its tail outward towards them but Meridith was quick. A single short burst of speed placed her in front of the creature, bow formed, brilliant and bold and tall. Semi-translucent and imperfect but enough for her to do what she needed to do.

The arrow formed, and fired, the creature cried out in anger and hatred as its existence was severed and ended abruptly. The physical husk faded, evaporated into air and nothingness remained.

Silence replaced the chaos tinged by the distance of the response to come. Meridith took a breath to steady her racing heart and pivoted, bow in hand and regarded the Shinigami with a masked expression that might have looked like contempt.

"Let me look at your injuries," she said in a voice that might have come off as condescending.

[Goro Tachibana]

Not a Shinigami, but a Quincy. That only exacerbated his condition, the excitement flaring the pain that wracked his body. An ally he could write off as being a team-effort, but the enemy of his enemy had saved him and that was enough mockery without the consequences that would follow. Already he could see the derisive face of the first division officer reading the report, his chances at promotion crippled. He wouldn't have it. Not again. Never again.

Forcing his vision to clear Goro watched the Quincy girl remove a soul from the cycle, a soul that was meant for Soul Society as all the mortal souls around them were, and was reminded why her kind had been purged twice in the past. Was her hair red, or was that blood coloring his vision? He'd seen the memories of those who were there to witness the calamity, perfectly preserved in crystal and projected into the air as an example to the incarcerated of what happened when loyalty wavered and orders weren't followed. Did she know what she was doing, or was she confident in ignorance? Seireitei demanded a dead Hollow and a soul for the cycle, they didn't say it had to be the Hollows soul.

Happy with her destruction of a souls continued existence she had the nerve to look at him with her holier-than-though glare. He spat, but the intended insult turned into a wet cough as fresh blood stained his teeth. She approached after a moment of deliberation, and Goro's only open eye got a clearer picture of his saviour. Young, thin, soft. Weak. Perhaps she thought she was safe approaching this bloody wild animal, that he'd be grateful. 

Then, by offering to heal him, her insolence went beyond tolerance.

"Protect your pride," he spat. "Nisekunshi!"

The blade supporting his weight burst with blinding pale blue light, and he stumbled without it. The only thing that kept him from tumbling back to the ground was his own rejection of reality, a foot firmly stomped to keep him from falling. Splinters of the zanpakuto flew into the air, swirling like birds and chirping as they cracked and chipped into smaller pieces. Sharp claps, like an icy lake cracking underfoot, pierced the roaring of reiatsu as crystals exploded from the shards. 

"What did I say?" Goro snarled, his body lighter, supported by the strength of his Zanpakuto spirit. Glistening crystal dust rained down as the blue glass split, grew, and split again, refining themselves into all manner of deadly shapes. When the light finally died, a canopy of crystalline weapons ebbed and flowed overhead. Light filtered through them, gleaming brightly as it washed the parisian street in dancing azure melancholy. Beneath that blue light a half-mad Goro stood straight and strong, one white eye, and one bloody red one, both open and furious.

"I said: 'touch that Hollow, and I'll kill you." A flick of his wrist and a crystal tool of destruction vanished from the air, appearing in his hand in a burst of luminance. With a click he trained it on the Quincy girl; a solid lapis pistol, and fired.

[EXP: 5][Total: 10]

[Meridith Sheppard]

She felt sick. Something was wrong. She felt her blood run cold when he muttered something about his pride. Meridith took a half step back and stared eyes wide. A few words spilled out of her mouth by reflex.

"No wait, I ju-" But the rest got caught in her throat before she could say them. She could feel that sense of discord hit her like a wave. The Zanpakuto had shattered into a pale blue light as he forced himself to stand on legs that should not have been able to support him. She staggered back not just in fear but from the weight of what she was sure was a release of Reiatsu.

He's...going to kill me? He meant it? He...

The Shikai marks the Shinigami as a threat to be reckoned with. However, regardless of their power, you must be sure to never encounter them.

Well what should I do if I ever see one?

You won't, not here Meridith. They won't come to our home.

But what if I'm not home?

A pause, calm and quiet that would feel a lot more like resignation later one when she thought about it.

Then run, as fast and as far as you can, and be sure they didn't notice you.

She raised her bow towards him, a living being and stepped a half step back as he snarled at her. She tried to stammer a reply but it was lost in the hum of their deadly weapons. Could she really do this? He was no Hollow, he was alive. She had watched him struggle...could she really?

A weapon raised towards her, and all question of whether or not she could melt away with the pinpricks of white hot terror that surged through her. She did the only thing she could think to do:

She reached forth, seized the beautiful blue gatherings of Reishi and formed it into a lance of light and fired in return.

It happened so quick that when Meridith stumbled back she thought she had been punched. A dark scarlet pattern began to stain her clothes near her right shoulder from the place where the Shinigami's bullet struck. She struggled to grasp her bow and realized that it was gone and then in a rapid rewind the events played out in her mind.

The projectiles streaked forward. The bullet met the arrow and her arrow split and scattered, evaporating uselessly before it even reached the buildings. The bullet slammed into her half-formed bow and then through to her.

But what if they do notice me?

A long silence followed of someone considering the danger of knowledge against the danger of ignorance.

Meridith staggered backwards and gripped her shoulder as needles of pain began to roar in her mind. The dust was already settling and if a second shot rang out she was dead. Move, come on! She let out an angry hiss as fury began to drown out her pain. I watched because I was afraid of this exact thing! And then when it became clear he was going to lose his worthless life I saved him!

He would DARE!?

As the smoke began to clear and Goro could see his quarry once more, his eyes might have caught the glint of the sun off the third tiny silver tube. As it neared him it detonated into a bright blue flash of light that drowned out all the shadows in their arena. It might have done little more than scorch him but hopefully, it'd be enough for her to make her move.

When flash faded she was gone, the sound of footsteps fading as she moved around the corner and moved to hide. She had to catch her bearings, make a plan, and if possible...

That was the last of the Ginto tubes she borrowed from others, the rest would have to be on her power alone.

Timid eyes trended over to the torn flesh of her shoulder and her spilling blood. Meridith was gifted with the knowledge of knowing exactly how much blood a healthy young woman could lose and thus she knew before long that would be a problem.

[Goro Tachibana]

"Pathetic!" He bellowed as the crystal bullet found her bow and broke through, sinking into her shoulder. It would dissipate when he relinquished his Shikai, but for now he was satisfied knowing that every movement she made would make the wound sting ever more as the hateful glass bore deeper into her body. Already he was raising his free hand into a fist in the air, another blast of light condensing into a great shield that he slammed into the ground before him, his legs buckled from the effort, but he refused to fall a third time. Shakily he straightened, then noticed that the attack he'd anticipated hadn't come. Clenching the grip of the barrier it shone brightly for a moment, reformed, and a different shield, this one with a viewing window, allowed him to peer his fury through a tight slit in the crystal. 

It was just a split second, but he saw the tiny little container careening through the brown dust cloud of his last attack. His eyes shot open in surprise and he hunkered down, allowing the explosion to push against his blue bunker. A rush of slicing wind surged through the visor, strong enough to take his sight had he not ducked in time. It was everything he could do to slam a foot back and resist the force of the explosion, and he nearly fell forward when it ended, panting hot fury through the effort of keeping his Shikai released.

Both the shield and the gun vanished, returning to the swirling snake-like arsenal floating and coiling above his head, and with his vision clear he frantically scanned for his enemies frame. 

"I know you're still there!" He yelled out. Her reiatsu was still strong, still close, but where? "Hiding like a coward!"

Doing his best to calm the rebellion of his body he reached out with his senses, a dozen or so vague presences cowering in buildings and muddying the waters.

"Tell me, did your ancestors hide too, is that how they survived?!" With a flick of his wrist a portion of the dancing armory began to coalesce, cracking like ice once more as a new form began to take shape down by Goro's side.

"How long ago was the Quincy purge, anyway?!" He asked, as if discussing the weather. "A hundred years?!" He was quickly eliminating his potential targets, the buildings at his back free of any soul that posed a danger. The ones on his right were devoid of life. The left then. The blue crystals burned with blue light, as if melted in a forge made of ice, and from it emerged a great glass cannon. It's opening was big enough for a grown mans head, and using the lever at it's rear Goro angled it to his left, blood pulsing from his wounds with every exertion of his muscles. He was running out of strength.

"I was around back then, could be I killed your great-great grandfather girl! What would he say if he saw you quivering before a half-dead opponent?!" By then he'd narrowed down his aim to a building with an alley bisecting it from the rest of the highstreet.

"Come to think of it," he said, making the final adjustments. "You do look familiar!"

BOOM

The cannon launched it's payload into the building, clearing the first floor out from under it. Glass shattered from the force alone. Bricks crumbled to dust. And steel beams finished what was left hanging by threads.

[EXP: 5][Total: 15]

[Meridith Sheppard]

She wanted to scream or cry out. The pain that burned away in her shoulder was maddening. What could she possibly do? A Shinigami was trying to kill her, all because she tried to help him. It was insane. Mad. This wasn't real, it wasn't real, it wasn't...!

Inhale, exhale. Feel the breath as it fills your lungs. Recognize the way they expand with air. Exhale and feel the breath leave. That's your life. So long as you can draw breath so too can you manipulate the vital Reiryoku.

She closed her eyes and drew a deep breath. She could hear his words, calling out, taunting her. She drew herself inward. Ignore it. Focus on the breath. Remember. I did not come here to die. She thought briefly of her family. Then her mind held an image of a smiling face. Lyra. She thought of what she had promised her. And she thought of another...

She opened her eyes on the exhale. She reached against her chest and took hold of her cross as he taunted her

The Quincy bow was the iconic weapon but hers was always so pitiful. She tried. Hours of practice across days into countless weeks and months into years. She never got it right. She could form the bow, fire the arrow but it wasn't right. She knew what a real bow looked like, tangible and real, physically present in what she could never imitate. Why was it? It never felt right and she could never figure out why.

Come on, she chided herself. Now's the time...

With her free hand she seized a tiny silver vial, one of the few she made herself and crouched low, placing it into the ground, and moved swiftly, darting to the side of another and dropped a second.

Then froze when he mentioned the purge.

She had never been quick to anger. She held in her heart a sense of forgiveness for all things. She hated the Shinigami more than anything she could ever hate in her entire life, far more than the Hollow that she pitied. And even with that dark black hatred in her she couldn't bring herself to let the Shinigami die when she came face to face.

But...

She felt her teeth press tight together. He? What did he say? She felt distant in a moment, pierced by something cold and far sharper than the bullet he struck her with prior. She felt herself drift for a distant moment and in the space of a breath dragged a ragged sound from her throat.

She never thought of it before, but spirits don't age do they? Oh, four hundred years had passed. It was enough that she had for one reason or another thought that those responsible were long gone but that was a mistake. She felt a sickening pit in her stomach, had she helped one? Had she helped someone who butchered her fucking people!?

inHALE eXhALE feel th-

She gripped her cross so tightly that she didn't realize it had begun to cut into her hand.

RecOGNIZe the WAY they EXPand

She screamed out as the cannon fired, her cry echoing into the cacophony to follow. She ripped her hand along her cross, summoning once more the bow as she had done countless times before as drops of her blood soared sharp arcs through the air and then against the ground. Her Reaitsu flickered and flared outward in wild chaotic bursts. The bow's shape was erratic, flickering and flaring out with ambient Reiryoku. The shot was near her but distant enough that the only danger was the shrapnel of concrete that slashed out against her.

In the silence of the fallout of his cannon fire only a single small arrow shot back through the smoke and dust. He would feel it immediately, a flare of Quincy energy in the dust, then another, as if she was moving quickly again, perhaps still trying to hide.

Two capsules burst one after the other, delivering their decoyed payload.

Then before the smoke cleared he could see her. She appeared in a sudden burst of movement from the opposite end. She wore an expression twisted with hateful fury wielding a bow that seemed like it would threaten to detonate in her hands and an arrow which flickered wasteful energy off it from every angle.

And she fired, pouring every bit of power she had with the singular goal of destroying him utterly.

[Goro Tachibana]

Goro waited a moment as the blooming dust clouds rolled like evil children playing in the debris, tumbling where they didn't belong. When he finally felt the erratic spikes of the Quincy's reiatsu he relinquished the cannon, and it splintered off into crystal pieces that shot to join the collective of weapons above. He could tell from her erratic reiatsu that the girl was hurt, either by his cannonfire or sharp words. Just as he lifted his arm into the air to summon another weapon a blue bolt shot from the cloud, barely missing his wrist. 

"Shit!"

A small roundshield was yanked from the air, barely big enough to shield his face as the second arrow destroyed the barely formed crystal. A second pair of explosions detonated then, throwing off his senses, and Goro kept his eyes wide and searching for some kind of surprise attack as he pulled another shield down from his arsenal to protect himself. But no attack came. Instead she flung herself from her cover, an expression of ugly fury twisting her face into a hellish image, and she let loose a third arrow from the open. Unable to believe his eyes, Goro nearly flubbed the defense, recovering from the sight of such brazen stupidity as he coiled his body, shieldarm held across to the opposite hip, and with a mighty roar that loosed fresh torrents of blood bashed the damned thing into the projectile. Both shattered. Swirls of reishi and crystal created a celestial wind that blew across the destroyed city street. There was nothing then, Goro simply watched her and wondered if that was supposed to be her trump card.

What would she do next? It was plain that as long as Goro's strength held out her petty little reishi sticks weren't going to bring him down. Was she trying to prolongue the fight until he succumbed? No, she'd have remained hidden if that was her plan. Perhaps she was weaker than he gave her credit for. Goro lost a lot of his interest at that thought, and the swirling mass of blades, clubs, shields, and projectiles began to coalesc again, crystals merging upon one another with sharp cracks and chips.

"You know," he began, wondering how far he could push her before she did something really stupid. "It's fascinating. The difference in perspectives I mean." He didn't trust his legs to close the distance without falling, he'd have to keep fighting at range. Against any other quincy he'd be worried that he was in her territory.

"For you, the Quincy Insurrections were the near-extinction of your entire bloodline, a grudge to be held for generations in the hope of one day finding revenge for every man, woman, and child." A spiteful grin, stained with blood. "To me, it was just another day at the office."

Great spikes of blue glass jutted out from a gigantic wrecking ball held aloft by Goro's will, easily enough to level every building along the street. It'd be a pain for his higher-ups, and wouldn't serve him any good either, but he could blame the destruction on the Hollow and the Quincy meddling and get away with it. A chain formed from it, large at first, but shrinking down as it dropped from the sky and into Goro's outstretched fingers. The effort of forming such a large weapon had him teetering, the last of his strength finally ebbing away.

"Tell your ancestors that Goro Tachibana sent you."

Goro swung the chain, and the great transparant maul fell upon the Quincy. The Shinigami wouldn't see the result of his pride, as the world blurred, his body fell out from under him, and everything went dark.

[EXP: 5][Total: 20]

[Meridith Sheppard]

Ugly. Artless. Formless. The arrow drew enough of her energy away that her fury had little to burn as fuel and it too dwindled low into scattered embers.

I could have run away. He wasn't in any shape to chase me. But I let poison in, hatred, as deadly as the touch of a Hollow. He let me kill myself on his words and I threw myself upon it. Why? She didn't regret wanting to hurt him, no...but to let him draw her out like this? Stupid. Stupid!

She staggered backwards, legs trembling as her chaotic arrow bled more reishi off into the air around them than was left for the impact. She reached forward to draw together another arrow but struggled with the effort.

The bow scattered in her hands. She had nothing left to hold it in place. It was stupid to think she might be able to draw another arrow. To fight against Shinigami like she was?

They killed countless of her people, legends were told of those who died. People she wouldn't even think about comparing herself against, and yet here she was trying to do what their wisdom should have taught her not to do. They died, and so would she and what would remain?

His words didn't draw out her fury now, but they did fill her. Dismay. Grief. Indignation. Is this it? Is this all that is to remain of Meridith Sheppard? When they teach of the lineage of her line, what story would be told?

She died, imparting the lesson we always knew. The Quincy's time is over. None should strive for more than a home to keep safe. It is greedy to wish to look beyond. Look what happened? She gripped the emblem around her neck in her right hand as he shifted his weapon once more. Earlier, she had gripped it so tightly it had dug into the flesh of her palm, now dripping with her blood she drew comfort from the familiar shape in her palm.

The emblem of her family, the broken blade. Why was it so? Did she remember?

She inhaled slowly, exhaled at the same pace. She felt the weight of the breath in her lungs, felt the expansion of life. All humans could draw upon Reishi even if they didn't know it, as easy as drawing a breath. Perhaps she had a little left, but what good could it do?

Then run.

Run?

Run. Because you are Quincy. Because you are family. Because you are my granddaughter. Your life is precious. No amount of lives traded could be worth yours lost. Whatever it takes, you must survive, understood? We are few and they are many.

She held the broken blade in her palm, her eyes closed as if in some solemn prayer as the vicious wrecking ball descended upon her. The realization at last dawned. Every time she tried to form the bow she was thinking of another image. She almost laughed. Stupid.

I am so fucking stupid.

Her hand took on a sharp blue glow. Droplets of blood fought the force of gravity, rising upward slowly as some invisible force boiled. She wasn't going to be able to dodge it, not anymore. She had some answers, why she always found herself rushing in close, why she felt drawn to meet them head-on. It didn't matter now, whether she could, she'd simply have to try.

The blue light escaped from her hand, shooting forth in the form of the bright radiance of on her arrows. But as it reached out its shine faded and it took shape, solid shape. In her hands was no Quincy bow, but instead a blade. A long thin blue blade, a flared guard in hand, a rounded pommel that cast a soft light against the shadow of the Shinigami's attack that descended upon her.

She brought it to bear against the wrecking ball with no illusion of the utter lack of ability she'd have to stop it. She did not brace herself against the ground to meet it head-on, merely bore her weight against the flat side of her new blade and sprang back as it hit her. The force was incredible, rattling her body and send her soaring backwards with the momentum of the massive weapon. As she soared, the air beneath her feet caught some form of friction, sending nearly invisible embers as she braced and broke through platform after platform of hastily reckoned reishi. Sloppy, but she slowed.

It might not have been a bow, but her blade bore the shape of an arrow around its flared edges. It might not have imitated a drawn string, but she cast the arrow off with a wide arc as she threw herself from the wrecking ball and sent a crescent of Reishi off the edge of her blade. It was enough to force wrecking ball away from her and continued further towards where her once standing opponent was standing. It missed, scarring the concrete behind him with a deep and grievous wound.

Meridith, far from easily bearing the momentum was flung into the debris of a broken building, gratefully emptied of human life by some blessed soul with the foresight to do so before the fighting between them began.

Safe, if not unmarked.

It took her a moment to drag herself to her feet. By now the world spun perceptibly as she staggered her way towards him. Everything hurt but it wasn't done yet.

By the time she made it over towards him the sound of sirens was drawing near. Worse yet than the mortals who were coming was the realization that he would have comrades as well. They would find him and, if she remained much longer, her as well. But, as much as part of her wished she could use that as an excuse to make it easier to live with she knew she had time to make a choice.

She twisted the blade in her hand, now heavy with a weight from her physical endurance and another unnamed source. She stared down at him and raised the blade above his body.

Members of the Sheppard family wore a blade as their cross. A solemn reminder of the duty that set them apart from the other clans. Unlike a bow, a sword had only one purpose, war.

She had seen him suffering, struggling in his battle against a Hollow. She couldn't bring herself to stand by and watch, and even knowing all that his kind had done to her and her people she placed herself in harms way to keep him safe and extended to him a hand.

Not only did he prove ungrateful he tried to kill her. And mocked all the trauma her family, her ancestors had suffered at not only the hands of his people but of the pain he himself had inflicted.

He was Shinigami. Murderer. Monster. Irredeemable.

Yet, she now saw the same thing she saw when she decided to help him. Vulnerable. Weak. Fragile. Human. And she hoped she could find some excuse. A weakness in her injuries, serious as they were, or the rapidly approaching response.

At the end of the day she knew it was only because there was part of her that was still too weak to kill him.

The blade in her hand vanished, and with it, the wound he inflicted in her shoulder began to bleed again. She winced and grasped it tight, her entire body shuddering against the pain, and exhaustion.

She began to hobble away before she was found sparing one last look back at him as she went.

I was weak today but I won't be next time, she promised. She would find that strength, and next time, she'd use that blade for the purpose it was forged.

War.

She stumbled away as the sound of sirens neared, staggered step after step until the sound grew quiet until the world around her grew still and at last she could move no more.

And collapsed.