closed starter for @candice-thunderkitty
Hope for backup or a request for a limit release waned with the unwitting destruction of his own Soul Pager, and it seemed the weather above the plains seemed to agree. Dark clouds blotting out moonlight while threatening calamity with rain and lightning, wind shrieking in his ears to silence the pounding of his racing heart... At any other time, he would pause and revel in the sensations of a storm’s unbridled and unrestrained chaos, but instead, the skies above only played a role of pathetic fallacy to the dire straits he found himself in.
There was no second-guessing it. The high-grade Adjuchas was livid and fought with a fury Kōtarō was not prepared for when he slew his friend before its eyes, and that was only after the shinigami garnered enough strength to power through for a second wind. However, there was something else the battered and bruised soul reaper was not anticipating.
A warning in the air. Faint crackles were sounding off from the steel of his wind-gathering shikai. His hairs stood on end in spite of blood and sweat. The taste of iron in his mouth renewed. His skin began to tingle something fierce. To one so attuned to the weather as he, these signs were enough to send a jolt of alarm through him when he realized he only had seconds to act.
To the Adjuchas’s confusion and subsequent glee, the little shinigami sheathed his weapon, put a lid on his reiatsu, and kicked off hard into flash step with as much force he could muster into his legs. Baring an amused snarl, it readied to give chase and put the poor whelp out of his misery. What, so the Lieutenant finally understood he couldn’t win, and decided to turn tail and run in fear?!
So distracted the Hollow was with its runaway prey, that it could not react in time as lightning splintered the sky, struck true, and seared its very soul out of existence, deafening its final cry with a sickening thunderclap. Robbed of a zanpakutō’s purification by this unusual bolt, it would never meet its companion in the Soul Society, or return to the cycle of reincarnation.
But, that particular wrinkle went unnoticed. Blinding light briefly illuminated the world around him, his eardrums almost popped, the air quaked with a ferocity that shook him to his core, but the Hollow’s reiatsu vanished without a trace – he even turned to find its body turning to ash and dissipating in the gale.
Assured after a few beats that the threat was well and truly gone, exhaustion took hold at last. His legs gave out as he fell to one knee, gaze transfixed on where the Adjuchas still stood until mere moments ago... and not on his surroundings that curiously seem to bear a litany of lightning-induced fissures scorching the earth. As he stared off at nothing in acceptance that he did miraculously survive what should’ve been a lost cause by all accounts, Kōta made to gather his wits anew while he caught his breath, heaved a sigh, and slowly started to come down from his adrenaline high now that he was allowed to rest.
“That... THAT... was WAY too close, what the HELL?!” he yelled, as far as he knew, to no one in particular...
