Clash Of Predators | Anashi & Akira

It was a cold night in the town of Karakura, the full moons pale light illuminated the ground below. It was a quiet night, and only the occasional sound of wind interrupted it. For the spiritually attuned however, the screeches of hollows and clashing blades would be heard frequently. Anashi had only recently arrived in the town, she was naturally attracted by the high amount of spirit energy the town held, like any other hollow, she came to feast. She was prowling the empty streets, looking for some sort of trace of a spiritual being. Whether it was that of a hollow or a soul, it didn't matter to her. She had already eaten two souls that night, a hefty bounty compared to her previous hunting grounds.

She wasn't used to these surroundings, the buildings were small and the streets were empty. In her previous hunting grounds the buildings were huge and the streets were dense with cars, it was perfect for her combative style. In the previous city it was easy for a hollow of her size to slip through the narrow alleyways and escape other hollows or cut off souls. It wasn't detrimental to her battles, but definatly gave her a disadvantage.
Her mind came back to the situation at hand when she caught the smell of a soul, yes there was no doubt about it, and it was a strong soul at that. She raised her head and looked around in an attempt to lock onto the source of the strong smell. It was coming from the east. Anashi didn't waste any time, she began sprinting towards her prey.

At maximum speed it didn't take long until she caught sight of her prey, the soul appeared to be a woman, probably in her early 30's. It was apparent that the woman had sensed danger coming because she was fleeing. The woman was surprisingly fast for a soul, but wasn't faster than Anashi. The predator was steadily closing the distance. The chase eventually lead to a construction site for some sort of large apartment tower. The woman managed to make it inside the construction site before Anashi pounced onto her. Anashi consumed her quickly, perhaps as an act of mercy. She felt a sudden burst of spiritual energy flow through her body. She dug her claws into the ground and released her spiritual energy in the area around her. Once the power surge was over she began prowl once again, inside the construction site. She would wait awhile before leaving, she knew that any spiritual being in the vicinity would feel the spiritual pressure she had created and perhaps investigate. She hoped she would find some easy prey.

Anashi began to grow bored, she had been waiting for at least ten minutes for her prey to show up. Time she could have spent pursuing a target, she began to wonder if by now all of the spiritual creatures have either died or left. Disappointing... She crouched, bending her knees forward and resting her arms on them. Her everglowing eyes not fading in the slightest. She felt the wind hit her back, then footsteps. Her white bone-like ears twitched, something was approaching. She didn't react in the slightest however, she simply waited with her back facing the enemy. She could hear her preys footsteps quicken, and then disappear. She would've laughed if she could.

The feathery sword connected, severing Anashi's right arm cleanly. Time slowed down as adrenaline pumped through the hollows body, she turned her head to look at Akira, her aloof expression unchanging. Without knowing it Akira had fell for Anashi's trap. A fountain of black blood came spewing forth with great force, it attempted to cover Akira and his sword among other things. Everything within ten feet was soaked with the hollows tainted blood. The bleeding stopped soon afterwards, but Anashi didn't spare any time, she tilted herself forwards and planted her left hand on the ground and began to run away from the scene. The hollow was unbalanced now due to her missing arm and as a result her speed suffered, but she had figured that her prey would be distracted for a little bit at least.

Everything that had been hit with Anashi's blood began to harden, to change color. The blood would grow into a muscle-like substance that aggressively stuck to whatever it was on originally, the muscle was a colored a sickly green. While Akira might have been able to avoid this, it was highly unlikely, and if he was indeed hit by the blood then it would quickly tighten around his body, making it slightly more difficult to move and maybe even cause pain. Anashi's eyes darted around the construction site, looking for something she could use to escape at least for a little while. A support beam! she turned direction and ran towards a metal support beam. The beam was holding up the bare metal floors of the construction, this terrain was perfect for Anashi. She started climbing up the metal beam with animalistic speed, leaving a trail of claw marks below her.

She arrived at the top floor of the building, up here there lay many metal poles, plates, and small beams among other things. She deduced that it probably wouldn't take very long for her prey to climb up to face her since scafolding covered all sides of the building. She started to feel a growth emerge from Anashi's shoulder, by the time Akira would reach her she would have grown back her lost arm.

She looked down at Akira from the top floor, the sounds of ripping flesh unsettled her. It was rare for her prey to break free from her fleshy binds, if it wasn't clear before it was clear now, this man was strong. However it was a futile effort to utterly free himself from the green growth, multiple patches of the flesh still remained on Akira, and while it couldn't do much to hurt him now the least it could do was slow down his haste, if only a little. Anashi felt the mans presence grow stronger as he climbed up the scaffolding, he was climbing at an alarming rate even by Anashi's standards. She kept in mind that her arm, along with a hefty amount of blood gathered at the ground. By now her arm had completely grown back, she flexed it casually, shifting her eyes over to Akira. Her prey was acting confident, giving her the first move, and she hated that. She resumed her natural position, planting her hands and feet on the metal floor, digging her claws into the ground with anticipation. She dashed towards one of the piles of metal poles, grabbing one from the pile right before she knocked it over, towards Akira. A volley of at least a hundred mettal poles rolled towards Akira, and at the very least would create unstable ground for him to move upon. After knocking over the pile she would throw the metal pole she grabbed at Akira like a javelin.

Assuming Akira had survived these attack Anashi would sprint towards Akira, hoping that her prey would have been distracted by the unstable ground. The hollow would try and grab Akiras left shoulder with her left hand, digging her claws into his flesh, and then attempt to grab his right hand with her own right hand. She would then try to tear off her preys face by biting it ferociously. Simultaneously the green muscle that had still remained on Akira would tighten in an attempt to slow down Akiras movements. If she failed to restrain Akira Anashi would try to back off and retreat to a far off position.

Anashi was confident that she could match her preys strength, while she was fairly weak in strength when compared to other larger hollows, she was strong for her size and felt assured that she could hold her own against this man. However she hadn't taken into consideration that Akira has used his doll to make himself stronger, this potentially could've meant that she would be overpowered by Akira, even with the aid of the muscle that had covered Akira.

Anashi began to hear singing, to others it may have sounded beautiful but the high pitch caused pain to Anashi's sensitive ears. She looked back at Akira as she attempted to grab his hand, to her surprise the man was fast enough to avoid her grip, for once she was caught off guard. Anashi leaned back just enough to avoid a direct hit, the preys fist grazed Anashi's chin just enough to chip off a piece of bone, she was shocked by how much power this man had. However the mans punch had left himself open. Anashi leaned forward, and while Akira's arm was still extended she attempted to grab the side of his torso with her right hand. She would attempt to dig her claws into his flesh to get a firm hold of him. Up to this point she hadn't felt the affects of the girls singing, but it was starting to take affect.

Anashi's mind suddenly felt clouded, she felt unbalanced and weaker than normal, it was similar to being intoxicated, in her opinion. However she persevered. Using all of it's strength, the hollow attempted to lift Akira off the ground, twisting it's body towards the singing girl, and then throw the man towards her. It was a gamble she would admit, considering Anashi's size it would've been difficult for her to throw the man, especially when under the affects of the mysterious girls song. Either way the hollow had already sunk it's claws into Akira. No matter the outcome Anashi would retreat back abit to create some distance between herself and the prey.

She noticed the tip of her chin was bleeding, spewing black liquid onto the ground. She wiped some of it off with her hand and licked it. Sangre... Down below the building Anashi's severed arm began twitching, the blood around it gathered together and began to shift and turn. Quickly the gore transformed into an exact replica of Anashi, the newly formed clone examined it's surroundings with mild confusion, it wouldn't be long before it would join the fray.

This man was proving to be more durable than Anashi had originally anticipated, the man seemed to simply shrug off pain as though it were nothing, Anashi wasn't so lucky. She felt a fist drive itself into her torso, but she was lucky that it had hit her metallic armor and not her skin. The power of the strike shook Anashi's insides violently and unsettled her, she felt a mixture of pain and shock that she could scarcely explain. After a few long moments of straining, Anashi managed to lift the man up only to be hit on her head by him. However this blow only glanced Anashi, causing no serious damage.

Finally the hollow had ridden itself of the enemy, but was quickly thrown back into the fray. The girls song had temporarily stopped, replacing the beautiful melody with a much more upbeat song. Anashi's eyes narrowed, Schlachtruf.... She took notice of the girls worried expression. Anashi came up with a theory, There must be complications when under the affects of that song... That makes my job simple then... Anashi wasn't about to get into a direct confrontation with the enemy now, Anashi turned around and sprinted over to the edge of the building, she dug her claws into the side of the floor and swung herself into the next floor down. Down here it was pretty dark and only a few rays of moon light were present. Anashi scurried behind a couple large crates and waited.

Meanwhile, the hollows clone had caught the scent of battle and began to steadily make it's way up onto the top floor. The hollow was behind Akira and his doll, and arrived quickly after Anashi had retreated. The clone set it's hungry eyes on the flying girl and silently crept towards her. Once it was discovered, or close enough to the girl, the hollow would wildly slash at the girl with it's razor sharp claws. If the girl was injured then her prey wouldn't be able to affectively fight back, unless of course he somehow had some other trick up his sleeve. The structure began to vibrate and shake intensely, it felt almost as though the whole building was going to collapse, naturally this unsettled Anashi and coincidentally make her clone slightly unbalanced.

Anashi watched her minion recklessly pursue the prey, What the hell is he doing... she cursed her minions name. It was true that the hollow couldn't control her counterparts completely, but she would at least expect them to hold the same intelligence se did. The winged girl flew over to the man and grabbed onto him, the two glided down slowly until the afformentioned minion dived towards them. Surprisingly enough the girl let go of the prey, she was certain the impact caused damage to him, even if he was more than human. The prey materielized a sword while the clone hollow was diving down towards him with claws extended. Oh no!

With a startling burst of speed Anashi stuck her claws in one of the corner pillars of the building and quickly began to grind down, maybe too quickly. It only took a matter of seconds before she hit the ground with a painful thump, her legs strained, but she had no time to react. She turned towards her clone and started sprinting forwards as fast as she possibly could. She would've lost a potentially fatal advantage if she didn't save the clone, the sacrafice that it took to make one of them was crippling, and she couldn't always rely on her regenerative abilities. She was only a few feet away now, the man before her swinging his blade horizontally towards the hollow with determined force. Anashi kicked off from the ground with her powerful legs and leapt up towards her clone. She extended her arms to push her clone out of harms way, time seemed to slow to a crawl as the blade moved steadily towards Anashi.

Anashi straightened her body as much as possible as the feathery blade traveled just an inch below herself, she was thankful that she jumped higher than he swung. The now shaken hollow rolled as she fell to the ground, quickly composing herself as did her clone. Just as she thought she escaped injury, a thin line of blood grew on the length of her body from her head to her waist. It wasn't significant, but it was proof that she had been hit a little deeper she would've died. The hollow looked to her clone and nodded to it, soon afterwards the clone started circling Akira, moving behind him, occasionally snapping it's menacing jaws at him. This was proving to be a little more difficult than she had hoped for. She keenly awaited for the preys next move.

Anashi watched the sword transform back into the afformentioned winged girl and fly high into the sky. Was she simply surveying the battle? No, surely she was there to provide some sort of support, probably to sing one of those songs from before. It was troublesome seeing as how the hollow had no way of reaching her, but it had also been a blessing in one aspect. The prey is defenseless once more... Even when under the affects of the girls song he was at a disadvantage as fighting Anashi at close range was extremely reckless. Besides that, Anashi was fairly certain the prey couldn't keep up with this for too much longer, she could sense him, his movements were getting a little bit more exerted, a little more desperate. However this was just based off of his appearance. The hollow too felt weary from the battle, more mentally than physically though, what the prey lacked in endurance and nimbleness he made up for with strength and raw power.

Anashi had made sure to be careful when defending against his attacks, even the slightest graze could cause damage. Anashi waited for the slightest sign of movement from the prey. There!! She charged, running after Akira with all of her force, compared to her movements the preys were slightly more slow and sluggish. The hollows clone had been crouching thus far, but had now returned to it's normal stance, the clone placed it's sturdy hands on the ground. When in this sort of pose the hollow looked very similar to what a lizard and wolf hybrid might look like. While Anashi dashed to the fight scene to aid it's clone, the clone itself began to brace itself for what was to come. The prey vaulted over the clone, performing a rather impressive spin kick aimed at it's head, the clone responded by spinning itself around to face the kick, then attempting to grab his leg with both hands, all while trying to puncture his skin with it's claws. However the clone would let go if it had been successful. After the kick the clone would also jump back, avoiding the two powerful punches that were to be aimed at the clones weak points.

By this time Anashi had caught up with the prey, bolting past the clone and straight to Akira. The clone joined in and also started sprinting for Akira. Once they had closed the distance the clone would hop up onto Anashi's back and leap at the prey like before, except this time the prey didn't have a sword. And to make sure that his attention was divided, Anashi threw her torso back and allowed herself to be carried by her velocity, her run turned into a high speed slide. She then extended her right leg to try and kick out the preys legs to make him fall over.

So full of confidence she was, this should've been the deciding blow, with this the battle would've ended. She had expected some sort of resistance from the girl, but not something of this magnitude, it was devastating. She suddenly felt an incredible pressure build against her body, a unimaginably high pitched scream filled the area. Both Anashi and the clone groveled on the ground, being pushed down by the screech. The pain was mind shattering, so much so that it made her ears bleed. She was thankful that the screech eventually stopped, she quickly came to her senses, pain still ringing through her body. She only had a few moments to compose herself, the man had grabbed a long metal pole and had just started to swing it. The clone had composed itself, only to be intoxicated by Sirenes song. Anashi had managed to ignore it up to this point but it was beginning to affect her.

Damnit, I don't think I can dodge this without... The tide was quickly turning, but she wasn't about to give up yet. She concentrated her reiatsu inside her body, Brillante! suddenly a large flash of bright light engulfed Anashi as well as the clone. And for a few seconds the two of them were immune to the girls song. Anashi wasn't happy about using such a power so soon, she couldn't use the ability often and tried to save it for when it was truly needed, and to her this didn't seem like one of those times. However now she had a much better chance at avoiding the pole. The hollow jumped high up into the air, avoiding the pole completely, the clone also jumped, but wasn't so lucky as not to have been hit. The pole smacked the clones ankles, shattering the metallic armor that was covering the leg aswell as brusing the muscle abit.

As soon as Anashi landed she charged towards the prey as fast as she could, she made damn sure she would reach her target before that girl used that screech again. Meanwhile, the heavy pole was thrown at the hollow clone at a high velocity, since the hollow was still recovering from the previous blow it could hardly do anything to stop it. The clone managed to catch the metal pole just as it hit it's chest, the hollow didn't escape unscathed though, the bone-like chest plate was now fractured. The force of the poles momentum pushed the clone a few feet back, costing it valuable time. The clone dropped the pole and entered the fray once more, charging towards Akira. Naturally Anashi had already engaged the prey. Once she was in sufficient range she would attempt to open with a speedy punch to Akiras ribcage with her right hand, naturally if the strike landed her claws would penetrate the skin and possibly cause internal damage. After the punch she would kick off from the ground with her left foot, this would result with her colliding with Akira. She would try to grab ahold of the mans head and hit it with her right knee. She had hoped that her Brillante's bright flash had disoriented the prey long enough to allow for such a manuever.

Anashi was startled to see the feather blade drop into the preys hands, she hadn't anticipated this. Her reckless actions had left her open, and thus the mans blade landed a solid hit. The blade managed to cut through the hollows exterior bone aswell as her metallic armor, the blade cut deeply into her flesh causing a sharp pain. As an instinctual reaction Anashi grabbed the blade with both of her hands and pulled it out of herself, making sure it wouldn't cut any deeper. A powerful burst of black blood shot out at Akira aswell as anything infront of the hollow, she quickly jumped back to avoid any other counterattacks. She watched her clone pass her with a gust of wind, pursuing the prey. Anashi watched the man cut one of the supports of the large apartment block, afterwards running to the next.

Her eyes widened as she realized what he was about to do. Is he...Insane?! Causing destruction on this scale just for one hollow, he was getting desperate. However this also reassured her that he was at the end of the line, and this was probably some sort of final move. She was amused, her clone wasn't following orders and staying behind, but this worked in her favor. Her clone was disposable, and would most likely force the prey to trigger the trap without Anashi herself entering the zone. And by this time she didn't see how her clone would be of much use anyways, with it's armor fractured and some broken entirely it would be rather defenseless.

However Anashi wasn't about to just stand idely while her clone was slaughtered, she looked behind to find a pile of slim metal poles. She ran over to the pile and started launching them at the prey quickly, these poles weren't very long or heavy, but in large numbers they might've slowed Akira down from triggering the trap. This would hopefully give her clone enough time to reach Akira.

Anashi hadn't actually planned on the poles successfully connect with the prey, but was satisfied that they had, nevertheless. She felt anticipation build inside her, the clone was so close to the enemy now, if the minion could engage the prey before he unleashed the trap then the fight would be over, and Anashi would get the meal she had originally fought for. However it would seem that the mans will power proved too much, he threw his feathery sword into the support beam, cleanly sliceing it and as a result destroying the construction. Poles, beams, grates, all sorts of heavy materiels fell from the apartment block, falling onto the clone and naturally crushing it to death. Anashi jumped back to avoid any debris that might've otherwise fallen on her, she was certain that her clone was dead, it's spiritual pressence had vanished completely, not that she expected it to survive this event anyways. Even if it had survived Anashi would've consumed the clone to regain her reiatsu.

Anashi's ears perked when she heard the panic that had ensued, she knew this would happen, the building had crashed into an apartment block across the street, probably killing at least a few people in the process. She didn't care much, but the noise would act as a cover for the preys escape. She climbed over the fallen debris and searched the area for the prey. Nothing, he had taken this time to escape no doubt. She was irritated of these course of events, she had spent quite a bit of energy in the fight, only to lose her meal and gain nothing in return.

Outwardly it may had appeared that she had won, but to her she had lost. She may have won the battle itself, but she didn't gain anything of significance from it either. With nothing but a few wounds Anashi set off towards the east, she would nurse her wounds inside the forest, hopefully avoiding any would-be enemies along the way, she definatly wasn't in the condition to fight. As for the results of the battle itself, she was only disappointed, she didn't care to meet that particular prey again seeing as how he was so troublesome, she preffered easier game. The moon held high in the sky, the sounds of clashing blades and screeching hollows still thick in the air...

The End