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Post by Root Account on Mar 4, 2008 23:12:34 GMT -5
Spencer's jaw opened wide and he pointed at Kaite. Alex lightly shut his jaw and took him by the hand. "Hmm...you two were easy to crack..." she looked into the distance of the hallway... then she thought of it...the basement... Yes Alex had heard of it from Helen most of the students are not aware of its existence.
"The Basement..." she said and led them there.
They had arrived at a room that said 'Teachers Lounge Keep Out!' it was locked but that was easily fixed she had a paper clip in her pocket that she pulled out.
"Why do you..." Spencer was going to ask why she was carrying a paper clip. "Don't asked!" she quickly replied.
After a few minutes of lock picking she Finlay got the door open she then walked down the stairs and turned on the light.
"So...whats the story?" he asked and sat down in a corner.
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Post by Ayame on Mar 6, 2008 0:00:07 GMT -5
//OOC| This is gonna be a long one.... \\ "So.... What's the story?"Neither Captain nor Lieutenant responded immediately, both taking the time to relieve themselves of their swords and setting the blades down as they took seats themselves. Once everyone had found somewhere to generally lounge around while they explained themselves, the Lieutenant finally spoke. "Where to start...." Kaite sighed, glancing around the huge room. The place was enormous, but pretty empty. "Well.... I guess to start at the beginning, we should explain who and... what we really are." She paused here, remembering what Alex had said about leaving if they 'thought they were from .' Making eye contact with the other girl, she continued. "This is going to sound really weird, but I'll tell you right now that neither of us is crazy. We can prove all of it, if you need us too. ...Right, Captain?" There really was no point hiding it anymore. Toshiro again nodded silently, although he secretly just hoped he wouldn't be asked to demonstrate his bankai later—that would not be safe. Not by a long shot.
"Toshiro and I are even less human than anyone else in this school," Kaite began with a ponderous look on her face. It was tough work, trying to figure out how best to answer the question. "In fact, normal humans can't see us. They can't sense us at all unless they're having an out-of-body experience, or else are spirits of the dead. Our race is know by a lot of names, really—in Japan, we're called 'Shinigami,' a word that literally translates to 'Death God'; people who speak english generally know us as 'Grim Reapers,' but the term 'Soul Reaper' is also pretty common, and that's the generally accepted translation among our numbers. "The work of a Soul Reaper is different than what humans generally think—for one thing, we don't go around causing deaths, we just make sure souls pass on to the next world. Perhaps more importantly, however, is that we're actually a military force, not just loners or small groups all doing their own thing. "The majority of Soul Reapers are always in what humans refer to as 'the afterlife'—a place called Soul Society. Soul Society is divided into two parts—Rukongai, home of the deceased who passed on, in addition to several generational families; and Seireitei, where Soul Reapers and the noble families live. "The military itself consists of three divisions—the Special Forces, the Kido Corps, and the 13 Court Guard Squads, also known as the Gotei 13." Kaite paused again, both to get her thoughts in order and to allow time for everything to sink in. "The highest authority in Soul Society is the Spirit King, but he's practically nothing but a figurehead because he leaves everything to his subjects and ignores us all. After him, there's what was once the Central 46 Chambers—six judges and forty wise men from all over Soul Society. Due to events I'll get into later, their number has dropped to a mere fifteen. I don't know about the Special Forces or the Kido Corps, but in the Gotei 13, the next highest authority is Head Captain Yamamoto. After him, there's one Captain, one Lieutenant of the Captain's choosing, and several officers to each squad." Kaite paused yet again, this time to remove her metal armband. Once off, she tossed it into the center of the little circle with a small metallic clang, for the others' inspection. "Toshiro's Captain of Squad 10 in the Gotei 13—his haori here is the only difference between a Captain's uniform and a normal-ranked Soul Reaper's," she added, tugging at the shoulder of his haori. Toshiro swatted her hand away irritably, and Kaite hid a grin. "I'm his Lieutenant—that's my badge. I was assigned here about two weeks ago to check out the school because of a few odd reports, but about four days after I got here...." Natsume gave a troubled sigh and trailed off for a moment. "....I got some really bad news.
"It all started about twenty years ago—when a rankless Soul Reaper from Squad 13 turned up missing in the living world. She was missing for about two months before they found her and took her into custody. She was sentenced to death by way of the Sokyoku for the unauthorized loan of her Soul Reaper powers to a human and for lingering too long in the human world. The Sokyoku was an incredibly large blade on a pole, which possessed all the the power of a million zanpakuto—zanpakuto are Soul Reapers' weapons; I'll explain them properly later, if you want. Anyway, the Sokyoku was supposed to be reserved for the execution of Soul Reapers only of Captain rank or higher, and on top of that, nothing that girl had done warranted any more than a year or two in prison, so her sentence was odd from the start. The offender was given a thirty-day grace period before her execution. "Not long after that, a group of intruders—known as ryoka—broke into Seireitei. Immediately afterward, Squad 11 was quickly decimated, nearly obliterated. That scared a lot of people, because Squad 11 prides itself on being 'the ultimate combat squad.' At that point, three ryoka were confirmed—a big human dude with a freaky right arm, a guy who liked to use fireworks and weird spells involving sand, and an orange-haired Soul Reaper. The carrot-top was the human the offender had given her powers to, come to save her. "The situation quickly escalated. Renji Abarai, Lieutenant of Squad 6 at the time and now Captain of Squad 3, was defeated in battle with carrot-top, and was dealt near-fatal damage—then, to add insult to injury, his Captain had him thrown in jail. Carrot-top also fought the Squad 11 Captain, Kenpachi Zaraki, and almost killed him, too—which is a pretty big deal, 'cause Zaraki's damn strong. Another ryoka showed up and got arrested, this one already in bad shape, so he probably had been in a fight already, although who with was never identified. The Squad 5 Captain, Sosuke Aizen—" Kaite spat the name with a venomous tone, anger and loathing visible on her features, "—turned up 'murdered.'" Air-quotes on "murdered." "The Lieutenants of Squads 3 and 5—Izuru Kira and Momo Hinamori, started dueling at the 'murder' scene. 3rd Squad Captain Ichimaru had arrived and Momo, distressed at the death of her beloved Captain, attacked him out of the belief that he'd been the one responsible. Izuru, true to his loyal nature, stopped her and Momo attacked him instead. At that point, Captain Hitsugaya intervened and ordered them arrested, so they got thrown in jail. "Because the ryoka were the prime suspects and most likely to have information, they were taken alive—all but the carrot-top, anyway, they never caught him. He just kind of disappeared after trying to fight 6th Squad Captain Byakuya Kuchiki, but that fight got broke up by another ryoka, former Special Forces commander Yoruichi Shihoin, who got him out of there fast. Meanwhile, the date of the execution kept getting pushed forward. "A couple days later, all three imprisoned Lieutenants broke out of jail—Abarai and Izuru completely disappeared, but Momo on the other hand.... Well, she went straight after Toshiro...." Kaite turned to look at her Captain at this point. He'd never really told her what all had happened that night—or anything else, from that point on; the reports got pretty vague after this. Toshiro met her eyes momentarily, then sighed and continued for her. It was a matter of the past, no point in hiding it. "I'd been suspicious of Ichimaru for a while by then, so I challenged him when he let Kira out of prison," he recounted evenly. "Before either of us had drawn our swords, though, Momo got between us. I told her just to leave him to me, that it was too dangerous for her, but then she drew her sword and pointed it at me." He paused here, remembering how that had felt. Like utter betrayal. "I asked her what the hell she was doing, and with tears in her eyes, she told me about what had been in the letter Aizen had left for her. I had found it in his room during the initial investigation. It had been dated the night of his death and had been addressed to her, so I had Rangiku—my Lieutenant at the time—deliver it to her. Nobody but Momo ever got to read it. What Aizen had written was that the whole execution was part of an elaborate plan to steal the Sokyoku and utterly destroy Soul Society. He claimed that he had called the plotter out to the place where he was killed to try and put a stop to his plans. Then he told Momo that the mastermind behind the out-of-place execution, his killer, was me. He asked her to do what he could not and kill me. "The really despicable thing here was that Momo and I had been friends for practically as long as I can remember—long before she left to join the military. In saying that I had killed him, Aizen was telling her that her best friend from childhood was the murderer of her hero-worshiped Captain. Momo didn't know what to do. She couldn't handle it and just acted on raw emotion and instinct—her hands were bleeding just from gripping the hilt of her sword so hard. She attacked me, I couldn't dodge in mid-air, and I was forced to knock her unconscious." Captain Hitsugaya's voice was tinged with regret as he concluded the story. "Once the whole thing was over, Rangiku and I took her to the Squad 4 hospital and left her there. We left to appeal to Central 46 to cancel the execution, as it was clear that it was causing nothing but harm to Seireitei, but when we got there.... Every last one of them had been killed, about two to three months ago. As we examined the crime scene, we were interrupted by Kira, who then fled and, once we were a good distance from the Chamber, informed us that Momo had broken out of the protective barrier I had placed in her doorway and had been following us the whole time. I left Kira to Rangiku with that news, and went back to stop Momo, but when I got back, it was already too late." Toshiro paused, remembering vividly what all had happened next. "Aizen and Ichimaru were there, but Momo was nowhere to be found. I used one of our agility techniques called Flash Step to get past them into the residential tower they had been exiting and found her there, unconscious and bleeding from a stab wound through the chest. I tried to fight Aizen as a result, but even though I had run him through, he vanished suddenly and I was the one who was injured. I passed out from blood loss after that." Kaite picked up the story as Toshiro's part in it came to a close. "And I was on assignment in Osaka at the time, so neither of us was there to see what happened next first-hand. The reports we were given gave us the general idea—Aizen, Ichimaru, and the peace-loving 9th Squad Captain Kaname Tosen had all turned traitor and joined forces with evil spirits—the Hollows. Sokyoku had been destroyed. Thankfully, there had been no casualties. The ryoka were acknowledged as the saviors of Soul Society, and were accepted as our friends and allies. They were granted safe passage back home. "A month or so later, Aizen started acting up again. He was sending creatures called Arrancar—Hollow/Soul Reaper hybrids—into the living world. A lot of crazy-ass crap happened then, but the important thing is that, even though we lost all too many brave men and women and nearly lost the King himself, it all ended with Aizen and the other two traitors dead. That brings us back to what happened last week. "Vincent—my 'gay cat friend'—and his friend, Ayame, were attacked by a Hollow. I got there in time to kill it, but damage had already been done—Vincent, being a demon, has a third form he apparently enters when in a tight spot, but he can't control it until he turns sixteen. That other form allowed him to fight the Hollow until I got there, but he attacked Ayame in the process before he passed out. I was able to heal Ayame easily enough, and Vincent didn't need healing, so there was no real harm done. After that, I answered a lot of questions and Vincent mentioned a a ' Battle of Souls.' I asked him to tell me about that and he did—three Soul Reapers attacked the demon clans, using the souls of those killed in the battle as puppets, and then left after they found him. When I asked for names, he only had one to give—'Aizen.' The battle had taken place six years ago—but Aizen and the others were supposed to have been dead for twenty. Which meant he was still alive. What was worse, he had a 'plan' for Vincent, which meant he still hadn't given up on goal to 'stand in heaven.'" "Mm." Toshiro nodded gravely. "I assigned her to keeping guard over the boy and his friend and told her to stand by for further orders. I took the report immediately to Head Captain Yamamoto and, three days later, we held a Captain's meeting. I was permitted to come and aid my Lieutenant while awaiting a backup team chosen by the remaining Captains, but I doubt they'll ever actually get around to it—the main concern should be preparing everyone in Seireitei for battle." Kaite sighed and shifted, unconsciously stroking the hilt of her sword with on finger as she did so. The main body of the explanation was over, but there was so much left over.... "So... any questions?" she asked finally, looking from one face to the other an waiting for a reply.
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