Heartkiller: Pure Souls

[Antaeus]

[Note: This is a companion piece to the heartkiller series, showcasing how Shinigami will react to the events of Heartkiller. Thanks to Setoku for letting me collaborate.]

Crochet’s stolen sword turned into a Viking style sword, with five stars embossed over the blade. Saying “Nagareboshi  [falling star],” Falernia ran his hand across the blade,  causing one of the stars to glow and fly off the sword. The star chased after Matuharo Inoki as if it was a homing missile. Inoki tried to dodge, but the star was almost impossibly fast. The moment the star made contact with Inoki’s haori, it exploded in a blinding flash. The pain and disorientation was like nothing he had ever felt before, even when training with lieutenants.
Falernia called out to the fallen Inoki;

“Did you know that Jebediah Crochet was a soul reaper for 200 years before opening this shop? Never stopped training either. His Shikai is amazing. Strongest man I’ve ever been.”

He slid the second star off of Hoshi Katachi, which flew towards Daisuke Morimoto. “Buzz, Mibye Tsuyo!” Morimoto shouted, releasing his zanpakuto into its preferred state of a long umbrella. He opened the umbrella to block and absorb the star, but the projectile moved as if it had a mind of it's own, skirting underneath Morimoto’s defense and exploding. The shinigami chef, completely overwhelmed by the attack, fell back unconscious. Falernia, quickly but in a dignified manner, leapt over to him.

“You’re bleeding, Daisuke,”

said Falernia, his mock kindness making him all the more frightening,

“here, let me clean that up.”

Guillermo Falernia reached to acquire a drop of from the fallen Morimoto, when the a green light surged towards him: The Emarudo no ken, the best and strongest Hado in Inoki’s arsenal,  borne from the DC Comics-inspired mantra that he whispered with one last fit of strength. Falernia couldn’t hold a new form injured; this would work, had to work.
The third star from  Crochet’s sword leapt forward unbidden from the blade, and blocked Inoki’s Kido.

“Amazing, isn’t it, what a well-honed zanpakuto can do? Now, where was I?”

Falernia went back down towards Morimoto, when he looked up and saw a third person walking nearby, a woman who looked like a 70s disco queen in the 00s.  “Step away from them.” She said. The hollow laughed at the new arrival.

“So you can see me? I guess it gets easier when you’re, shall we say, on the way out? Anyway, this is none of your concern, and I do not like people to get hurt unnecessarily, madame.”

The woman pulled at a charm bracelet.  

“I know what you and your Primera are doing, so you are very much my concern.  And in this case, getting hurt is indeed necessary. Zeige Dich, Kristall Wasserspeier.”

The charm bracelet popped open in a flash;  in its place stood, as the name suggests, a massive guardian made wholly out of crystal. The monster flew down towards  Falernia, with claws and fangs seemingly expanding as it traveled. Falernia decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and swapped out  Crochet’s zanpakuto for that of the late, un-mourned arrancar, Jesus Moreno, and used his resurrecion to gain the wings needed to match Wasserspeier’s speed, and flew through a garganta feet away from the threatening doll.

“Your friend is still alive, you should tend to him,”

the now revealed Bount said. Morimoto and Inoki slowly got to their feet, and called to Soul Society to bring the Medical Squad over to tend to Crochet. While standing over their fallen friend, Morimoto said to Inoki.

“The woman, she’s a Bount, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” answered Inoki,

“a Bount fighting with an Arrancar.”

“what do we do, Matu?

“We tell the captains.”