Welcome to Gaia! ::

-20080924-

IMPORTANT! THIS MESSAGE HAS BEEN SENT TO EVERYONE IN THE SEIRETEI BY CAPTAIN DAVEN MOTO-

"Attention every Shinigami of the 13 Protection Squads. Attention. This is Daven Moto, Captain Commander of the Sereitei. I need your attention please."

Daven paused for a few breaths to allow people in the middle of tasks to stop.

"In a meeting in the Captain's Hall, Captain Yukimaru of Thirteenth Squad and Captain Onalim of Fourth Squad have been kidnapped by the new leader of the forces of Hueco Mundo.

"This is a blatant attack on the forces of the Sereitei. As such I am calling for an all out war to be waged against the Hollows, Menos Grande, Vasto Lorde and Arancar.

"Seated Squad members should be prepared to lead your comrades in battle. All Vice Captains are to report to the Meeting Hall immediately if you are not already here.

"Please be ready to follow your Captain's orders when they begin to be issued. Because there is no direct connection from the Sereitei to Hueco Mundo, we shall all have to go to Earth first, then to Hueco Mundo from there. We already have a detachment of shinigami on Earth as an advance team. I shall be consulting with them quickly.

"Meanwhile, all personnel are to prepare themselves. There is no need to do anything at this moment, and action taken before having knowledge will be worse than taking no action at all. Rest assured, we shall be invading, and we will be getting our Captains back.

"Please work through the Squad command structure for anything you are doing. Send any ideas you have, or information you have, to your Vice Captains and to your Captains to forward it to me.

"The name of the Arancar who perpetrated this crime against us is Hogosha. (( Image sent as part of the spell )) This is what he looks like. This is what his reiatsu feels like. As you can tell, he is a very strong Arancar and as such the Captains will be the ones to fight him if it comes to it.

"Have no fear, we will get our companions back. Please stand ready to receive orders. All training is canceled (( although training RPs started before this may be finished and those skills used in this plot )), and Seventh Squad, as always, be responsible for maintaining the security of the Sereitei. Other members of other squads will also be assigned to supplement that duty, as well as some members of the Seventh coming on the attack. (( For Plot purposes, the seated members will be joining us, unseated members may join us, but the bulk of the squad who are NPCs will stay behind. Anyone not posting or wishing to participate will stay and guard the Sereitei. ))

"That is all."

I WILL CREATE A THREAD WITHIN THIS DIVISION CONCERNING THIS NEW WAR PLOT. PLEASE STAND BY FOR ANY FURTHER INFORMATION.

-20081112-
Trying to keep some consistency with the way Captain Nagi posts. Anyways, I want to apologize for not being as on top of things as I should as a Vice-Captain. I hope that the people who are here stay here though ( I beg of you crying ).
You guys will be seeing a couple of threads popping to the top of the list with new posts, but they will mainly all be locked. Please disregard these. The squad is not getting a new captain, nor is it getting a make-over. I am just trying to clean things up a bit so that we do not have numerous dead topics. Thank you for your patience!

03032009

So it seems Captain Nagi is back. YAY! As for the seating competition:

Round 1 - Sonia vs. Razgriaz
Winner: Sonia.
Round 2 - Namon vs. Sonia
Round 3 - Razgriaz vs. Namon

Thank you to those who are participating. I apologize for not having it go at a faster rate. The next battle should be set up promptly!

(Suri PM me which two kido you ok'ed me to learn

Quick version: Raz follows suri to earth trains two kido that were approved where he finds his family, as he's leaving Hollow comes and murders what is left of his family he murders the hollow very...forgivingly. His spirit sees this and decides to leave him because at the core Raz changed. Thus the new spirit takes its place after much...meditation, etc etc blah blah blah he gets the concept that fenfir approved. After returning he acquires the new spirit/shikai/bankai concept.

After Sonia's promotion to Third Seat and moving with Fifth Squad to Earth after the invasion of the Seiretei, she began to study and train ever harder. She detested the fact that the Shinigami had been pushed out of their home and she wanted pay back, but to do so she would have to become stronger. As a result she took it upon herself to take initiative and start her own training regiment that pushed and taxed her. Sonia allowed this training to consume her, and as a result she developed a stronger rapport with her zanpakuto's spirit, Nanami.

Her level of commitment and strength seemed to get noticed as Sonia was offered a position by Captain Tansen. She has chosen to become his Vice-Captain.

Kido Training
In an old corner of Fifth Squad's grounds was an run down administrative building. More than likely it had been attached to the barracks at one point but with the squad's expansion it had become obsolete and fell out of use. It was a thickly structured building, the walls were strong and seemed capable of withstanding great impact. In this old building was a small auditorium, capable of holding maybe a hundred or so people but it had a fairly large stage, and upon this stage was a young maiden, golden hued tresses cascaded down her back as she stood dressed in the typical shinigami uniform.

Sonia had come to this place frequently, it was remote and out of the way and saw very little attention. She had cleaned it up a bit, moving out seats and removing the old tattered carpet in favor of a new rubber padding. She had hung targets in the rafters and brought in some training dummies. She worked mostly at night and had managed to avoid detection, not that she was doing anything wrong in establishing herself in an older part of the grounds. But she had wanted to keep it a secret, a sanctuary for herself. She had originally been brought here by Suri but had since took it upon herself to remodel the space.

On the stage beside the blond was a couple of textbooks, all of them opened to two different topics. Bakudo 37 and Hado 33, Tsuriboshi and Sokatsui respectively. The young shinigami wanted to become stronger and had determinedly set out on her own to learn these two kido; she realized that the superiors in Seiretei were currently hard pressed and she refused to take what little time they had to rest away from them. Instead, she was taking the risk and teaching herself how to perform the spells.

"Okay Nanami, its our time to shine; we'll get through this together!" Sonia remarked, to most it would appear that she was speaking to herself but in fact she was speaking to the great leviathan that existed in her zanpakuto. The weapon which had been left exposed upon the table responded to her by pulsing slightly with reiatsu. 'I'm here Sssonia, are you ready to begin?' the great beast hissed in her mind. Sonia nodded her head in affirmation. 'Very well, we start!'

Sonia raised her left hand and held it before her, cupping her hand she released her reiatsu and like an opening spillway; the spirit energy rushed forward into the small basin that her hand had become and quickly expanded into a beach ball sized orb. Narrowing her eyes slightly, Sonia's brow furrowed in concentration as the orb began to shrink in size but gain in density until it was the size of a golf ball. A bead of sweat gathered on her temple as she compressed the orb further so that it was about the same size as a pill.

'Good Sssonia, now remember this hado you are about to try isn't that much higher than shakkaho and worksss on the sssame principlesss ssso it ssshouldn't be too difficult to learn. You have sssome experience under your belt now ssso I won't bother going on about the prudence of utilizing incantationsss but remember that initially it isss alwaysss a sssafe bet to ussse the incantation for sssomething like thisss.' Nanami said as she explained to Sonia the workings of this new spell. 'Do you remember the incantation?' the leviathan asked her.

"Yes Nanami, I remember you made me memorize it before we even began." Sonia remarked crossly at the zanpakuto, as if the spirit that coexisted with her was trying to exasperate her. "Ye Lord! Mask of flesh and bone, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Truth and temperance, Upon this sinless wall of dreams unleash but slightly the wrath of your claws!" Sonia recited the incantation for the spirit's approval.

'Very good, you won't have the benefit of obssserving sssomeone elssse perform thisss one ssso you'll have to rely on what you remember from your boutsss with Raz and Namon. Think you can handle it?' Nanami inquired seriously

"I think so; I'm going to use the same frame work as if I was going to use Shakkaho, but I'll use a bit more force and concentration of the reiatsu. If things go well, I should be able to get this done but I don't know just how strong this one is going to be so be ready to pulse." Sonia informed her zanpakuto as she grabbed hold of a rope wrapped around a peg on the wall. Feeding the rope upwards, Sonia lowered one of the targets that she had put up in the rafters with the pulley system that had been installed.

The target hung in the center of the auditorium, hanging in the air with a twelve foot clearance off the ground. Raising her left hand once more, Sonia held it out before her as she slid her right leg back and braced herself for the recoil of the spell. "Ye Lord! Mask of flesh and bone, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Truth and temperance, Upon this sinless wall of dreams unleash but slightly the wrath of your claws! Hado Number 33, Sokatsui!" the young shinigami invoked the words as she poured her reiatsu into the palm of her outstretched hand.

A spinning orb of fire blossomed in her hand and bloomed into a vivid flower of pale blue flames that licked around her hand. With a cry, Sonia gave a 'push' and released the fiery attack. The spinning blue sphere expanded and successfully crashed into the target board. But it would appear that Sonia had once again performed the initial spell too well as its concentrated mass actually allowed the spell to plow into the board and incinerate it without actually destabilizing and exploding like it was designed. Instead the hado continued and slammed into the back wall, where it detonated in powerful explosion that sent the young woman skidding backwards from the shockwave.

When the smoke cleared, Sonia took a look around and seized the hilt of the katana like Zanpakuto. There were small fires burning in several spots throughout the room, but thanks to Sonia's removal of the remaining furniture there was no worry about the fires spreading anywhere. Swinging her Zanpakuto at each of the fires, Nanami released a get of water that extinguished the blue flames. The greatest amount of damage had been done to the back wall, a small crater was evident at the point of impact and was ringed by a circle of soot and charred concrete.

'At leassst you didn't repeat the sssame missstake twice, the firssst time you usssed Shakkaho it was too unssstable, thisss time it wasss too ssstable.' Nanami commented quietly, to which Sonia hung her head and sighed. "Yeesh, I wished I could get something right that first time for once." Sonia complained to herself, and although it had been a rhetorical statement it was like Nanami to reassure her. 'Don't worry about it Sssonia, if everything wasss done perfectly the firssst time then there would be no need for ssself-improvement.' the sea serpent offered which perked Sonia up a bit.

Grabbing a replacement board from the storage room, Sonia slipped the still hanging rope through a hole in the board and made a careful knot to prevent the board from falling off. Raising the board to the same height as before, Sonia climbed up the stage once more as she prepared the spell again. "Ye Lord! Mask of flesh and bone, all creation, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Truth and temperance, Upon this sinless wall of dreams unleash but slightly the wrath of your claws! Hado Number Thirty-three! Sokatsui!"

This time Sonia used less reiatsui and didn't concentrate it as much so when the sphere bloomed in her hand it flared out to the side in an impressive display before it was launched through the air and slammed into the board with satisfying roar as it exploded with a brilliant flash of light. This time there was no collateral damage, just the smoking and frayed end of a rope hanging in the middle of the room. Plopping down on the stage in a most ungraceful way, Sonia took in a deep breath and exhaled contentedly.

'That was sssuperb, Sssonia! Now ressst while I explain Tsuriboshi.' Nanami said in a stern voice, although there was a detectable undercurrent of mirth and glee at the shinigami's success. 'Tsuriboshi like Enkosen hasss no incantation asss it isss a rather free form bakudo. It isss desssigned in much the sssame fassshion asss a net, and you have ssseen both Sssuri and Namon ussse it during your sssparsss. Asss sssuch it will be up to your own dissscretion on how you perform it, but like before concentration is key; you'll have to weave your reiatsssu to create a ssstrong net, a sssimple blanket effect worksss but it can be cut through rather easssily. A braided effect is bessst, but it'll require a greater amount of effort if you want it to work well. I advissse that you enter the trance ssstate for thisss one, you'll need all the help you can get for thisss.' Nanami instructed outlining what Sonia would have to do if she wanted to learn this one correctly.

Sonia listened intently to the sepent's voice as it spoke in her mind, and briefly wondered if other shinigami shared such a strong bond with their zanpakuto as she did with Nanami but put the thought to the rear of her mind. It was an unnecessary question, and an intimate one probably; after all Sonia would feel rather taken aback if someone pried into her business like that.

Raising herself into a sitting position, Sonia closed her eyes and calmed her thoughts. She floated in an inky blackness, a space where there were no distractions and slowly, bit by bit the scenery changed until she was sitting on the deck of a massive Spanish galleon. All around her were ships, a plethora of them that lay on the sea floor illuminated by the sun through the watery prism that each one had once proudly sailed upon. In her mind's eye existed a space that was entirely her own, a world that housed her alternate, her kindred spirit, Nanami.

Nanami, the leviathan, the sea serpent that dwarfed even the galleon that Sonia rested upon. Her back was a light aquamarine, blending in perfectly with the crystal clear quality of the water, her underbelly a pale cream that matched the sand. Her body was long and serpentine, but lined with fins that allowed her to cut through the sea like an arrow of a bow. Four appendages came off the central mass with hand like qualities, each one had the skeletal impression of being phalanges but a taut webbing of flesh between the fingers indicated that this thickly muscled appendages were flippers that aiding the beasts swimming.

Nanami swam up beside the galleon and reared her long neck to look at Sonia. "Welcome home my dear, climb aboard." Nanami said as she lay her head on the deck. Sonia leapt off the deck of the ship and landed easily on creatures massive head. Kneeling, Sonia rested one hand on Nanami's brow while the other gripped tightly to one of the skeletal prongs of the dorsal fin. When Sonia was securely seated, Nanami moved, using her flippers to push off the sandy sea bottom and swinging her tail in powerful strokes the sea serpent sped forward and moved towards a sunken cutter-class ship. "Too better underssstand Tsuriboshi, I want you to look at the rigging of thisss cutter and get a feel for the ssstrength of the roping. That isss what Tsuriboshi should be like." Nanami said as she placed her head next to the cutter's rigging.

Sonia jumped off the sea serpent's massive head and grabbed a hold of the rigging. By being so close, Sonia could see the individual strands of fiber that had been twisted and braided together to make it so strong, and how every knot in the rigging was done to keep the tinsel strength of the bonds firm. The way the rigging was done was such that a knife could not cut through it cleanly, it could sever a few strands but never the entire braid. "I get it Nanami, thanks for the advise." Sonia said to her companion.

Sagely, the leviathan simply nodded her head and swam off. Sonia closed her eyes once again and extricated herself from her inner world. Once again she was floating in the inky blackness that comprised her state of concentration. Here she imagined her reiatsu twisting and braiding itself to be like the cutter's rigging. Strong and powerful, capable of keeping the mast from bending to the typhoons and holding down the sails against hurricane force winds.

Coming fully out of her trance, Sonia stood up and looked at one of the training dummies she had placed on the stage beside her. "Bakudo Thirty-seven! Tsuriboshi!" Sonia called out as she flung out her left hand. Her reiatsu rushed forth, twining and braiding itself as it spun out from Sonia's outstretched hand so that as the net wrapped around the training dummy, it was a strong and fierce binding that would resist even the sharpest blades.

"That worked quite nicely if I do say so myself." Sonia said to herself as she admired her handiwork. Grabbing the hilt of her zanpakuto, the shinigami sheathed the blade and walked towards the door to the auditorium. Pulling a key from her obi she stepped out into the dirty hallway of the empty administrative building and locked the padlock on the chains that bound the doors closed.