It was a quiet night, all things considered. The full moon blessed Soul Society with bright darkness, not enough to bother the sleepers but enough to entice the awakened. Under moonlight this full, nothing was hidden, nothing was stealthy. Everything could be seen as if it were still daylight, at least by those who had grown accustomed to such darkness.
Atop the Sogyoku Hill, shielded from most eyes, tore a Garganta. It seemed that this peaceful night was over, but out of the Garganta stepped a feminine figure wearing a Captain's Haori. It closed behind her, and she took a moment to glance upward at the full moon, a sly smile appearing on her face that everything was going according to plan.
Making it to Hueco Mundo was easy. Irrelevant, even. Making it back, however, proved to be slightly more challenging than Mizuki had intended it to be. She had tried several different methods to return, but eventually settled on torturing a singular Hollow until he eventually bowed to her whim and opened a Garganta back to Soul Society simple so she'd leave him alone.
She had intended to leave for a 3 month excursion into Hueco Mundo, gathering information on the Hollows and such, at least publicly. Privately, it was more about their blood. Mizuki had spent over five years building a container that could store the blood of a Hollow even after they'd been killed and purified by a Zanpakutou, which would ordinarily remove all traces of the Hollow's previous existence.
Unfortunately for Mizuki, after just half the time of her expected vacation, she noticed things were no longer making sense. Hollows had begun acting erratically, Arrancar were appearing far more often than they had any right to appear, and while Mizuki could have easily managed regardless of what she found, she didn't feel comfortable staying in Hueco Mundo any longer. Luckily, she'd managed to achieve her other goals.
Now that she'd finished gathering several hundred vials of blood, and managed to return to Soul Society, all that was left was to return to her lab. It took no effort on Mizuki's behalf to figure out where she currently was, mostly because it was a prominent location within Soul Society, but she was slightly impressed the Hollow had managed to be so accurate with his Garganta.
Considering the fact that she was supposed to be gone another month and a half, Mizuki decided to not flaunt her return, and instead opted for a more stealthy approach. She was sure that eventually someone would come to investigate the Garganta opening in the god damned middle of Seireitei, so she decided to make herself scarce. Lo and behold, a few Shinigami approached from different sides in an attempt to entrap what they could only predict was a Hollow brave enough to come to Soul Society alone.
She could hear them speaking, though muffled due to the distance, about how they didn't sense any Hollow energy in the vicinity, so Mizuki sealed as much of her reiatsu as she could and used Shunpo to disappear before they ever managed to approach her location.
Far away, near the base of Sogyoku Hill, Mizuki decided she deserved a break considering the past month and a half, and went into a nearby shop where she bought a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, then sat on the ground outside of the store and lit one up. She leaned back and stared up as she exhaled, wondering how things had changed in her absence.
The shifting of the Hollow's actions and ideaologies could be rationed due to Mizuki's mere existence, as if they'd caught on to what she was doing and had adapted to it. However, that didn't help to explain the Arrancar. There was a surprisingly limited amount of information available about Arrancar, and Mizuki didn't like that she didn't know how the process occurred naturally, but she knew that it was rare and most Hollows were incapable of performing it. The sheer number of Arrancar that she had run into, however, didn't stack with that supposed rarity.
She dropped the cigarette to the ground and lit up another one, as she began to wonder about circumstances. There was a single explanation she could come up with so far, which would answer the majority of the conundrum. While she was gone, someone must have taken that from her office... there were only seven individuals who even knew of its existence, but that meant there were over six and a half quadrillion people who could feasibly know about it by now. Where was Captain Commander Bashira? Maybe Mizuki needed to go visit the Captain Commander in order to get to the bottom of the situation, but returning to her lab was also very important.
A young looking Shinigami wearing a Captain's Haori with white hair walked up towards her. Mizuki of course recognized the woman instinctively, only amplified once she saw the clothes befitting a lawyer underneath the Haori of a Captain. As she couldn't see the back of it, Mizuki couldn't be certain what Division that her new compadre was the Captain of, but she inherently knew that something was different.
In the month and a half that she had been gone, Mizuki was accutely aware of exactly how much more powerful Tina Almenor had grown, much like she was all other Shinigami due to the power of her Shikai. All Shinigami in Soul Society were permanently recorded within her Bingo Book as part of the exams so she could test them for Spirit Cancer and other such diseases. But now, seeing her in the flesh, and feeling the full brunt of her, admittedly suppressed reiatsu, Mizuki couldn't help but smile.
"You've grown up into a fine Captain, Almenor. What brings you out tonight?" She took a final drag off her cigarette, dropping it to the ground and stepping on it, pulling out two more and offering one to Captain Almenor alongside a lighter, since her own cigarette was already lit anyway. Mizuki didn't normally smoke, but she did chain smoke a few in a row during high stress situations, severely boring ones, or any other circumstance she could come up with. Being 'on break' counted, and thus she was on break until she got up.
Atop the Sogyoku Hill, shielded from most eyes, tore a Garganta. It seemed that this peaceful night was over, but out of the Garganta stepped a feminine figure wearing a Captain's Haori. It closed behind her, and she took a moment to glance upward at the full moon, a sly smile appearing on her face that everything was going according to plan.
Making it to Hueco Mundo was easy. Irrelevant, even. Making it back, however, proved to be slightly more challenging than Mizuki had intended it to be. She had tried several different methods to return, but eventually settled on torturing a singular Hollow until he eventually bowed to her whim and opened a Garganta back to Soul Society simple so she'd leave him alone.
She had intended to leave for a 3 month excursion into Hueco Mundo, gathering information on the Hollows and such, at least publicly. Privately, it was more about their blood. Mizuki had spent over five years building a container that could store the blood of a Hollow even after they'd been killed and purified by a Zanpakutou, which would ordinarily remove all traces of the Hollow's previous existence.
Unfortunately for Mizuki, after just half the time of her expected vacation, she noticed things were no longer making sense. Hollows had begun acting erratically, Arrancar were appearing far more often than they had any right to appear, and while Mizuki could have easily managed regardless of what she found, she didn't feel comfortable staying in Hueco Mundo any longer. Luckily, she'd managed to achieve her other goals.
Now that she'd finished gathering several hundred vials of blood, and managed to return to Soul Society, all that was left was to return to her lab. It took no effort on Mizuki's behalf to figure out where she currently was, mostly because it was a prominent location within Soul Society, but she was slightly impressed the Hollow had managed to be so accurate with his Garganta.
Considering the fact that she was supposed to be gone another month and a half, Mizuki decided to not flaunt her return, and instead opted for a more stealthy approach. She was sure that eventually someone would come to investigate the Garganta opening in the god damned middle of Seireitei, so she decided to make herself scarce. Lo and behold, a few Shinigami approached from different sides in an attempt to entrap what they could only predict was a Hollow brave enough to come to Soul Society alone.
She could hear them speaking, though muffled due to the distance, about how they didn't sense any Hollow energy in the vicinity, so Mizuki sealed as much of her reiatsu as she could and used Shunpo to disappear before they ever managed to approach her location.
Far away, near the base of Sogyoku Hill, Mizuki decided she deserved a break considering the past month and a half, and went into a nearby shop where she bought a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, then sat on the ground outside of the store and lit one up. She leaned back and stared up as she exhaled, wondering how things had changed in her absence.
The shifting of the Hollow's actions and ideaologies could be rationed due to Mizuki's mere existence, as if they'd caught on to what she was doing and had adapted to it. However, that didn't help to explain the Arrancar. There was a surprisingly limited amount of information available about Arrancar, and Mizuki didn't like that she didn't know how the process occurred naturally, but she knew that it was rare and most Hollows were incapable of performing it. The sheer number of Arrancar that she had run into, however, didn't stack with that supposed rarity.
She dropped the cigarette to the ground and lit up another one, as she began to wonder about circumstances. There was a single explanation she could come up with so far, which would answer the majority of the conundrum. While she was gone, someone must have taken that from her office... there were only seven individuals who even knew of its existence, but that meant there were over six and a half quadrillion people who could feasibly know about it by now. Where was Captain Commander Bashira? Maybe Mizuki needed to go visit the Captain Commander in order to get to the bottom of the situation, but returning to her lab was also very important.
A young looking Shinigami wearing a Captain's Haori with white hair walked up towards her. Mizuki of course recognized the woman instinctively, only amplified once she saw the clothes befitting a lawyer underneath the Haori of a Captain. As she couldn't see the back of it, Mizuki couldn't be certain what Division that her new compadre was the Captain of, but she inherently knew that something was different.
In the month and a half that she had been gone, Mizuki was accutely aware of exactly how much more powerful Tina Almenor had grown, much like she was all other Shinigami due to the power of her Shikai. All Shinigami in Soul Society were permanently recorded within her Bingo Book as part of the exams so she could test them for Spirit Cancer and other such diseases. But now, seeing her in the flesh, and feeling the full brunt of her, admittedly suppressed reiatsu, Mizuki couldn't help but smile.
"You've grown up into a fine Captain, Almenor. What brings you out tonight?" She took a final drag off her cigarette, dropping it to the ground and stepping on it, pulling out two more and offering one to Captain Almenor alongside a lighter, since her own cigarette was already lit anyway. Mizuki didn't normally smoke, but she did chain smoke a few in a row during high stress situations, severely boring ones, or any other circumstance she could come up with. Being 'on break' counted, and thus she was on break until she got up.