Maximus stepped lightly through the senkaimon gate, suddenly feeling light-headed at the unexpected change from the cool void-like temperature of the portal to the oppressive and smothering heat of the city of Moscow. Sweat instantly began to bead across his skin, irritating him slightly, but it could do nothing to kill the excited buzz within him at the notion of hunting this Hollow... His body shook with anticipation of the hunt and its coming prey, his mouth watered and he could hear something in the back of his mind whispering its own wish for blood, as if his blades themselves called out for this Hollow's blood...
Max looked around at the group, his eyes fixating on his leader for command, and as he stood there expectantly, the others seeming to feel awkward and the scent of fear wafting from one or two of his comrades, he realized something. Most of them hadn't hunted before... Something he'd done once before, something his leader had hopefully done many such times before...
His leader, a petite woman of small stature stood before them, a commanding presence to her in irony to her small stature... Max examined her, judging her style and trying to determine how she fought for his own amusement...
Her hair was pulled back and not only in a ponytail, but balled as well, as if to keep from any getting in her eyes in swift movement... She held her hands close to one another, and not on the sheath of her sword, indicating kido or unarmed taking mastery over her blade... Her clothes were loose and baggy to give good movement, more indication of unarmed combat, but the sleeves and pants legs were too long, indication of not an unarmed fighter. Her lips were pursed as if ready to break into speech at any moment, tell-tale sign of a kido fighter... Max smiled, waiting for her speech patterns to give him his final detail...
"Okay, boys and girls," she spoke quickly and eloquently at once, as if used to drawing power from every syllable, "We are hunting a highly dangerous Hollow which has proven itself against shinigami before. It is imperative we come at it as a team and give it no chance of taking any of us with it, remember your training, do not freeze up, and by all means, do not loose your head. Strike coordinately, fallback when ordered and for the Gods' sake, do not leave yourself open when you do fallback." All the members answered at once, Max's smile broadening, coming to brink of a hysterical laugh, but stopping himself from losing his head. She was a kido specialist, her plan would be methodical and calculated. She would damn any foolish moves or curse any ignored orders. Everything would be expected to be followed by the letter, she was NOT the right team leader for a pack of raw shinigami.
Suddenly, a spike of reshi filled their senses and she looked off into the distance, their combined and unmasked reiatsu driving the powerful creature to them... She hissed in anger at not having time to set an ambush and turned to the others.
"Valeri, Shonai, you two stick with me, we will strike at it from the front," she ordered, "Ariya, Silec, you two will circle around and attempt to catch it in a trap. You are not to strike until I order, understand? Let me know when your in position, now, move!" The five broke off to their assignments, her, positioning the brute of the group to the front while Max and Silec darted for the maze-like forest below to work his way around the beast then move up. As they disappeared below Max masked his reiatsu, Silec taking a few moments to do the same... The shinigami on point, Shonai, was a broad figure with a large zanpakuto, pure raging and unchecked reiatsu flowing from him. Valeri seemed to be more akin to the reiatsu patterns of the team leader, Sherri.
The creature grew closer, the team finally taking in the full view of the beast... Its long thin body rippled with energy, long whips protruding from its thin, nearly translucent skin like overgrown hairs which seemed to go on to unimaginable lengths, waving about him giving the air a distorted heat-wave look. His mask was simple and plain, but his translucent skin proudly showed his bone-and-muscle structure. No cutting weapons protruded from him, the only seeming weapon to be what strength his body had, but the team knew better, well all but Shonai.
The bulky shinigami sped forwards in a moment of battle lust, and everyone tensed as they willed his to succeed, but everyone knew he would not... As his blade began to fall the long hairs struck out, either grabbing, lashing or slicing his skin... His entire anatomy disected in moments before the group, as they witnessed this, Max fought his urge to vomit, but what was worse was what came next... The Hollow ate the skin, cutting and lifting it from the bone as if it was a rare morsel, using his hands to put it on his tounge before he let it slide wonderfully down his throat... As he finished the skin he then consumed the limbs, and that's when Max realized it... The shinigami was still connected by thin lines of reshi, keeping him alive throughout the meal. He shuddered, disturbed by the notion, his hand automatically reaching for his second blade, but as he closed his eyes and sighed, he remembered his duty to the team and how useless it would be without a joint effort... So in stead he simply waited, watching the two above close around the creature...
Sherri struck first, a concentrated shot of blue fire aimed at her foe, a moment later she was gone... The second shinigami struck with a repulse of reshi, bakudo and hado mixtures? They seemed to be dancing with it, such disappearance and reappearance going on for some time, slowly targeting the strands one by one, and it was working! Max smiled slightly as he realized many had been destroyed, by his smile was stunted by the enormous mass left... As the creature grew more and more frustrated, he noticed it was working them into a trap, confining them more and more as it moved them into a cliff face which cut off their escape... But just as he doomed them in his mind, he saw the beauty in it... And heard the angels sing as a order came over the com...
"Silec, use Geki to freeze him, your power won't hold him long and you'll miss his forward tendrils, I've successfully neutralized half his back tendrils so it should be a safe enough approach with him froze, Ariya, end him when Silec moves!" Sherri ordered, and as Silec did so, Max moved with blinding speed at his foe, his strike aimed true... But an army of tendrils turned to face him and he smiled as the confused creature struck out blindly in panic... Max dodged most at ease, not truly aimed as they swung wildly, those he didn't dodge he hacked to pieces with swift swipes as he cut a swath to his target, but the tendrils still held him back...
Max's anger flushed to his face as he saw the red field of geki begin to fail, his time running out... Suddenly his spun in a circle violently and at the end of it, when the tendrils recoiled in pain, he threw his secondary blade into the back of it's neck... The blade piecing the translucent flesh with ease... Crimson blood washed over the wound and it began to fade completely, and as he floated there, pride written across his features, he looked over his comrades... But a realization struck him and he felt as if he had been discovered a lie and a cheat...
This was not what happened the first time he slew a Hollow...
"Sherri," Max said in horror, "Something about how this Hollow is disentigrating is different then the others... right?"
"No," she said as if he was a moron, "What did you expect it to looklike?"
"This is not what happened to my first reported Hollow kill," Max admitted, flushing red at his mistake... The three faces of his remaining comrades looked at him with confusion and his commander's face hardened...
"Then you have made a mistake, Ariya," she hissed venomously...
