Til There's Nothing Left [CLOSED/Amelia/Ichiro/Kaneki]

Success! Or was it?

The blue strings would quickly attach themselves to the young Quincy girl and she would be pulled back to Ichiro's side, thus gaining some distance in between her and the human girl. However, despite the bartender's attempt to get the girl out of range, he would notice that the attack still landed. It wasn't a clean hit but, a wound was there and he did not like it. If only he could have gotten her out without a scratch. At this point Ichiro realized that with each wound these girls inflicted upon one-another their desire to continue this fight grew. He needed to prevent them from landing their attacks as much as he could while tiring them and making them see their mistakes.

However, despite Ichiro's displeasure with how things turned out, he still got a thanks from the girl who actually didn't even seem that affected by her injury. Apparently she was much tougher than it initially seemed. "You are welcome," the black haired male would utter while at the same time adding a gentle smile. The girl still showed signs of pain, which was perfectly normal as she was injured a moment ago. However, she didn't seem to be too troubled by it and that somewhat made Ichiro calm down a bit and focus on the situation at hand instead of punishing himself for his failure. On top of that, the Quincy girl regaining control and coming back also helped with the bartenders state of mind.

The issue, however, was still the human girl who was getting angrier and angrier. Apparently, whatever he decided to say was setting her off for some reason. This was rather troublesome as he was actually running out of things to say. Regardless of whatever sort of reasoning he tried to use against her, she would come with a witty and dark reply that served as proof of how bad and messed up this world really was, or something along those lines. In fact, she even took some of his comedic lines seriously and went ahead to attack him based on that. I don't actually consider myself as a knight in shining armor, it's just a cool line I decided to use when I made my entrance. Is she still trying to use that against me?

Regardless of what words followed after, the girl would not get a reply from the black haired male. As she spoke, he would remain silent, carefully observing her movement. Ichiro tried to talk to her, he tried to reason with her. But, no matter what he said, she refused to listen. There simply was nothing else he could say to her in order to make her change her mind. For now he simply decided to stop her and the Quincy girl from fighting, regardless of the means which he had to use. Luckily, he was well equipped for a task like this thanks to the nature of his powers. In fact, you could say that Ichiro was the expert when it came to stopping people from fighting or resorting to violence.

Now that he was fully focused, there were several things which became evident to the bartender Quincy. The human girl's power was something rather simple, earth manipulation. However, due to her skill, something this simple was transformed into a rather dangerous weapon. Despite that, for some reason, she didn't want to or couldn't simply transform the earth beneath the two Quincy's into jagged spikes and end the fight in an instant. If she did that, it would be rather hard for the two of them to escape. Not only that, guarding against such an attack would be hard as well. Maybe her power was limited somehow? Maybe she was going easy on them? Regardless of that, now that he was on guard, Ichiro figured that he could do something about her attacks as long as he payed attention to his surroundings.

However, if the girl thought that he would simply stand there waiting for her to come at them, she was gravely mistaken. Sometimes good preparation was all it took to come on top when facing a stronger opponent and luckily for the black haired bartender, the Quincy were a race that had a handful of supplementary abilities and skills. However, for now at least, Ichiro only needed his Ranso that was still quite active. The strings which he had used to stop himself mid flight after being punched by the Quincy girl would slowly detach themselves from the ground and the buildings, returning back to him. On the other hand, the ones which he attached to the Quincy girl remained as he still needed them. It was evident to the bartender that the girl next to him was not as strong as he and the other girl so he used those strings to slowly transfer portions of his powers while the other girl was approaching them and going on with her speech.

Ichiro didn't care about her monologue. Her words meant nothing to him, arguing with her was simply a waste of time and the only way to help her and the other Quincy girl was to stop her and render her unable to fight. Only then she might start to listen.

"Here she comes," he would utter as two chunks of earth would rise and start flying towards him and the other girl. It didn't take Ichiro long to react, with a simple twitch of a finger he would use the strings which were already attached to the Quincy girl to launch her towards the sky, hopefully getting her as far as possible. As he did that, he also added a few words, tips of some sort: "She manipulates earth, if you are high enough she shouldn't be able to do anything to you so, off you go." At the moment Ichiro wasn't quite sure if that was true or not but, up until now there was an evident pattern so he decided to act upon it. Even if that was not the case, he was still counting on the girl's mental state to make her unable to use anything other than her earth powers on them. If push came to shove, he was ready to grab her full attention somehow and make her forget about the other Quincy.

As for the boulders that were now coming at him, well, they weren't that hard to deal with. In fact, right now there was only one boulder to deal with, the second one was aimed at the empty space next to him so he didn't have to worry about it. Without even moving a muscle, yet another shield would suddenly appear in between the black haired Quincy and the incoming boulder. However, there was something different about it. The amount of power behind it, it's density, they were much higher than before. The reason for that was simple, Ichiro wasn't using Blut back then. He had to activate his Blut Vene to take that punch and now he was free to swap it up and prepare a shield powered up by his Blut Arterie. Due to the events that took place in Hueco Mundo, his Blut was still quite weaker. However, it was still enough to make the boulder fall apart into bits and pieces upon impact together with the shield itself.

Now that he was done dealing with that, the bartender would return to observing the girl while waiting for her next move. At the same time, he would simply glare at her with icy cold eyes that lacked any sort of emotions. By doing so Ichiro wanted to show the girl that whatever she said or did wasn't affecting him, he wanted her to continue trying to break him. Hopefully a lack of reaction and an icy gaze would make her think that he was looking down on her. However, before his psychological warfare could even take effect, the girl would simply launch herself towards him, using something that reminded him of one of those pesky speed boosting techniques that a member of every race tended to know. She was apparently done with it all, going in for the kill. This was in fact perfect for Ichiro as well, it was time for him to stop her once and for all.

Now or never.

Since he could tell that the girl was quite serious, Ichiro decided to literally use everything he had to stop her. If he were to try and do this halfheartedly, it wouldn't have worked out. First things first, he would start by forming his shield while at the same time sending some of his strings to burrow under the ground, making them spread out in all directions. By now she probably knew about his shield and how strong it was so her attack was probably going to be too strong for the shield to take it. With that in mind, the black haired Quincy knew that he had to do something else to stop her. Luckily, he had several ways to do that. As soon as the girl reached him and his shield, he would quickly make the strings re-surface, wrapping themselves around her attacking arm first and then grabbing a hold of her other limbs, one by one. This wouldn't be enough to stop her and Ichiro knew it, he would simply make the strings absorb a portion of the force behind her attack in order to weaken it before it hits the shield.

Even with that, the shield wouldn't hold.

With ease, the girls attack would shatter the shield while at the same time weakening even more. In other words,the shield would serve the same purpose as the strings. With those two tricks used, the power behind the girls attack would drastically weaken and it wouldn't be a problem for Ichiro to survive it.

But, completely avoiding any damage was not possible for him right now.

Her punch would land, hitting the center of his chest and sending him flying a few meters back and that's only because of the reishi strings which were still burrowed under the ground, preventing him from going any further. There was a reason for this as well. After coughing up some blood the black haired male would rise his look towards the girl, sending a cheeky smile her way while at the same time directing his open palm towards her and then forming a fist. This would put the final part of his plan into motion. The spiritual particles of the shield that shattered a few moments ago together with the ones from the strings would suddenly undergo a change. It would appear as if time for them stopped and as the human girl was basically standing among quite a few of them, the same would happen to her. Without a probably reason or cause, she found find herself locked in time by an unseen force. Although, she could probably guess the reason.

"I've given up trying to reason with you. If this fight continues, the city and the lives of it citizens will be in dire danger. Even if you don't care anymore, I do. None of us matter? I don't care. To me every life is important and precious. I've been here when the Arrancars invaded, I did my best to try and stop them, I also went with a man named Adimus to try and save as many as we could from Hueco Mundo. Do you know what I got from it? I lost my arm and my leg, my face was shattered in several places, I had more broken bones that I knew of. None of that made me change my beliefs. I apologize, but I can't do what you asked me to do, now is not the time nor the place for me to die."

In just a couple of seconds the male would spout out those words, bringing out everything that was on his mind at the moment. His feelings, his thoughts and his wishes. Basically, his quick speech was a bunch of unrelated things shifting from one thought to another, without giving anyone a moment to catch up. For some reason he figured that he might not have another chance to do this so hence that. 

'Enough.'

Amelia had reached a boiling point. The more she sank into this new world of hers, the more she cursed it. Power was nothing but a burden that had been thrust upon her. Yet that was not exactly true, power was not thrust upon her. It was part of her, it made up her very existence. In the same way that she was born a human with the capability to learn: to read, to write, to walk, to understand; she was born a Quincy despite her power being sealed to her for the longest time. There was no denying that she actually had not had power thrust upon her, the framework existed from the moment of her conception. What had been thrust upon her was the reality of what it meant to be a human possessing that latent ability. For a Hollow, for a Shinigami perhaps this was a normality but humans walked everyday in ignorant bliss, billions of them with no understanding of the world around them, not even the one that they were part of much less the fourth dimension that was all spiritual. The excitement was rapidly wearing off, being a Quincy was now something she had to foster lest she end up like her fallen comrades. Her family, she needed to be able to protect them if the need arose. There was no policing this twisted world where monsters roamed the earth invisible to all those it tormented bar few. It was very much a need; if one was even a peaceful soul, at some point they would be dragged into a situation in which they had to run, fight or die. It was a harsh reality but one that was beginning to imprint itself of Amelia. It was in truth contrary to her thoughts and the brown haired female understood that to be the case. Power was a necessity; for the sake of living a life free of torment she had to stand at the zenith. It was a simple truth. Power was what would allow Amelia to conquer the fears that she held now, the fears of both her power and the threats of the world. Lena's view of the world; it was not such a bad one, Amelia felt she could better understand her predecessors mindset a little more.

And so the Quincy made a decision.

Calm enveloped her, a deep and deliberate calm as she exhaled slowly, a release of air, tension and indecision. Amelia inhaled deeply, a filling of the lungs, resolve and focus. The brown haired female understood some of what the crazed woman was spouting and she felt a degree of pity for her. Despite that though, she could not and would not let her kill her. Straightening herself, she rose to her feet, her golden irises locked onto her opposite's as she menacingly approached step by step, Terra Firma quaking as she did. Amelia's expression became still, a still photograph, unflinching, unemotional, only a sense of heightened awareness. 

Listening silently, unmoving Amelia split her attention. The outer world, the other Quincy beside her, the 'knight'; the earth wielding emotional wreck. And there was the inner as Amelia dove into herself. Her bloodied hand squeezed her Mekkayu. The seal was gone, there was nothing holding it back expect her own fear of the world and lack of power. Those had departed a moment ago, albeit the fear was replaced by another one. Even the words of the knight was unimportant, instead she thought back to her earlier encounters with Lena. The form she was going to be most comfortable with. There was no question, it would be a bow. Launched upwards by the strings that were still attached to her, her focus came back to that which was in front of her. Landing gracefully on her feet, she flickered back with a use of her Hirenkyaku skill. Coming to a halt some distance back Amelia took a few paces to the left so she was not directly behind the other Quincy putting them both in her sights. Enough distance had been created between the two now for Amelia to comfortable prepare for what she now had in mind.

Good.    

Now she had more time, a precious commodity here. She was the eye of the storm, frozen in the centre as her spiritual pressure whipped winds around her as the smoke like flame like mantle once again emerged, this time without Lena as rocked peppered the space in front of her halted by a opaque black wall, as the mantle reconfigured itself to defend its possessor. Amelia could feel some of the man's power passed through to her via the medium of the strings attached to her but they did not remain for long as the pressure exerted by Amelia broke the connection as the mantle's length morphed into a black bow, spiritual power condensing within the smoky bolt that had begun to form. Now was the last time for words so she spoke. Her words was clear and without anger, they were merely her calm thoughts.

"I'm not a knight, I don't claim to be a knight. I'm not from here, I don't care for your little battles or whatever happened there, why should I care. Shit happens. I'm not some guardian angel, I'm not going to pretend I owe you anything. I should have just left you to your own devices in truth."

A pause, then a quiet utterance more to herself than anything.

"...I'm sorry."

Amelia had no patience to explain anything, any reason, any monologues like the pair of them were spiting out one after the other. Never had she claimed to be a saviour, she had no hero complex. All she wanted was some normality in her life. The fastest method available now was to simply shut her up. All this time she had been gathering power into that one shot. The mantle was augmenting her spiritual power more that she imagined and even then she pumped more of her reserves into it and there was all the power that the man had donated to her. Perhaps she had put too much into it but at this point Amelia did not care. Her body was starting to feel a horrible strain under the pressure it was containing. The ground on which Amelia was standing on fractured as she she lifted the bow and aimed it towards the woman who had charged forth. Upon striking the man something happened, some sort of restraint had been put upon her and thus the window was created for her.

The black haired Quincy began to speak and then the air suddenly became heavy, completely saturated with Amelia's peaked spiritual pressure; fragments of broken earth rose as the ground trembled. It was time. Her hand opened and a deadly black bolt shot out aiming to pierce right through the heart of the woman in stasis. The path along which the arrow travelled marred the earth, drawing a fissure along in its wake, a wispy shot of pure condensed forcer designed to destroy, more intense than anything the Quincy had ever produced before. Amelia wanted her to stop and this was now the answer she had for her.

1208

24GP

Those who were waking up scared. Lost. Alone.

Please. Please do it.

Kill me. Please. Please kill me.

It wasn't her fault!

And shone a paralyzingly bright shade of aqua from the center of her pupils.

Liar.

You don't have the right to kill me.

For...

She couldn't do it either.

And seemed to explode with a shriek of agony and terror from the target.

A roar of fury.

But he would remember them both-- and he would come calling once his creator was no longer on death's door.