One 2 One [Closed.R|Jian]

There came a moment in the hush of silence as his fist connected with nothing but air where he could feel the brilliance of her soul as she shared with him a moment that he had only ever felt but never seen. It was the moment the soul rebelled, The moment it realized that it had pushed against a boundary of its own potential, and made the decision to keep pushing.

She stepped back, demanded the very spiritual matter of the world around her to bend to her will and skipped across the rain-slick ground too fast for him to follow as he was. She had formed arrows, dozens of them, close to hundreds each razor sharp, brimming with power, set to break him. The collection of arrows were destruction in a form he truly recognized, raw yet tempered, twisted to the singular will of its wielder.

She stood behind him, sure of purpose, and unleashed her attack totally against him. He should have admired it, the moment when each arrow made impact, near simultaneous. He should have appreciated the way her conviction shone through against his, a test of will that she would pass and grow from if he let her. He should have honored if not the method of her execution than the truly good desire that was behind it. She could become a true agent of change.

But she was everything wrong with this world. She was everything that stood in the way of paradise. She was the symptom and the cause. The living embodiment of the disease that tried desperately to ruin everything he toiled so miserably to create.

Arrogant. Self-assured. Ignorant. Self-righteous. Quincy. Weak but ever growing. Opposed but never quite beaten. A weed that spread at the root unflinchingly. He could make peace but they wanted nothing but war, he would have protected them but they didn't want to be safe, they wanted to destroy.

His flesh tore against each blast, blackened and broke, ripping open with each impact in some small way. He felt his mortal shell crack and blistered as he was lifted off the ground and sent backward by impact after impact. His brain tried desperately to signal the pain but did little more than communicate a cacophony of confusion blinding him almost utterly.

He hit the ground moments later, heat sizzling the rain as it pelted his body, the downpour continuing unflinchingly, uninterested in the conflict below. She drew another arrow, to threaten him perhaps, to goad him into surrender, or maybe to finish him off for good.

The Quincy could only destroy. That was a talent he understood well, because he was so, so, SO much better at it. He reached out, gasped a breath into his frail mortal body so he could force it into action. It lurched to its feet slowly but surely. His power that raged about grew still, its presence there but quieted. It swirled about him as he called upon the heart of his soul. His mortal shell strained as the weight grew, he could feel his bones tremble under the weight, could feel his vision blur as even his own lungs struggled to breathe. But he didn't need to move, he didn't need his body to fight so long as he had his will.

The arrow loosed towards him, bright blue, shining, a beautiful work of art. He hadn't had much chance to experience the form of a Quincy arrow, even as blurred as his vision grew, as darkness began to close he could appreciate the way it looked. He didn't need his eyes, he could feel its construction as it surged towards him, ripped through the air and closed.

He cast his will out, let his power take form at the edge of his palm as his hand staggered upwards, fingers loosely stretched out in the path of the arrow. He held it still for a moment, allowed his power to coalesce around its volatile form and give it one last look. His fingers tightened and closed. The arrow vanished without a sound, no dramatic hiss of its destructive power followed. The rain fell on.

His hand raised once more, fingers opening as they directed his will once more. The air around them grew thick, a tendril of raw power formed almost imperceptibly. He swept his hand down and it roared into action, it surged towards Mei, the ground cracking as it passed and rushed towards her. Around its form the rain burned away into steam. An inky blackness filled in its previously impercetible form.

It struck her once, sent her body ragdolled into the air as it battered and burned upon impact. She didn't make it far as it lurched once more orchestrated by his outstretched hand that gripped once more. The tendril grabbed tight and burned away at her flesh where it touched. It held her for only a moment as he swept it down and slammed her into the ground. It vanished as she hit earth.

He stepped towards her. With every step his body groaned but made no effort to resist his will. His spirit filled in for the strength his muscles were losing as he neared her, as he crouched over her writhing and battered frame, as he grabbed her by the neck of her uniform and pulled her up. He struck her with his free hand, a blow so powerful his knuckles split and bled. He hit her again until she went silent, and again, and again until she went still.

He assed her. Alive, but not for much longer. He drew his hand back and reached for his power, Hogoshi's. It wasn't enough to simply destroy her, but to send the message. He would echo out a signal, one that would reach its way across this city, across Japan and to the rest of the world. He would start here, with her, then every Quincy who refused to listen to reason, who sold out his world to the wrath of the Shinigami's. He'd start with them, and once that was settled he'd take on everyone else who would stand in his way. He would make the world safe, he would make a world where nobody would suffer from monsters unseen in the dark. He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned sharp, lowering Mei if only for a moment. He saw nothing, besides the rain and the sign of their battle behind him. He turned back to her but she was gone.

He saw the world, a glittering gem in a sea of inky blackness. Beautiful green and blue, rotating lazily in the vastness of nothing. It was small. Smaller than it had ever been before, he reached out towards it, his dream and stopped short. For a moment he had let himself forget what he was here to do.

"Hogoshi!" he cried out into the void, demanding the presence of his Zanpakuto. "Hogoshi! Answer me damnit!"

He appeared, coalescing like gray smoke in the darkness. Seven-foot tall he towered over Jian, a mass of rippling muscles. A bright red waist cloth stretching down his legs, a string of wooden prayer beads around his neck large enough to hang down to his stomach.

His voice filled the air, a deep baritone in response to his master's call. "I am here."

Jian pivoted to face the Zanpakuto and felt his rage return. He had called for the power of his Bankai. To signal the start and it hadn't come. "Enough of this! Give me your damn power!"

"No."

"No!?"

"This isn't your dream is it? Killing her? This isn't what I was made for."

Jian tightened his fist, his anger vibrated through him he turned shaprly and swept his hand toward the planet that glittered in the distance. "That is my dream! That is what you were made for! I am done waiting, I am done trying to work with people who want nothing to do with my dream, who only want to make things worse, who invite conflict, destruction, death. These people create misery! And I would end it! You were made for that!"

Jian's last shout died out, and a silence overtook the void. Hogoshi was still, unmoving, a still monolith, a picture of the inaction that led him down this road. His inability, his unwillingness to do what had to be done to achieve his dream. His own fear, his own self-doubts. How cowardly he was to think he needed others to do this. While he waited millions died, suffered, crying out alone waiting for -him- to save them.

"If that is your dream," Hogoshi's voice vibrated. "Then reach out, and -take- it."

Jian tore his gaze from Hogoshi and towards the planet. This was what he wanted, that paradise left perfectly, unfettered by misery, its people safe.

He realized at once that it was not far away, and he was not some small far away observer. He was there, in front of it, towering above it from up high and if he wanted it all he would have to do would be reach out and grasp it. He reached out with his colossal hand that nearly equaled the size of the very world he observed. He took it in his hand at once held it tight and knew at once what he had to do.

An inky black evil had taken root in this world, into its very core. When he held it up to his eyes he could see the signs. The darkness poured forth. The beautiful oceans of blue were tinged, the green blackened and twisted. It was spreading. He would remove it, burn it out at the root and fix it. That's all he had to do and it would be over, his purpose fulfilled. As he let his power echo forth he burned away at the spots of the darkness that tainted his dream. He burned it away, left nothing in its place, but another patch emerged elsewhere.

He turned his attention to it, cast his power to burn away at the rot, the disease that had taken hold, but even as he left the Earth scorched and part of the infection cured another patch took root elsewhere.

He turned his gaze to Hogoshi. "This is why I need it! Give me your damn power, Hogoshi! I am not joking!"

"Take it then," he gestured openly to Jian. "Take it from me and burn the world clean, leave nothing in your wake! Then you stand there and tell me that's still your damn dream!"

Jian turned from him and stared the world. Larger and heavier he struggled to hold it still, so close he could see every bit of poison that remained, spreading further and further. All he could do was destroy it, burn it clean but he could never cure it, never fix the damage that he did. He took the world in his hands and tried to reshape it, tried still to burn it away, futily, as the disease spread from his fingertips, spread across the continents, the oceans, the rivers, and forests.

"Enough!" he roared and pushed himself away from it, the poisoned orb hung in the abyss unmoving, its slow rotation unabated. "Enough of this! I won't sit here and listen to you, you! Of all people! Tell me that this is impossible! Give me your power Hogoshi! Or I will rip it from you! I won't let misery go on while I can do something about it! I'm done hiding!"

Hogoshi made no move to fight him, merely observed merely waited before he bowed his head. "How could your hands, hands that know only how to destroy, ever create paradise? How could a world created by an act like this ever be perfect?"

Jian's teeth ground together and he knew that he could do it. He knew that he could lunge forward and with his power rip Hogoshi apart. He knew that Hogoshi only had a power that Jian allowed him, that all he was was a symbol. And that's exactly why Jian knew that he couldn't do it.

He turned his gaze towards the world once more and saw only the glittering jewel of blue and green. He turned his gaze back to Hogoshi.

"Then how? How do I do it?"

Hogoshi's face was unyielding, made of stone. "I don't know."

The world shuddered and faded away replaced with a sight almost too real to truly exist. Mei held aloft in his hand, battered and broken, blood pooled from the injuries he had given her washed partially away by rain. A shattered ruin that was once a home around them. He lowered her to the ground and took a look at the world around him. Everything he touched turned out like this. What Hogoshi said was right, there was no way for someone like him to create Paradise, someone like him only new how to destroy. He had the power to burn the world anew, starting with her, but what would be left if he did? Was there another way? Was he kidding himself? Did he have a purpose in this world?

A glimmer of his power would keep Mei alive at least until the others that were coming arrived. They wouldn't find him here. He didn't have a place here, he had no ability to shape a world made of glass. He could do nothing to reduce the misery when he himself was the source.

Jian Oreachi vanished from the world of the living.

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