Sounds in the Forest(Closed, Merrick)

    Arteran ignored the sweat on his brow, his vigorous movements being more than enough to fling said sweat away from him before it ever entered his eyes. With a shout Arteran brought Umbrum down, cleaving through an imaginary enemy, yet still feeling the resistance of flesh and steel, before whirling around to parry another such vision. Arteran knew that his proficiency with the actual physical blade that was Umbrum was lacking, and that anyone with true experience would likely be able to point out any number of flaws in his form and technique, and one such individual was Umbrum.
    
    "Widen your stance, I'm not a katana and can be used for defense, as such you need to be able to withstand blows, as it is you'll be knocked off balance."

    Wordlessly Arteran shifted his feet as he continued to move, and his next step landed much more firmly on the ground.

    "Good, now shift your hands, When you go for a chop you need more power, less precision. If you're lucky you can catch the opponents body and cleave through it, but more likely they will attempt to block, increased power will result in a better chance at disarming your opponent, or even damaging them through their weapon."

    Arteran did as he was told, bringing down Umbrum's blade in an overhead chop that would easily cleave through a log, or a person.

    "Remember when you thrust to turn your body into the attack, your weapon is an extension of yourself, not something separate to be manipulated blindly."

    Arteran spun to face the last enemy in his minds eye and thrust his blade deep into it's gut, feeling his blade punch through.

    "Adequate, but your patterns are slipping."

    Breathing heavily, Arteran glanced over to the side of the clearing where his three stars were rapidly shifting in a myriad of ever changing formations, and through his mental connection with the manifestations he felt that one of them was nearly a centimeter off from where it should be, with a quick mental flex the star returned to it's position.

    "I still don't understand how, hah, you know so much more, hah, about swordplay than I do, hah."

    "In life your people were peaceful, not stupid. Considering my existence is a manifestation of some of your memories from your life it's not surprising I can remember what you need to relearn."

    "If they were so skilled, then how, hah, did they get taken so easily."

    "Surprise."

    Arteran rolled his eyes, "Of course."

    "Begin again, but this time use a disc formation to also begin felling the trees around the clearing and chopping them into usable logs. Every third enemy recall one star to preform a fatal burrowing maneuver."

    Arteran would have sighed if he had the breath for it, but instead he gripped the hilt of his zanpakutou and sent a mental command to his stars, which started spinning together rapidly, forming what looked like a ring of bright light. As the shadowy apparitions he would be fighting, extensions of Umbrum's will that looked and felt real to Arteran yet were invisible to everyone else as their perceived existence was only possible through Arteran allowing Umbrum to access parts of his mind and nervous system, a rather potent tell of how much Arteran trusted Umbrum, began to form in his minds eye the ring of light burned cleanly through the base of the nearest tree before racing up and through it in various places as it fell, easily separating the falling tree into slightly charred logs while depriving any forming fires of oxygen by dent of their cyclonic motion.

    As he turned and killed the second of the horde of faceless enemies Arteran recalled one star to burrow it's way into the head of a third enemy before exiting through it's back and returning to the other two stars, which had continued to cut and chop the trees around him, but immediately afterwords he bit back a wince as he felt a stab of phantom pain and a numbing of his left arm as one of the enemies blades passed through his shoulder, causing him to quickly whirl around and stab the phantom in the chest, eliminating it.

    "Don't let your concentration waver, you have to be able to control both the stars and yourself, or you will find yourself at a disadvantage. At least this is a perfect opportunity for you to practice wielding me one handed."

    Arteran sighed internally, not showing anything but determination on his face. This was going to be a long session.

Word Count:760
Total Word Count:1138
Current GP gain:22

    The stranger was intent on keeping whatever information he had to himself, at least for the moment, though that was a secondary concern at the moment. The man was clearly preparing for conflict, whether or not he planned on being the aggressor that was something that Arteran couldn't afford to ignore. While normally he would be more than willing to have a back and forth for however long it took for one of them to slip, Arteran couldn't afford to risk the other Shinigami growing impatient.

    "Frustrating being on the other side isn't it?"
    
    "Not really, I find it entertaining."

    "Of course you do, but you still shouldn't push your luck. To that end I'm extending your time to after the situation is defused."

    "Oh thank you ever so much, how can I ever repay you?"

    "Sarcasm will get you nowhere with me."

    Internally rolling his eyes Arteran finished his stretching and stood up straight, turning his full attention to the stranger.

    "I have to wonder, what exactly do you plan to do? By your oh so subtle movement to your zanpakutou you're obviously planning for this situation to escalate, but have you considered what the repercussions of that might be? You are clearly stronger than I am, so the chances of me beginning any physical altercation are precisely zero, and your only cause for beginning an altercation would be that you suspect me of being involved in a local crime. Not only do you not have any hard evidence, because none exists, and what you do have barely qualifies as circumstantial.

    However, it's clear that you also are going to keep suspecting me, and there will be no benefit to my continued withholding of information. So in the interest of allaying your suspicions, my name is Arteran Umbrum, and I'm a member of the second squad. As to where I was three days ago, I was doing reconnaissance in Ireland."

    "Did you have to antagonize him?"

    "Yes."

    "Of course you did."


Word Count:328
Total count:2403
Total GP gain:48

    Arteran watched the hell butterfly flutter off into the distance, moving deceptively fast for it's size. The stranger was clearly checking Arteran's story. The other Shinigami was clearly far more concerned with the recent crime than was reasonable if the crime had been something normal. Even considering the idea of something more important, such as a rouge Shinigami or a high security prisoner escaping, this individual was showing more suspicion than was normal, at least for someone not of the second, and that was the one thing that Arteran actually knew about the stranger. While Arteran didn't even pretend to know the names of everyone in his division, he did remember faces, and this man was not a member of his squad. The only real logical conclusion left was that this man was dealing with something he found personal. Arteran briefly considered bringing that conclusion up, but as he wasn't feeling particularly suicidal he decided to let it be.

    "So you can recognize when you should bite your tongue."

    "Hush."

    Arteran turned his attention back to the stranger, "Hm, I'm not so sure about that. I have no intent of taking hostile action against you, though I thought I had made that clear."

    Arteran looked down at his blade, but decided against drawing it. He really would rather get back to his training as soon as he could, but unfortunately until he could at least guarantee that the stranger wouldn't take any action involving Umbrum's blade as hostile he had to wait, which was admittedly not much of a problem, more of an inconvenience. However, Arteran also had no intent of completely wasting his time, and as such he recalled his three stars from the places that they'd been hovering and directed them over to the end of the clearing as far away from the stranger as possible and began to run mental exercises by running a set of exercises similar to cats cradle by moving the stars rapidly enough to create the illusion of strings of light moving in complex patterns.

    "I hope you don't mind my continuing at lest some of my training while I wait for you to get your confirmation, I would like to resume in totality, but then that might be considered hostile."


Word Count: 374
Total Word Count:2777
Total GP gain:55

    Arteran blocked one of the apparitions attacks and parried quickly, removing it from his field of view while his stars continued to prevent anything from getting close from their side.

    "Two weeks, duration was extended by another week due to the investigation. Immediately on return I made use of gathered leave time and have been in the Rukongai since then, pursuing my training, does that answer your questions?"

    Arteran's exercises continued until he heard the stranger comment something about an escaped prisoner,  while this was news to Arteran, he wasn't particularly surprised that he hadn't heard about it. At his rank he was mostly used for reconnaissance missions, and was rarely informed of any truly dangerous situations where he'd likely be more of a hindrance than anything else. An escape would also be a good reason for this individual to be here, the Second may have been proud, but the job always came first, so any help deemed worth it was usually called in for serious situations.

    "So I assume that you're chasing the killer then. Judging by the fact that you didn't mention that the individual was another escaped prisoner that means that the individual in question was a relatively unknown element. That then begs the question as to why you think that anyone related to this event would have either gone into the forest at all, or have been advertising their presence in this manner. The best bet for someone being hunted would be to blend into the masses of the Rukongai, and then slowly make their way out into the farther districts." 

    Arteran kept his ears open for a response from the stranger, though by this point he wasn't particularly interested, what questions he really had that were going to be answered, had been.


Word Count:296
Total Word Count:3634
Total GP gain:72