Coffee can raise the dead(Ireland, Raph, Closed)

There were a plethora of mysteries in the world, and Raphael right now was at the heart of one of them, or rather was on the trail of one of them. He’d heard of a town or two being tormented by some odd source or another and, just to make matters worse, recent reports suggested that an arrancar had recently begun operations within the area. Raph looked around, slightly confused as to why one would have chosen a place such as Ireland to work at.

“What on Earth could you possibly be doing…?” he mused aloud to himself, staring at a map of Ireland and taking a drink of his coffee. There were monsters in this world, and beyond it, yet these people being subjected to it…they knew nothing of the war that raged around them every day. His very spiritual presence was as hidden as he could possibly get it, and hoped that it would be enough to avoid detection of Shinigami, hollow and anything else. The Shinigami always liked to throw the argument of “protecting the souls” onto the table, but that wasn’t exactly true. Aside from the Quincy, who supposedly had the power to send souls into true death, which Raph didn’t believe, it was just a constant game of back and forth. Shinigami to hollow to mortal ad infinitum…

Which led to problem number two: whenever there were arrancar, and hollows in general, shinigami were almost always not too far behind. Despite the rather good experiences he’d had with them, Raphael still couldn’t bring himself to trust Shinigami. There was a difference between an actual alliance and recipients of the phrase “the enemy of my enemy” and, worse still, they answered solely to their Soul Society. He’d already sensed one, milling about and searching for this monstrous being.

Much like mortals, however, Shinigami were prone to travelling in packs, especially with the rise in hollow attacks, rise of quincy activity…hell there were probably more threats that even Raphael didn’t know of! When he pushed his senses, he could detect another Shinigami, this one a bit stronger than Raphael himself, but a bit less powerful than the one that seemed to be doing the hunting. Raphael, walked towards the presence, utilizing his abilities to suppress his own power, to approach this being.

When finally he arrived where he was certain the Shinigami was, a lanky young man wearing a loose fitting T-shirt and a pair of black jeans, he sat down beside him. Taking another drink of his coffee, he looked at the paper, as though he was interested in what this ‘man’ was reading.

“Morning, friend,” Raphael said in a cheery greeting. “Anything good in the news today?”

Words: 452

    Arteran felt the individual approaching him well before he saw him, but as the individual was clearly not the reported Arrancar he elected to ignore his presence, at least until it became clear that the individual was comeing directly towards him. Out of the corner of his eye Arteran sized up the human, and he was certain that they were human, their presence didn't have a signiture even remotely similar to a Shinigami's or Hollow's. The person was wearing a simple outfit, the most prominent aspects of which were his blue coat and hat. The coat wasn't anything odd, many humans found the weather in this area to be a bit chilly during this time of year, though Arteran found it to be more comfortable than anything else. The man's hat was of a similar color, and had some sort of logo on it, probably for a sports team or some kind of brand. Other than that nothing about the individual particularly stood out, not to tall, maybe a bit skinny, brown hair and an average face meant that the man could easily blend into a crowd.

    That fact alone immediately put Arteran on edge.

    Arteran wasn't surprised when the individual sat down across from him, and continued to consider his options in regards to the man. While the individual obviously was spiritually aware, and very likely knew that Arteran was a Shinigami, though he would have no way of knowing if Arteran had noticed whether or not Arteran was suspicous of him. The odds that the man had any kind of specific vendetta or agenda against Arteran in particular or Shinigami in general were low, but the chance couldn't be ignored. Even as he opened his mouth to respond Arteran continued to consider a multitude of combat, escape, and neutral scenarios.

    "Nah, just the damn Brits still tryin' to tell us what we can and cannae do."

    Arteran's voice had slipped easily into a perfect Irish accent, one of the perks of working in the area so often over the years.


Word Count:342
Total Word Count:597
Total GP Gain:11

Raphael wanted to smile, as he watched the man, the Shinigami was nicely hiding within this meatsuit of his, even had an accident down and everything. Normally Raph would’ve thought that he was odd for a Shinigami, but to Raphael just about every Shinigami was strange in one way or another. He chuckled just a little. This guy was really committed to this bit of his.

“’Damn Britts’?” Raphael asked, a bit of humor tickling his tone. “Come on,” Raph said. “I just need to ask a few questions. It’s obvious from your signature and the one the other Shinigami is putting out, that you all are looking for someone. I’m conducting an investigation on a group of towns that have suffered from a string of mysterious attacks; there are no bodies left at any scene, just clothes and dust so I’ve got very few leads. I’ve heard word that there’s also an arrancar in the area, which might explain why you and your partner are here, but I was wondering if you have found any leads.”

He couldn’t sense any arrancar in the area, though that didn’t mean that there wasn’t one. They were shifty bastards capable of hiding themselves at a moment’s notice, disappearing for weeks on end. Raph had hunted them once upon a time.

“Do you know of any reason what would leave clothes and dust? Anything and everything that I know about any hollow, normal or arrancar, says that an attack should at the very least leave a mutilated corpse, right? So what could possibly be leaving behind something like this?” He pulled out a photo and held it in front of the “man”. There was a yellow suit on the ground with a red and white striped tie and white undershirt inside of it with nothing but dust both inside and out. Raph looked at the man out of the corner of his eyes to see if there was any reaction.

Words: 327