Post by Victoria on Apr 7, 2018 19:43:45 GMT -5
Rome. Eternal city. Ancient Capital. All that the ancient world had strove to be at one time. A hub of history, culture, faith and a record of human history since its founding. A city who had been razed multiple times and traded hands in control more time than anyone could be sure of. A city of relative peace for the last few decades.
Now, a warzone once again. Not of the physical variety as it had been many times but in a spiritual sort of way.
The infection had cut their numbers so drastically that formerly secure, well patrolled, relatively safe routes were now almost as dangerous as active hot zones like Karakura. Places of ancient origin, Rome being one of them, had a lot of soul activity from millenniums of human habitation. This acted like a beacon for the hollow. These places often still held large populations which meant a constant supply of recently dead souls coming into the spiritual plane, which at even pre-infection numbers, meant that they, the shinigami, simply couldn't keep up with the total number of dead. It had been accepted that they would be unable to ferry every soul across to their realm but it was a very apparent point now. They did their best to get as many souls as they could while maintaining their grip on what parts of the city they could but the lines, as they always had been, were porous. They pushed into hollow held territory and the hollows did the same in return. Fighting was always violent and inconclusive and likely would always be. Things were just worse now.
Their people were stretched thin. Several thousand deployable shinigami across the five divisions holding what territory they could and trying to prevent other places from becoming footholds for the hollows in others. Thankfully, a few humans here and there who were not Quincy were capable of defending their own small territories and keeping hollows at bay. This took some of the load off her beleaguered people but did nothing to prevent the stretching thin and taxation of their present resources. Which, was the current problem.
Patrol groups through hot zones and heavily spiritual areas had always been reserved for squads and stronger shinigami. Since there just weren't as many of them to go around squads, at the best of times, were two to three people and with the drop in training time in the academy to bolster numbers where they could meant a lot of poorly trained and unready troops were being sent into fire hot zones underprepared for the task they were given. Which was what was happening on a daily basis and what she, the wolf, was preparing to relieve.
Five minutes prior a distress call had been received by her divisions coms operator, a position formerly filled by a unseated officer but now held by anyone who could fill the seat and get people where they needed to be, and she, after being roused from her two hour nap, had been requested to go and aid the unit in distress.
Still wiping sleep from her eyes as she strode towards the gate the blond female was the look of pure exhaustion. This was her fourth emergency deployment in less than thirty six hours. Something that mattered very little to her but helped to explain the haggard look she wore as she tightened hand wraps and checked her boots laces. Those between her and the gate stepped aside with a mix of awe and respect. She was the ancient of their division. The most seasoned and well versed in their task. None had served longer than her. Few would ever probably. Her name spoke of a time long gone and nearly forgotten. Her body spoke of lifetimes spent on the line and an untold number of battles. She moved with a practiced lightness to her step that only years of practice gave someone. Her presence was like that of a block of iron. Hard, cold, unflinching and reliable to the end. She was the product of her service, a soldier, regardless of how she felt about it, through and through.
Her face was as hard as her body. Green eye's partly hidden behind furrowed brow. Delicate chin set in a grim frown. Some bowed, some saluted, some simply gaped as she in all her five foot and five inch frame moved through them. She was their third seat and she'd earned that spot with oceans of blood and mountains of gore and bone. She was the embodiment of what the fifth stood for.
Duty before all things.
The present deployment wasn't one she'd need help with normally. Usually she jumped in slaughtered as many enemies as she could while pushing back the line of hollows or drawing them off to allow the endangered unit to retreat or for the medical corp to move its units in. This time, however, she would need help. Things had gone tits up so badly for the distressed unit that they would be unable to retreat under their own power and the medical corp would be unable to spare enough stretcher bearers to evacuate the entire group all at once. This was a problem simply because the only thing that was keeping this unit from being eaten was the fact that one of the members of it was just talented enough to maintain a barrier strong enough to keep the filthy beasts from doing so and they'd need to drop it to allow the medical units access to evacuate them in stages with the most direly wounded going out first. So someone, and it could be anyone, would need to provide close in defense while she handled the bulk of the fighting during the retreat of the injured unit.
She stopped just shy of the gate and raised her right hand and pointed into the group of shinigami to her right that were waiting to deploy after her . "You," she said without looking, "Grab your shit. You're assisting me with this rescue op." Dropping her right hand back to her side she closed her eyes and tilted her head to the left and was rewarded with a nice healthy crunch. Doing the same but to the right she was given yet another crunch after which she exhaled deeply. She hadn't a clue whom she'd ordered to accompany with her and it didn't matter much. If they were fifth, as everyone near this gate was, they should by the very nature of their job be capable of fighting their enemy effectively and if they weren't they wouldn't be fifth or a shinigami for very long.
WC- 1112
Now, a warzone once again. Not of the physical variety as it had been many times but in a spiritual sort of way.
The infection had cut their numbers so drastically that formerly secure, well patrolled, relatively safe routes were now almost as dangerous as active hot zones like Karakura. Places of ancient origin, Rome being one of them, had a lot of soul activity from millenniums of human habitation. This acted like a beacon for the hollow. These places often still held large populations which meant a constant supply of recently dead souls coming into the spiritual plane, which at even pre-infection numbers, meant that they, the shinigami, simply couldn't keep up with the total number of dead. It had been accepted that they would be unable to ferry every soul across to their realm but it was a very apparent point now. They did their best to get as many souls as they could while maintaining their grip on what parts of the city they could but the lines, as they always had been, were porous. They pushed into hollow held territory and the hollows did the same in return. Fighting was always violent and inconclusive and likely would always be. Things were just worse now.
Their people were stretched thin. Several thousand deployable shinigami across the five divisions holding what territory they could and trying to prevent other places from becoming footholds for the hollows in others. Thankfully, a few humans here and there who were not Quincy were capable of defending their own small territories and keeping hollows at bay. This took some of the load off her beleaguered people but did nothing to prevent the stretching thin and taxation of their present resources. Which, was the current problem.
Patrol groups through hot zones and heavily spiritual areas had always been reserved for squads and stronger shinigami. Since there just weren't as many of them to go around squads, at the best of times, were two to three people and with the drop in training time in the academy to bolster numbers where they could meant a lot of poorly trained and unready troops were being sent into fire hot zones underprepared for the task they were given. Which was what was happening on a daily basis and what she, the wolf, was preparing to relieve.
Five minutes prior a distress call had been received by her divisions coms operator, a position formerly filled by a unseated officer but now held by anyone who could fill the seat and get people where they needed to be, and she, after being roused from her two hour nap, had been requested to go and aid the unit in distress.
Still wiping sleep from her eyes as she strode towards the gate the blond female was the look of pure exhaustion. This was her fourth emergency deployment in less than thirty six hours. Something that mattered very little to her but helped to explain the haggard look she wore as she tightened hand wraps and checked her boots laces. Those between her and the gate stepped aside with a mix of awe and respect. She was the ancient of their division. The most seasoned and well versed in their task. None had served longer than her. Few would ever probably. Her name spoke of a time long gone and nearly forgotten. Her body spoke of lifetimes spent on the line and an untold number of battles. She moved with a practiced lightness to her step that only years of practice gave someone. Her presence was like that of a block of iron. Hard, cold, unflinching and reliable to the end. She was the product of her service, a soldier, regardless of how she felt about it, through and through.
Her face was as hard as her body. Green eye's partly hidden behind furrowed brow. Delicate chin set in a grim frown. Some bowed, some saluted, some simply gaped as she in all her five foot and five inch frame moved through them. She was their third seat and she'd earned that spot with oceans of blood and mountains of gore and bone. She was the embodiment of what the fifth stood for.
Duty before all things.
The present deployment wasn't one she'd need help with normally. Usually she jumped in slaughtered as many enemies as she could while pushing back the line of hollows or drawing them off to allow the endangered unit to retreat or for the medical corp to move its units in. This time, however, she would need help. Things had gone tits up so badly for the distressed unit that they would be unable to retreat under their own power and the medical corp would be unable to spare enough stretcher bearers to evacuate the entire group all at once. This was a problem simply because the only thing that was keeping this unit from being eaten was the fact that one of the members of it was just talented enough to maintain a barrier strong enough to keep the filthy beasts from doing so and they'd need to drop it to allow the medical units access to evacuate them in stages with the most direly wounded going out first. So someone, and it could be anyone, would need to provide close in defense while she handled the bulk of the fighting during the retreat of the injured unit.
She stopped just shy of the gate and raised her right hand and pointed into the group of shinigami to her right that were waiting to deploy after her . "You," she said without looking, "Grab your shit. You're assisting me with this rescue op." Dropping her right hand back to her side she closed her eyes and tilted her head to the left and was rewarded with a nice healthy crunch. Doing the same but to the right she was given yet another crunch after which she exhaled deeply. She hadn't a clue whom she'd ordered to accompany with her and it didn't matter much. If they were fifth, as everyone near this gate was, they should by the very nature of their job be capable of fighting their enemy effectively and if they weren't they wouldn't be fifth or a shinigami for very long.
WC- 1112
