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SPOILER: Click to show

Must Read Before Joining~
Five years ago, sunset on a beautiful day. 74 degrees and slowly dropping.

The sun setting upon the horizon causes for the sky's coloration to be pasted over with a more lively, beautiful display. Hues of orange, purple and even red stretch perfectly across the sky. Reflecting upon the land a beauty seen once a day. Laying down at the foot of a lake, the Arrancar peacefully admires the sky in all it's glory. It was honestly his favorite part of the day and he hasn't broken the viewing ritual for already 2,000 years. (Give or take the times he's been held up by enemies.) The clouds in the sky were oddly formed, each uniquely similar to one another. And instead of bearing the milky-white texture they normal do, they too blend in with whichever color streaking through them. As Andra shifts his gaze through the sky, he begins to let his thoughts wander. Why was he here? What was his purpose in life? Mostly he just asked himself the questions he never was able able to answer in his past of searching for answer to.. really, just anything. A gentle breeze curls down and glides across the floor and over Andra, rustling his pitch-black hair momentarily. He gives the area a double-take before reverting his gaze back unto the sky. As the time passed, the coloration began growing dominantly darker and the pattern began to change overall. A frown slowly set in on Andra's face as the realization of the ending of his peace was becoming everso clear. With his train of thought thrown from it's rails, he becomes stuck in a dead-thought gaze, trying to consume the last bits of the sunset that were left to enjoy.

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Sitting on a tall rock in the center of a steadily running stream - it would have been a river if only it were deeper - Kiba had been working on his fishing technique since noon. He'd been cautioned by many men that true fishing could only occur when the sun was rising, not when it was in the middle of the sky, but that was the devil's hour, when only devil fish could be caught, and Kiba would be damned - probably literally - if he were ever found outdoors at such a time. So he was going to prove everybody wrong, starting with the stupid fish, who were stupidly and ignorantly ignoring his hook and bait completely as they swam on by, being all glittery and stupid. And ignorant.

Of course, that had been at noon; it was now a lot of hours beyond then, to the point where the sun was now hiding behind treelines, and behind mountains beyond them, painting the sky a fiery red, and only two fish had Kiba caught to prove anybody anything, and they were stupid tiny fish anyways, so what did that prove? Nothing, is what. Well, if the fish were going to be ignorant, Kiba decided, he would just have to teach them what for.

Discarding his top and rolling his hakama up to his knees, Kiba had jumped into the stream, scattering the fishes, and promptly held very, very still. After a few minutes, the stupid ignorant fish began nearing once again.... and the trap was set. With a great shout of anger and effort, Kiba's fists began tearing the water asunder, and like magic, fish began flying cleanly and majestically through the air, not further downstream but instead across the stream and onto the bank, where they would flop stupidly inside a stone circle Kiba had made just for this occasion. Hah, stupid fish! As always, there was nothing Kiba couldn't accomplish with his fists!

Ah, but tragedy approached, not in the form of the slowly building storm clouds, which Kiba would have ignored anyways, but in the form of a pack of villainous raccoon! The chittering thieves of banditry assailed Kiba's stone ring as one, and oh, how Kiba did holler mightily before stomping at them - but as in all flowing waterbeds, the stones were slick and smooth, and graceless Kiba did plummet, striking his head upon a stone with an 'oomph'. Fortunately, Kiba's head was made of stronger stuff, and the stone cracked rather dramatically, though it also had the last laugh as the unconscious Kiba flowed along the stream, to be eventually deposited in the lake at the foot of which some stranger lounged.

Eventually, Kiba would flounder in his sleep and come awake with a jolt, sputtering water as he hit the rising slope of the 'beach' beside the lake. Dripping and sputtering and maybe swearing a little bit, the Taicho shook himself off... only two feet away from the man he had yet to notice, splattering the fellow surely, unless he had the sense to move upon hearing a stranger's sputtering approach. Still not having noticed this potential victim, Kiba shivered mightily, grousing as he looked this way and that, wondering where he was at and more importantly how to stop being both cold and wet; either was annoying enough as it were, but both? Both was simply terrible.

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Admiration for the sunset was soon set aside. As in the bottom of his gaze he spots afloat a.. well, it sort of looked like a body. But from Andra's sitting position he was not able to make a definite decision. Rising to his feet with a lightly sigh of despair falling from his mouth, he winces slightly, as if trying to focus in on the floating object. Though to no avail could he properly point out what it was. Wandering along side of the lake's rim, Andra makes way to the object. And after a few steps, he stops, letting the thing float up to the rim about two feet away from his standing point. About now it was more than obvious it t'was a Human.. or Shinigami. Nonetheless, Andra stepped forward with a single foot. And if it wasn't for the awakening, Andra would have fully approached. Though instead he takes a few steps back, eying the man suspiciously. Andra noticed Kiba was adorned in wear that one does not normal sport during a swim. So Andra came to with the assumption that this man came across a bit of bad luck and took a swim unof his will. Removing his white robe, he tosses it to Kiba's foot, "I suggest you rid yourself of that wet clothing. The lake gets rather cold after sunset." Andra's robe was more than enough to cloak Kiba's body entirely. Well, that is, save for the sleeve that was apparently missing.

Andra just stands there, Hollow mask, and Hollow hole painfully apparent to the man, "What were you doing afloat in such a manner like that?" Yet a better question would be, why the fuck was this Hollow being so friendly and familiar?

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Conversation drew Kiba's attention from the shivering, his head turning sharply, in time to see a robe hit the ground at his feet. The Taicho scowled at the mask, the hole, but most importantly, the insinuation. "I don't drop my pants for dudes."

This would be followed by a well-meant but ill-executed action; Kiba only wanted, of course, to return the robe to the man, but in his huff of aggravation, Kiba's foot caught more than robe - oh yes, so much more - and with his simple kick, not only robe, but sand and stone took to the air, course chartered straight for the Hollow, though probably enough the robe would do a good enough job in it's wayward spinning way to break the acceleration of the rubble.

Of course, Kiba wouldn't watch the robe plus luggage soar - he would be too busy still trying to gather his bearings, looking left and right, even half-spinning. "You catch fish, you gotta be fish." He murmured loudly, words slurring slightly - it would seem perhaps that his head meeting with the now-cracked stone so far away had left his head a bit of a jumble, and if his sopping wet hair weren't so good a disguise, perhaps Andra would be able to see the slowly-forming goose egg and gander a guess as to Kiba's predicament.

Alas, non and non was the likelihood of such, for between properly soaked hair and flying debris, such attentions could not afford to be paid to that which was not immediately visible regardless!

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The tiny bits of stone along with a majority of the dirty become entrapped in the robe as it's rudely returned to him. With a bit of dirt caught in his left eye, he rubs into it vigorously with one hand, utilizing the other to snatch the robe before it hits the ground. Obviously, by the way he wasn't pouncing ontop of the Arrancar, Andra could tell it most likely, accidental. After relieving his eye of the annoying specs of dirt, he ruffles his robe lightly, removing the bits of debris. He honestly didn't care about he robe and so he didn't make a fuss when it was returned to him in such a manner. Andra slips back into his robe and comes to with a retort. "Well, unknown person, it isn't a matter of seeing you naked, I was merely showing a token of good faith. If you truly desire to catch a cold and possibly die from shivering right down to the bone.. that's on you."

Briefly he just observes Kiba before asking, "So, are we to exchange pleasantries.. go our own ways.. or perhaps, just maybe, you'd like to..-" Andra stops for a moment, gliding the fingertip of his index directly across the mid-point of his neck, "-..have my head?" The Arrancar grins softly as he chuckles lightly.

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SPOILER: Click to show

70 degrees, light breeze picks up

In his muddled state, Kiba was having difficulties; he couldn't tell if the sun was rising or falling, couldn't tell if the storm was coming or going, couldn't rightfully tell if his feet hurt or were numbly comfortable. But even in this debilitated state, Kiba knew a challenge when he heard one; the Hollow's words ran deep, zapping alive synapses and blowing through barriers that had only ever existed for the sake of politeness. Kiba only needed to half-turn, only needed his eyes to peer over his shoulder to see the man's finger drag across his neck - because now it wasn't a matter of a pesky Hollow annoying a fisherman. Now it was a man threatening a man.

The temperature dropped, the wind picked up, but Kiba would never notice - at this point, such things as comfort and temperature were figments of imagination. His body heated under it's own power, his blood thrumming through his veins, strumming a war-beat, a loving serenade from the heart to the brain that brought life to every muscle in between. Kiba's hands half-curled, forming flat fists, the palms aimed forward as his arms formed obtuse angles, rising just away from his lower body, elbows bent at either side of his abdomen. "Well com'a'me then H'low."

Ah well, not EVERYTHING could benefit from adrenaline and pumping blood - and if something had to give, it may as well be vocal comprehension.

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Soon enough the only light left was that of the Sun's reflection bouncing off the Moon. Setting into the bluish-black of the night sky was a plethora of stars. Scattering, stretching and littering all over. You couldn't find a spot without them there was so much. He raises his hand in an open palm, a gesture commonly used by Humans to signify 'stopping'. "It was not a battle invitation but rather an assumption. I'll ask you only once, fisherman, put your fists down. I do not wish to quarrel with you." Andra's tone and facial expression have shifted to a more stressed motion, displaying a sort of stern and serious-like nature. If the man, by now, had not moved to attack, Andra would say, "For a man whom claims who claims to be a fishermen.. you seem to be rather empty handed. Are you okay?" Andra was starting to think the man was delusional. He had no fish and just awoke.. in a lake. And was Kiba really all that healthy to partake in battle? An already sustained head-wound along with soaking wet clothes in the night air was not something to be taken lightly. In fact, they made for rather interesting handicaps that would weigh heavily in Andra's favor, regardless of him being aware of the head injury or not. While maintaining guard, he further examines Kiba. Taking in the overall everything of his appearance, from clothing to his physical body.

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Kiba's business-like frown would become a scowl, a scowl so near to a sneer that in order to differentiate one from the other, a man would have to attend classes of higher education on the nuances of facial structure to know which was which. This person had in two breaths challenged and then turned down the response, and not only that, but he had first called Kiba a - of all possible things - fisherman, and then a not very good fisherman! As Kiba's half-glossed eyes hazily scoured the robed figure for detail, his mind recalled that hole in the figure's chest. A hole... like a fish had! So that was it then!

"Y'think I'nno whassher game is, fish?" The slurring was getting bad now, and the disconnect between Kiba's stare and his accusations - because now he would be talking at the point half a foot above Andra's left shoulder - was growing. Still, some things never changed, and with Kiba, that one thing was the doctrine of his body.

Despite anything else one could say for Kiba, the undeniable fact was that his body was a sword, forged in fires stoked under stone, tempered by the crushing hammer-blows of combat, and baptized cool in the blood of various enemies. And though a sword's wielder could falter and stumble, the sword itself was always undeniably deadly - therefore, even in this state of complete mental devastation, it would be folly of the highest order to declare Kiba unfit for combat. If anything, in fact, he was now more dangerous than ever, for without a level of higher function to halt him, what but an utterly defeated enemy could put a hold to the progress of Kiba?

All well and good to say, of course, but the simple fact was that Kiba was an unknown quantity to Dect, just as Dect was unknown to Kiba. Still, there were two facts the delirious Taicho could not ignore, as they were also the only two he could focus on: First, he had been called a fisherman, and nobody in his long line of family had ever been anything so low as a belly-crawling fisherman! And second, he had been called a not very good fisherman, and by virtue of being himself, Kiba was clearly the best fisherman there was! What this all boiled down to, naturally, was that he had to beat this stupid fish's face for saying otherwise.

Rather than lower his fists, Kiba instead raised them, turning his palms inward and curling his fingers further, so rather than palm-fists, he had true balled fists prepared as he began short-stepping forward, bouncing from heel to heel, the physically super-capable Shinigami not at all slowed or hindered by the awkward footing; indeed, it seemed Kiba's body was so acutely aware of it's surroundings it was already compromising for the footing, putting him on the same level of agility he could claim on even the tatami-est of mats: not great, but serviceable.

The next moment was one of madness; handled by a force beyond mortal reckoning, Andra was struck by the possessive nature of his race, and the Hollow lunged. More than strength was with the Shinigami that day, however, for when his fist lashed, it did so with righteous fury, with a power handed down from high above. The Shinigami's fist tore through the Hollow, entering at his neck and exploding upward; there would be no clues, no hints as to the Hollow's identity afterward, for he was gone now. Covered in the gore of the beast, Kiba would get lost this day; eventually, he would be found by a Fifth Division patrol and brought home, to be treated for his head wound. It would be presumed he got into a tussle with an animal when he was questioned to no avail. And so ended another tale.

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