Failure. Complete and abject failure. Yoshiya was usually good at calculating trajectory and the like. Whilst his weapon was oddly weighted, it was his weapon, he had spent many hours with it, hacking at logs, chipping at stone, harvesting corn... Whilst he hadn't thrown it too much, it was like an extension of his body. To achieve less than half the distance was troubling...

Though he did not have time to ponder deeply, for Behemoth appeared. How they had missed him until now was also troubling. But there it was, towering over them. Until it was simply over them, in the air. He had to get out of there, but not alone. He looked up to see his precious about to leap from the tree she was in. It was time for him to redeem himself.

Her momentum, her angle, her rate of descent, she would be there at then. He ran so he would be at her landing spot, ready to catch his daughter.

Down she fell, and forward he ran. Both distances closed. What was seconds felt like minutes, as time slowed inside his mind. He would do this. And indeed, a small bundle of cloth fell in his arms. But he didn't stop running, even after he caught her. Though they were clear of the monster's landing they needed to be clear of his reach.

Once his daughter was secure in his grasp, he held her in his right, and recalled his staff to him, sealing its form as he did so, before passing it to his precious child, not wanting it to impede his running, not wanting to loosen up his grip on his daughter.

"I..." Aya began, though a cough racked her frame. She wasn't made to be very combat-worthy, it seemed. Still, she finished, "I can fight."

This was before the creature leapt. Aya's fear shook her deeply when it did, and her legs seemed to turn gelatinous. 'Move!' something inside her said, and Aya struggled to will her feet to motion. Like a moth before a flame, she was transfixed, blade in hand, by the massive behemoth descending towards her. Sweat beaded at her brow and her wide eyes strained. She must move or she would die. That was what she told herself.

And finally, her limbs obeyed her. Aya turned on her heels and stumbled away from the creature, fleeing haphazardly. She did nothing to defend her dignity as a Shinigami. She did nothing to seem brave before her superiors or the Rukongai citizens. She merely fled now, her wits held loosely like the sword in her hand. She nearly dropped both, she thought, in her dash, but looking upward, something else caught her eyes. The falling child and the man racing to save her. There was a child here.

And that stirred something greater within her.

She had hopefully made it beyond the creature's shadow. Her sense of fear had propelled her far beyond where she and the others had been, and she saw it descending not above her but before her. It was then that she turned. Her face set in a thick grimace. She forgot her aching chest. She forgot fear. A child was in danger, and the mother lizard, the great maternal spirit of her ancestors, would not let her stand by while a young one was in danger.

She readied her weapon to attack as she stood directly between the falling hollow and the falling child. She would trust the man to save the young one. Defending them both would be Aya's responsibility instead.

[bgcolor=000000]With his kido not wasted and hitting home, killing the beast in almost an instant his gaze shifted, the fleeing hollow feigning any small feeling of victory he had. They're running, but not from us. And soon, he saw why. The creature's hand rended trees almost as easily as Malik did draw breathe and came into view, massive and ugly. Well, that would explain that.

His eyes scaled the beast from head to toe, or at least as much as he could see from what remained of the treeline obscuring his view. It was wounded, but just how bad he could not say, furthermore it's torso in that fur would be problematic to deal with. Unlikely sharpened edges would do much against that in one strike. And then, it looked down, spotting them. It's body seemingly tensed, and lowered ever so slightly. Malik had been around for a long time, and he had done his own share of jumping and had seen others do it as well. So, instantly he knew what the beast was about to do.

He cursed.

Quickly, his eyes zipped around the area looking for those whom may not be able to escape what was coming, Aya was on her feet so she should be alright so he didn't allow his vision to linger upon her. The beast's giant foot pads left the ground as he spotted him, the man whom was 'down'. The Shinigami, ran.

His feet carried him as quickly as they had ever carried him before as he crossed the distance between where he had been and the Rukongai citizen. Faster.. Faster! The shadow of the thing was covering the area now, he had little time. His blades quickly were slammed into their home as he continued, albeit he fumbled a bit, nicking himself in the hand with a sharp blade. He paid the wound no mind. Coming up upon the seemingly unconscious man, he slipped his arms beneath the man's pits, pulled him back onto Malik and jumped to one side.

Now, truth be told Malik was not a physically strong man, not even in the slightest would he claim to be. But adrenaline could do amazing things at times, although he would be a very sore, man later, whom would no doubt be complaining that he was too old for this sort of thing. As he and his Rukongai citizen moved through the air, a foot or two at best, Malik arched his knees and kicked, pushing himself and the man with a combination of air walking and shunpo.

It was in his hopes that he would rocket the pair of them a little further than he could typically and avoid beast's landing which would no doubt, crush them both as easily as a foot did a bug.

A great rumbling that shook the very ground; a howl full of pain and anger. Not the best way to shake out of an exhausted sleep. But you make do with what you're given.

Rip came awake. He was groggy; disoriented. There were many people here now. He didn't understand why. Where did they come from? When did they get there? Who were they? Why were there dead things? What was going on? It was all very confusing.

As his tired, jumbled mind tried to make sense of it all a piercing howl rent the air. He jumped, and his fight-or-flight response took over. It chose flight. As he scrambled to his feet an unknown assailant grabbed him from behind, lifting him bodily into the air. Rip was running on instinct, unable to process the situation. He did the only thing that made sense to him; he lit up.

Rip's body burst into flames. It burned bright and hot. When his attacker's mind finally registered that its hands were burning away, and subsequently dropped him, he took off running. A beacon of bright light, doing it's damndest to get out from under the incoming shadow.

[Immolation: Post 1/8]

[Edit due to me not reading previous posts. Dur.]

Upon hearing the howl, Miroku looked around him quickly, only taking in that a majority of those around him were shinigami before a shadow started forming on the ground. Looking up, he saw a huge figure barreling at his location. Miroku took a sidestep and then started running back the way he came, bo staff behind him, hoping it would be enough to outrun the figure, or else he'd be hitting the ground very hard.

From the tree's luxuriant foliage, Kurisuna acknowledged the medic's apology with a curt nod as the porcine succumbed to her projectile. There was a tiny flutter of sound, a punctuation of movement tandem to the beast's monstrous roar, as she reposed her bow against her back and rocketed skyward, propelled by shunpo; suspended a serviceable 30ft from the canopy, she would be privy to a superior vantage point, and—she stiffened, and then relaxed as she appraised the massive Adjuchas—located strategically to strike the beast where it would be most vulnerable.

The opportunity came in short order as the rodent leapt, and plummeted heavily for her allies as Kurisuna unsheathed her Zanpakutou and callously plunged after the massive vermin; the Hollow would land on all fours, exposing the back of its neck, at which point she would ideally plant her feet into the beast's mane and thrust her sword up the recess of its nape—it was her intention to stab at an angle, such that the creature's thick spine could not obstruct her totally, but the titanic rat's movements were not easy to call.

As Brain would be reaching the corpse in which his zanapkuto was dug into, he would begin to notice the trembling and roaring. But in his current state of injury, it was to hard to differ between the Hollow. He would need another vantage point over the area to identify the source of this monstrous roar and because he wasn't in any shape to do any more tree climbing, he would need to trek directly into the heart. Kneeling down, he winces as pressure is applied mildly towards the left side of his torso. he removes the blades from the body in disgust, wiping the tainted blade clean of it's maroon hue. "If only we were in a time before you monsters.." he says with a mentally-painful sigh.

As he sheathes his weapon, he would stand to his feet and start walking toward the direction of Kurisuna. His Taichou was not within sight, nor was her presence obvious to Brain, to him he was the only Third Division Member in the area, that he knew of. As he slowly makes way toward the scene, either of his arms would remained clasped to his side and while his mind was lost in thought, his eyes were vigilante and on watch for any possible inbound threat.

"That Cero could've been the end of me. And for what? I didn't even see the damned Adjuchas' aim, it could've been aiming at anyone outside the Third Division and I would'nt have lost sleep over the outcome.." he unknowingly contemplates on even entering the area, taking a second look at his recent encounter.

As the Hollow plowed into the earth in a last-ditch effort to smear those beneath it, its joints buckled, their cross-sections incapable of supporting such a massive beast. The Adjuchas had known this well, mad and pain-ridden though it was, and succumbed to its own prodigious weight, naught but kin dispatched by its penultimate endeavor to secure a dozen more deaths; perhaps it would have risen, if only to resume storming the district on what little borrowed time it retained, but its wounds were simply too profuse.

Compounding to the vermin's throes, the sword lodged profoundly in its neck released into its Shikai form at the Taichou's command, projecting an additional meter to sever the Hollow's carotid; at this, the behemoth's waning growls guttered into its own veritable death knell, and the beast lost consciousness in short order, having sustained far too many injuries beforehand to retaliate. Rukongai's aggressors had miscalculated horrifically, and the full-fledged battalion of Hollow, reduced to a scant dozen individuals, dispersed as victory became unattainable.

SPOILER: Click to show

Event's over, you fairies! Cain'll handle rewards, so y'all can exit.

The beast fell, and the beast fell.

The first fall caused its second fall, though it was aware of both falls before making its leap.

Yoshiya held his daughter tightly, still running. The fighting was over, and peace was restored. Though, he didn't want the nearby Shinigami looking too closely at them.

The two disappeared into the crowd.

"You did well," the man said to his daughter, taking his staff from her and placing it back into its sheath.

This is how the last great danger had ended too, carrying a child. But that time she had been damaged and he handed her to a medic, never to be seen again. This time it was his daughter, he was carrying home. Aside from a few bruises and scratches, which Yoshiya was confident would heal without needing any more than the medical attention he could give, the only other injury she had sustained was caused by fear.

For that reason he kept holding her, save for a brief stop at a stall en route, where he bought her a large teddy, a twenty four inch high Kitsune, with as many tails as it had feet.

[EXIT]

[bgcolor=000000]Well that could have gone a lot better. As Malik had neared the Rukongai Citizen, he started to climb and Malik being the 'fool' he was decided to continue with his attempts to save the man from an untimely squishing. Well, next thing he knew the man on fire..

Malik released the Rukongai as soon as he felt the lick of the red hot flames, but it was too late. His hands were beneath the man's pits and at the core of the inferno, where it was hottest. He cried out in agony and rolled to the ground, his hands digging into earth to quell the flames wroth. Cringing, he looked at his reddened, bleeding hands and forcibly parted his fingers from one another before the skin joined the digits together, this made him sick.

Vomiting, he crawled to the stream nearby and plunged his burnt hands into the cool water, tears welling in his tears as he did so. His vision began to blacken. He was going pass out, he knew it. But he couldn't, not now. He had to make it back, the hollow it had to..

He turned, saw the death blow and his body began to buckle. He couldn't hold up his weight any longer. The shock of pain was overwhelming him so. "A-Aya!" He cried, splashing into the stream further. She was his one and only chance.

"Aya...A-ya.."

[passed out, exit with whomever carries Malik's unconious bottom back to the city]

The arrancar girl sniffled, pouting at her lack of doing anything against her kin. Her father's words only managing to make her feel worse about not killing anything. She let out a pouty sigh as she buried her soft features into his dirty cloak.

"But Daddy, I didn't do anything but get hurt." She would go silent as she was taken home. She'd let out a squeal as she was presented the plush fox, nuzzling her father in thanks.

[Exit]

Change of plans. I'll be tallying up this thread utilizing a special grading method exclusive to the event. This topic is now locked, meaning those who have not yet exited will have to address their circumstances elsewhere.

SPOILER: Click to show

Malik — 10

Philemon — 6

Kurisuna — 7

Rip — 9

Aya — 12

Kurai — 11

Miroku — 9

Jeff — 11

Brain — 10