We meet at last

Hiroshi's breath was ragged and uneven. His chest was on fire. The night are was bitterly cold tonight but he was sweating anyway. His feet hurt. Everything kind of hurt after he'd fallen. "Ohgod. Oh god oh god." He whimpered to himself as he continued to sprint down the alleyway, long after his body had begun screaming for him to stop. He couldn't stop. He already knew what was happening. He hadn't wanted to even come to the human world, but how could he possibly have told his superiors how he knew.

He knew who was committing these murders. And he had a good suspicion why. But he thought that if he'd come in a different looking gigai, if he just disguised himself... Even if he couldn't hid completely, he could at least have time to get ready for combat... to at least have a chance... but he made a mistake. She noticed his soul candy... She must have suspected him already... And then...

He didn't know where his soul candy had gone. It was back there somewhere. He'd never reach it alive. Those wires... he'd almost been sliced in half... Why hadn't she sliced him in half....?

He reached the end of the alley, spying a busy street ahead. Ah! She was visible to humans. She had to be the way she skulked around. She couldn't kill him in the middle of the street. He'd have time to figure out how to get home or at least to get out of this gigai. He just.

"HRK!" he hadn't even seen the wire noose drop down. It tightened around his neck, the wires widening so as not to slice into him. He struggled for a moment before he was quickly lifted off his feet, already strangling as he was pulled to the roof of the building next to him.

He was turned around slowly fighting to remain conscious. But he already knew. He knew what he would see.. WHO he would see when he was turned around... And he knew that suffocation would have been preferable to what was about to happen to him.

----

A few minutes later, Hua wiped her mouth clean, giving a small sated sigh. His soul hadn't been as repulsive as the others, but there was that pathetic taste of cowardice that added some zest to it. She glanced at the now empty gigai, before looking over the edge of the building. About six stories down. Well, that was simple. With a flick of her wrist, the wires released and retracted back to her bracelet, letting the gigai simply fall.

She'd just been leaving them lying in the street with no signs of injury before, but... Well, the police were one thing, but now she had heard rumors that shinigami were sniffing around looking for missing members...

She'd gladly take the police investigation any day of the week.

Another report... How many had there been already? This... This couldn't be a simple hollow, right? It was a concern, a big one that shinigami were disappearing. There were a lot of shinigami, plenty of them, but they were all still their own persons...

Even if a few went missing it was a cause for concern...

Narue ran through the streets, without her gigai, occasionally giving a quick step of shunpo as she hurried towards the area she'd last sensed a signature from.

Where... Where...

Aah!

Much unlike her, or unlike her to most people that knew her, a shriek escaped as a body suddenly dropped to the ground in front of her, causing her to skid to a stop and fall back on her bottom.

T...That was...

There had been a number of shinigami that had gone missing, compared to their numbers...a few, but... This one, she knew the faces of the ones missing now, having received profiles on them so she would also be able to keep an eye out along with the team that had been sent to investigate...

This one... This one was...

Hua had been about to run off into the night, quick to want to make tracks. She heard the rather satisfying splat behind her, but she also heard another noise. One that only startled her at first. A scream. Had someone seen her? She might need to really get the hell out of her if they had. She inched over to the edge of the roof and glanced over. That's when she was officially scared.

Shit... A shinigami... What was she doing here? Hua hadn't noticed her... There weren't any other patrols in the area... She felt a sinking feeling in her stomach. What if they were on to her? She shivered a little and stepped away from the ledge.

But as she did, a piece of gravel came loose, plummeting to the alley below.

Narue's eyes remained on the body, widened due to the shock of it suddenly having landed in front of her. Her shoulders shook slightly; move, move...she needed to move. It had just fallen...but, but she couldn't gather the strength.

This wasn't good...

Just when her nerves began to calm, her attention was forced from the body to the sound of something else.

Her eyes darted to the side, just after the gravel hit the ground near her. Gravel...

The roof then!

Immediately, she looked up; nothing...she didn't see anything, but...

With as much force as she could muster, she made herself move to stand. What had caused this? What had done this? They needed to find out... If she ran here she would be abandoning her duties as a shinigami, and she wasn't going to do that...

She was a lieutenant!

With that in mind, she again forced her feet to move to follow.

Hua's blood ran cold. Like ice, as that gravel fell to the street below. She winced heavily when she heard it hit. She paused for a moment, frozen in panic. Wh.. What if they didn't notice it... Or... if they just left... What if...

The sudden sound of feet scuffling proved that theory wrong and Hua turned, sprinting across the rooftop. Damn damn damn damn damn, she needed to get the hell out of here... Ugggh, if it was a shinigami they could fly, right? Or hover or... whatever... She came to the edge of the building and shot her wire into it, sliding off and using the wire to swing into the building.

She hit the all and glanced aside, noticing some windows. She spied an open one and quickly swung into it, landing quietly inside.

She suppressed her reiatsu as best as she could and moved away from the window, hoping the shinigami wouldn't come this way. She looked around.

Hrm. Looked like an old lady's apartment?

Narue had reached the rooftop shortly after the witness...or even the cause of all of this fled. Where... Where'd they go!? She needed to find them...

Shinigami were being taken out, and it had raised concerns, she needed to find the culprit; she had been asked to look into this and she had been following the trail ever since she'd been assigned this task.

Where...

Narue continued her search, even if she'd lost sight of the person, she was especially close now to the apartment the person had unknowingly hidden within.

Just on the neighboring rooftop...

Hua glanced out of the window, trying to spot her. She could feel her moving around, but not well enough to tell WHERE... Ugh... She needed to get out of here... What if she started looking in rooms... What if she could.. Hua didn't know... see powers or something crazy...

She glanced around the apartment and heard shuffling a bit away.. Wh...What the... She looked up just in time to see a person walk out of a bedroom in a nightgown.

"Oh... crap.."

---

There was a sudden loud shriek in the night, easily audible to Narue. It was suddenly quieted and seemed to be coming from the opposite apartment. There was a flash of movement inside, but then it suddenly went still.

!!?

Narue swiftly turned around, her eyes going to the building next to her to one of the windows. A scream!? What had happened!?

Concerned, she used a step of shunpo to hop down to the window, having seen a flash of movement inside. She wasn't in a gigai, so unless someone with spiritual awareness lived here they wouldn't see or hear her.

Where... Where...?

She had easily phased through the window, and stepped down on to the floor of the dark room. Where...!?

Her steps were careful, her guard up as she attempted to carefully scan the apartment building. That scream...

Hua silently crept through the bedroom of the apartment, the limp body of its tenant hanging from a wire behind her in the air. Not dead, just unconscious. Although with how quickly she had choked the old lady out, she'd had to check her pulse. She walked over to the old lady's bed and quietly slid her under it with her whiles while she swiftly grabbed a night gown from her closet.

It was time to play big bad wolf, she thought to herself before climbing into her bed.

"Is someone there?" She said weakly. She knew she couldn't pass for an old lady. Not with how little time she had anyway, but did the shinigami have any way of knowing it was an old lady's apartment?

Shit, this would never work.

Huh!?

Narue quickly turned towards the sound the of the voice; someone heard her? That... Immediately she felt...unsure about investigating the source of the voice. There was always the chance for someone spiritually aware to live her, but it was meant to be a very low chance!

Her hands tightened into fists as she attempted to regain her nerve; if only she had one of those memory-erasing on her person, then she could investigate no problem! Aaaagh!

Her pressure was down, wanting to make herself as un-sensible as she could; should... What should she do? She'd just heard a scream from here, and yet now there was a voice just...asking if someone was here...

Why would anyone scream like that and then ask such a question!?

It was weird!

So what she did was wait for a bit, pressing herself back against the wall silently; with her pressure extremely low she intended to wait the person out...hopefully. If they thought she'd left, maybe they'd come snooping around to see if she'd truly gone.

Hua listened intently. There was... no response.... She felt a cold sweat break out, reaching up to wipe it off. Shit... was she still out there? Did she know? She shifted in the bed a little. "H-Hello? If you're still there, please don't hurt me." She said, feigning fear. Which wasn't particularly hard, considering she was, admittedly, a little afraid.

She shouldn't have said anything at all... maybe if she just... crap, this was a terrible idea.. maybe she should just run?

"..." Narue didn't respond, sticking true to her decision to keep hidden and quite. The voice might be a trap, and she wasn't just going to fly in there to see if that assumption was true or not.

She was nervous herself, and it was taking a lot to keep herself from shaking, not having...been in a situation like this in a long time simply due to her job working with paperwork most of the time...but she was a shinigami, this was her duty above all else!

Hua waited... shiiit, she wasn't coming in... did she.... did she know she was here? What did she do, what did she do? O-Okay... if it was a shinigami... maybe she wouldn't be looking for... a bount? Or someone with a body... S-so... She looked down... well she didn't have any better ideas... She slowly sat up in the bed.

"I...I'm coming out... If you're still there please just... don't hurt me." She said weakly, masking her voice a little as she approached the door. As she came into view of Narue, she immediately startled. "Oh god!" She said, stumbling backwards and falling. "Wh.. What are you doing here?" She cried out before peering in the darkness. She had an idea... "Wh.. What.. You're just a girl... Where did he go?"

Coming out... Narue prepared herself for the moments ahead; the person was coming out of the room... This was a crucial moment...

She made no vocal response to the request to not harm her, Narue wouldn't, she didn't want to; she did need answers though, and if this person was the culprit...

"So you can see me..." Figures, considering she'd been heard before. There was some confusion as the woman mentioned a "he"; Narue had no idea what she was talking about.

Hua took one trembling step after another into the room, eyeing the girl warily, waiting for.. sudden moves... She held her hands to her chest, pretty happy for the big concealing nightgown at the moment. "Wh..What do you mean? Of course I can see you..." She said, voice shaking.

"Wh-Why couldn't I? Wh-Where did he go? The man. There .. Th-there was a man in here.. he... he..." She choked back a fake sob, before going to her go to saddest memories to draw up some tears. She backed up into a wall, letting all the tense emotions from the encounter sort of... overwhelm her in a fashion.

Wh...What...?

"You shouldn't be able to." Not if she was normal, which Narue had extreme doubts about. This was all too weird a situation... That scream she'd heard...and the words she'd heard after it... there was no way...

What man?

"There is no man here..."

Narue didn't know what to believe, but there was one thing she knew for sure... This whole situation was odd, even if she couldn't determine what was true, and what was a trick.

She looked up at her, trying to seem confused. If she was an unaware spiritually aware person, it wasn't like she would understand what Narue meant or that she was different, really "Wh.. why not?" She asked before wiping at her nose and looking around.

"I.. I don't know... He frightened me and I hid in my room... He must have left." Oh god, she was such a terrible fucking liar. Why was she so bad at this?

Narue released a breath, feeling as if she were getting nowhere. The situation was more than a little off, but if this woman was the one she'd been chasing, or if they were here somewhere still she had to say they were stubborn on this...

Someone breaks in, startles someone, and just leaves...?

She wasn't buying that entirely, but what could she even say in this situation? Narue appeared to be in thought, though she still had her guard up.

If she knew a person had been here, why had she asked earlier if anyone was there? She'd seen it had been a man... Being startled could play a role in this, but... Eugh...

Hua looked Narue's face over, looking for some sign of what she was thinking... Jeez... this was awkward... super awkward... she looked around... Ugh... She had to be onto her... She was so bad at lying... the more she THOUGHT about how bad at lying she was... the corner of her mouth pulled back making an embarrassed cringe.

"So, hey... I have to go use the restroom?" She cringed more. Worst liar, Hua. Worst liar. "I'll be... right back..... mmk?" She tried to give a helpful smile as she aimed to slip out of the room, back into the bedroom where the master bathroom was.

Cringing? Narue blinked, confused before the woman began to speak; she needed to...use the restroom?

E-Eh...?

"U-Um..." Before she could protest, the woman had already left and headed presumably for the restroom. H-Huh? Just... She couldn't just let her go like that! ...C-Could she? No! What if this person was the culprit! Ghaa!

Hua wasted no time in heading into the restroom, shutting the door and locking it. Well this was a disaster. A fine mess she'd gotten herself into. God, Mama would be furious at her. She had always said Hua needed to learn to be more crafty. Hua finished removing the nightgown, folding it quickly and placing it on a counter before looking around and spying a window. Some wires stretched up and pushed it open, gripping the wall so Hua could use them to climb her way up. It was a small window but she should be able to climb through.

Narue stepped closer to the bedroom, in the direction the woman had walked off in; she was clouded by uncertainty with all of this. This was a confusing situation and nothing good would come out of wrongly accusing someone...but...but if this person was...

Uuu, she was a lieutenant, she was meant to have better judgment than this!

Her hand reached out towards the door, but hesitated; she... She shouldn't do this alone either, the culprit was responsible for taking the lives of shinigami! This wasn't something to handle alone, a team or at least two or three shinigami should be on hand to back one another up!

At least she knew this woman's face as well... If anything, she'd gathered clues... Clues, definitely...

Hua pulled herself out of the window, dropping a bit before grabbing her wires and quickly flipping herself up onto the roof.  The wires retracted and she wasted absolutely zero time in hoofing it, leaping across some alleyways, opposite of the side that apartment was on, before using her wires to pull herself up to a higher building.  

Deciding she didn't want to get arrested and executed because she underestimated shinigami competence, she just kept running until she was entirely out of the district.  She'd hide out today before taking the subway tunnels home.

It was a few moments that Narue decided to step into the bedroom and head to the bathroom, knowing it would be best for her to have backup but she was...she was already here! The woman was taking too long as well...which was strange.

She gave a knock first, but there was nothing...it was only a moment later she phased through the door, a small shocked noise escaping her to see the window open.

She'd been right...

That person, that woman... She... Something was strange with her, but she at least knew the woman's face! That... That was still something; she'd report back to the Soul Society and report her findings...

With a small nod to herself, she disappeared in a flash of shunpo, heading off somewhere she could open a portal.