The room is abuzz with the voices of the excited students. Eager to go past the Senkaimon and venture out for the first time to the world of the living, after all it is the first time any of them ever set foot outside the walls of the Soul Society. They speculate on their actions should they come across a hollow on this special excursion, one student claiming that she will hit them with Hadō #4: Byakurai, while another more hands-on student bellows he will punch it so hard it will crush the monster's mask. The instructor's lips curl into a slight smile, as she hears their optimistic claims. The woman's green eyes scan the room, taking a brief moment to observe their faces and reactions. While many of them are excited, there are a few who are nervous, keeping to the side, anxiously chewing their fingernails. Honoka smiles and places a warm hand on the student's head, stilling their nerves. As she awaits the opening of the gates, she wonders if one day Masahiro will join their ranks, to venter forth on his own trip to the world of the living, and whether she will be the instructor to accompany on such occasion. She shakes her head, ridding her thoughts of distractions, then lightly pats the student's back, gesturing him to join the rest of the group.
"Now, now everyone. Once we make it past the gate, you never know when a hollow might appear, so don't stray too far!"
The gates to the Senkaimon finally open and the group begins its march forward, guided by a
Jigokuchō, ensuring their safety through the passageway. As they continue forth, suddenly,
a marigold appears on the woman's chest, a simple precaution for the humans' safety despite the woman's ability to finely control her spiritual energy. Their journey is short, and soon they are at the other end of the Senkaimon, with the brightness too bright to be able to see beyond the doorway. The group passes the threshold, certain they are to set foot on pavement, or perhaps grass, yet instead all they find is white sand at their feet. White sand as far as the eye can see, with bones and boulders decorating this sea of grains. Soon after her crossing as the final person in the group, unaware of what lay at the other side, the Senkaimon vanishes. They are left stranded in this vast expanse filled with monsters looking for their next meal.
She will have a conversation with Captain Oda regarding the malfunction or possible sabotage of the Senkaimon. Until then, she must protect the students left in her care. This turns out to be quite a difficult task as she's aware that releasing too much of her energy will quickly draw out powerful hollows, opting to use her reiryoku sparingly. Quick on her feet, using only a miniscule amount of reiryoku and focusing it on the palm of her hand, she blows a putrid smelling powder to mask the student's scent, riding them of their own unique odor with one akin to death. One less method of viable tracking for hollows to find them, as their smell blends with that of the inhabitants. Still, their reiryoku and voices were another problem as they converse between each other in confusion, after all, the living world looks nothing like this, while others complain about the smell around them.
"Everyone, suppress your reiryoku, quickly!"
She whispers loudly at them, but the orders fall on deaf ears as the panic sets in upon the discovery of a missing student.
The situation worsens as most of the students begin to scatter in different directions, with a few remaining at the instructor's side, perhaps frozen in fear or feeling significantly more secure at her side. Something the other students are too afraid to even consider. She does not allow them to stray too far, quickly throwing her hand up with her index and middle finger pointing outward at the group.
"Bakudō #1, Sai!"
The mixed crowd is instantly locked in place, with their hands behind their back. She redoes her headcount, finding several overachievers farther away with the aid of shunpo. In the blink of an eye, Honoka vanishes, disappearing and reappearing as she picks up students and reunites them with their classmates, while also striking down hollows with a powerful,
open palm strike, making quick work of the hollows' heads. She obliterates them with a single hit of brute force, rendering them useless, unable to recover after their brains and blood paint the white sands of their world red. Surely, their higher ranking members will think it was a fight between monsters with no reiryoku from the woman to trace on these corpses. Nevertheless, the woman's effortless slaughter of the monsters begins to deter the weaker ones, fearful that they will be next in line to receive a life-ending hit from the disgraced Oki. She intercepts their path, unable to leave any witnesses to this massacre, leaving only scraps for scavengers looking to fill their empty bellies.
Finally, with some reprieve from the hollow onslaught, she closes her eyes briefly, searching the vast expanse for the cowering students. It is here, where she spots a discrepancy within the crowd of restrained students. She rapidly gathers the remaining students and returns to the group. Why was this monster keeping itself restrained? Are arrancar so weak that a sealed Shinigami can keep them restrained? Or is it that it is merely playing the part, waiting for it's chance to strike the woman before picking off the students one by one once Honoka is downed? Her suspicion remains at the forefront of her mind, still, it appears to keep itself still, as the other students were too weak to break free of the woman's restraint.
The chaperone wonders at what point had this switch happen? Was it perhaps right before she exited the Senkaimon? The only moment Honoka did not have eyes on all her students. Quite possibly so. Still, while this heinous monster can replicate the students outer appearance, it cannot replicate his reiryoku. With a small release of spiritual energy from her feet to the ground, the woman calls forth a new ensnaring plant monstrosity. Riddled with sharp barbs on the edges of the petals, they quickly latch onto the disguised arrancar, before it has a chance to attack to approaching woman with more students in tow. This causes it to reveal it's true appearance.
Whether it did this through metamorphic change or some sort of illusion, it does not matter, the monster reveals herself to be small with horns, remnants of its hollow mask, with the hollow hole hidden underneath the bangs covering her forehead. Oddly enough, it wears a Shihakushō stolen from a fallen Shinigami, in hopes of blending in, before altering it to match the white and blue the male students wear.
"Oh my, that is a dangerous ability you have. I certainly mistook you for my own student for quite some time."
While the woman's words sound like praise, her stern expression reveal it is anything but. She can feel the stronger reiatsu signatures encroach on their location, meaning she has no time to waste, and so, she instantly strikes with the tips of her fingers, into the hollows forehead. Honoka uses the available hole for an easier grip on the monster's head as she easily
tears it apart down the middle, while using the flower at the monster's feet to leech any and all energy seeping from it, preventing it from healing or formulating any form of cero. The students watch with horrified awe across their faces, as the usually calm and patient Honoka, is now revealed to be a brutal, barbaric murderer.
With the unranked arrancar deprived of life, the flower shrinks until it is gone from existence as if it never existed, taking along with it the lifeless husk of the student's killer. With no one to suspect it was an unseated Shinigami to put an end to an evolved hollow, they are led to believe this creature was devoured by another of its kind. Something quite frequent and never out of the ordinary in this world.
Their reprieve is short lived as another wave threatens the lives of the students as they approach. With all her students finally gathered in one place, and the hidden agent dealt with, she can finally transport everyone to safety. Swiftly, the woman extracts
a long, white fabric from her sleeve that begins to swirl violently around the group of students, with her at the center. It spins faster and faster with each passing moment, until a bright light shines, transporting them back to the very room they gathered preparing for their excursion. It is here that she releases the seal on the students' bodies, allowing them to collapse on the floor now that they are safe. Finally freed from the Gentei Reiin and her reiryoku restored, she, and a few other students that manage to regain their bearings, take the time to help treat the minor injuries sustained in Hueco Mundo with Kaidō. While Honoka hovers her blood stained hand over a student's injuries, she glances back at the lifeless body of the boy she was not able to protect. She clenches her jaw, her grip on the student slowly tightening as she thinks on this, until the student winces in pain, causing her to quickly release their arm.
Now she must face the consequences of yet another failure, as well as the usage of what is perhaps considered a forbidden Kidō to transport everyone back to Soul Society, at the cost of a large amount of her own spiritual energy.
