Reaching out, Kage grabbed Brad by the shoulder to stop him.
"Hey, hold up for a minute. I want to try something." Kage told him as he dispelled the kyokko. His body wavered for a moment before coming back into view. His zanpakuto still remained sheathed as he let go of Brads shoulder and knelt down on the sandy ground.
Using his finger he drew a circle on the ground and marked off the cardinal directions. he had no idea if they were right, or if there even were directions here, but he had to at least try. Dividing the circle and holding his hand over it he started to speak softly.
"Heart of the South, Eye of the North..." Kage said. His spiritual energy rose as his reishi concentrated into a billion points of light swarming around his body like a mass of fireflies, "Finger of the West, Foot of the East..." he continued. As he spoke the words, the wind picked up in the forest, rolling sand across the ground and over their feet, "Arrive with the wind and depart with the rain!"
As soon as he finished the incantation, every point of light scattered out in all directions. They shot off at breakneck speed, dispersing like seeds on the wind and quickly disappearing from sight. As they disappeard, the circle he held his hand over glowed to life and then dimmed as small points of light began to appear. Several blue points of light glowed to life close to the center.
"Okay, take a look at this. These blue points are us, the center of this circle is what we're loking at, and each blue point is a shinigami" Kage explained to him. Back towards one of the cardinal marks, a small mass of red points slowly glowed to life, though they were rather dim.
"And these are the hollows we just got away from. The red indicates hostility, rather it reacts to their intentions. No guessing what they want." Kage explained. He moved his finger around them to highlight them as more red points appeared around the edges of the circle.
"And it looks like there are more out there. The range on this spell is limited, I can't tell how far away they are exactly, but they're over a half of a kilometer away. We're safe from most of them. I think..." he said, pointing to a mostly empty hole along the edge, "...we can pass through here with little trouble. I have a feeling that our target is in this direction. I don't know for sure, but it's a really strong feeling. I feel confident. However, a human should show up as a yellow point, and I don't see one."
He gave him a moment to take all that in while Kage sat back a bit and looked at the circle. Analyzing the concentrations of hollows and running senerios in his head, working out the best possible solution. All that was pointless though.
"What the hell? Brad." Kage said as he saw several more red points appear on the circle. And they weren't around the edges, they were in the circle, less than half a kilometer away in all directions. No, closer than that. They were surrounding them.
"This...can't be good. Brad, I think these marks are inside the forest!" he said in a hushed voice. While he watched them, the marks continued to glow brighter, from a dull red to a brilliant one, moving further up to a pink hue.
"Oh, definitely not good." He said as he stood up and drew his zanpakuto, "Uh, Brad, where do we go? We need to go NOW." he said, stamping on the circle and grinding his foot into the sand. The light fizzled out as the spell was destroyed, casting away the only bit of light they had inside the forest.
