Standing back up now that the other shinigami was back in the world of the almost-living, Kage folded his arms while he looked down at him.
"We are going somewhere. New orders. If you'd come back to the shop like the message on your phone said, you'd have known that. Brad split us up into groups, you're with me. He's got us looking all over the city for possible sources that might attract hollows. You're so lucky even that we're heading down to the docks, so come on. Up and at 'em." Kage said, nudging him with his leg.
He gave the shinigami a chance to respond before he turned on the spot and walked away.
"Just catch up when you can." he said before he flash stepped away and vanished from sight.
Four steps later and the blink of an eye, Kage had already cleared the distance from the sleeping shinigami to the docks. Stopping at the last step, his body remained up on one leg, teetering on the fine line of intertia and entropy. Looking around him, the view was wonderful. HIs shunpo was perfect, stopping right out on the edge of a concrete peir. The sun was shining, there was a light breeze and the water rose and fell with it. Sparkling like a sea of tiny, glittering diamonds that stretched out as far as he could see over a moving blue velvet carpet, for the first time since leaving the soul society he really felt at peace.
"So this is it, but what am I here for?" Kage said to himself, looking around. He also checked back behind himself, but the other shinigami was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he couldn't keep up, or maybe he just went back to sleep. Either way, Kage shook his head and gave a sigh.
"Guess it's just me then." he said and looked back out over the water. Nothing felt out of the ordinary here. No high amounts of reishi in the air, nothing that really felt bad. All in all, this seemed like a bit of a waste of time. But this was where he was sent, so this is where he had to be.
Walking up and down the dock, he took in his surroundings. There wasn't a large amount of activity here. This town wasn't the industrial type, and the pier wasn't big enough to handle large ships. It was merely here for the occasional boat going out on the bay. There wasn't even much of a beach to speak of. The city had encroached on the waterfront and developed nearly all the land with man-made barriers holded back the water instead of an actual shoreline. Turning around at the beginning of the dock, he walked back out, letting his fingers graze over the tops of the posts that kept the dock up out of the water. Once at the end though, he looked down with curiosity.
"Hmm, water..." he said, looking down at his own skewed reflection, "I wonder...it works in the air, so would it..." he pondered to himself. Debating on whether or not he really wanted to try this, he felt that he didn't have anything to lose. He raised his spiritual energy and gathered reishi from the air around him. He'd often used this technique to suspend himself in the air, so this couldn't be much different. Focusing over the water and under his own feet, he took a step off the dock onto the water.
It was weird, at first. The reishi under his feet didn't conform to the surface of the water, but rather stacked clumsily on top of it. Every so often a large wave would wash over it and soak his foot, each time nearly making him lose his focus and only saving himself at the last minute. After a bit though, he got the hang of it, and was soon walking, albeit slowly, across the surface of the water.
"Heh, not hard at all." Kage said to himself, stopping and standing tall. Looking back, he'd walked a fair distance away, so it was worth feeling proud of himself for accomplishing. Though that sense was interupted as a small sensation washed over him. He knew what it was instantly, and his blood ran cold. Reishi, and it wasn't his. It didn't even feel...human. But it did, kinda, like an echo of a sound. Looking aroud him though, there was nothing for miles except back on shore. Reaching into his robes, he grabbed his zanpakuto. While part of that echo felt human, the other part was definitly hollow.
"Where are you..." Kage said under his breath. He tried to focus his ears to hear sharper, his eyes to see farther, but nothing he did gave him any more. Just the warm feel of the sun on his black robes, and the cool water licking his feet. A sudden thought though entered his head.
Underwater.
Drawing his zanpakuto and striking without second thought, he pushed back off the surface of the water as he swung low. The tip of his blade split the water in front of him, sending up a cresent of tiny droplets that glistened in the sun. He landed on the water, stumbling as he recovered his balance and stabilized his reishi, waiting for the hollow to come. But oddly enough, there was no hollow. Floating in the water and bobbing with the waves was nothing but a peice of cloth, now cleanly cut in half and overlapping as the wet fabric clung to its new partner.
"What is...this?" he said as he walked forward and leaned over, picking it up out of the water. The cloth felt heavy, and not just in its physical weight. The scrap of fabric was heavy with reishi, infused, saturated with it. As it laid flat in his hand, the shredded and unraveled edges spoke clearly to him.
A human wore this. A peice of red cloth couldn't come from a hollow. From the reishi infused in it, the human had great spiritual power, tremendous even. How no one felt it was anyones guess, but this much raw power was something he expected from squad 11. The way the fabric was torn, it was clear a hollow had gotten to him first though. The other reishi he felt, the cold one. A human with that much spiitual power was a gormet feast, and some time last night, a hollow, probably one of those that came for the hollow bait, ate very well.
Kage closed his fingers around it. He couldn't let himself feel for this human. There were many humans in the world, one more would not upset the balance. Still though, that human probably had a family, maybe children. Squeezing it tight in his hand, the water dribbled out from between his fingers and ran off his hand, falling back into the bay. After most of it was out he started back towards the shop.
Using his shunpo over water was a bit harder, but he managed. While ground was easy to push off of, water was much more noticable. Kage was gone in the blink of an eye, leaving behind only a small splash like that of a jumping fish.