Chapter 13: The Root of a Flower
"Alright, guess I've got you then." The intruder left at the gate with Byakuya says.
"You're going to wish you didn't have me." Byakuya replies to her.
"Are you sure about that, let me introduce myself: Keade, the fourth strongest member of the Twilight Worriers."
"Fourth strongest you say, how interesting, maybe this will be a challenge." Byakuya replies, then takes out his zanpakuto, and Keade quickly does the same. "And since you told me your name, it is only honorable I do the same: Byakuya Kuchiki, Captain of squad 6."
"Alright then, Kuchiki, let's begin." Keade states and jumps forward, slashing Byakuya, who blocks and side steps to strike her from the side, but she shunpo's away. "Not bad there captain, but I wonder how you kido is; Hado #33: Shakkaho." Keade shouts, releasing a ball of red flame toward Byakuya.
"Hado #4: Byakurai," Byakuya shouts, releasing a surge of lightning from his finger tips that clashes with the Shakkaho and they cancel out. "How's that?"
"Not bad, I must admit, but It's not exactly great either."
"You say that even though our Kido matched perfectly?"
"You never know when someone's holding back a bit captain."
"You mean like this," Byakuya says and shunpo's behind Keade and tries to stab her but she turns and barely blocks then shunpo's away.
"Well, trying to beat me with Senka by destroying my soul chain and soul sheath eh, not going to be that easy, especially not against a captain level person." Keade states matter of fact.
"Then perhaps this will work better; scatter, Senbonzakura." Byakuya says, holding his zanpakuto up as it flies into a thousand of small blades that reflect the sunlight and resemble flower petals.
"Sprout, Rutosupaiku," Keade yells as Byakuya's thousand blades circle her and close in, about to slash her from every angle. Her blade vanishes, replaced by vines coming out of her hand guard then circling her and protecting her from them all, leaving no gaps.
"Hm, it would appear you can hide and block, but you don't seem to have much room to attack me like you are." But suddenly Byakuya eats his words as right under him 4 vines come up around him and try to drive into his body, but he shunpo's up and out of the way and he is then followed by his shikai.
"Now what was that about my attacks captain?" Keade taunts as she has her vines go back to just sitting in her hilt.
"Hm, strange how you could make an attack that accurate without seeing me."
"I was always the best at reistu scan abilities, so I don't need to be looking at u in order to make accurate attacks."
"I see, and combined with your zanpakuto's plant like structure you can easily have it burrow underground then come up for sneak attacks."
"That is correct captain, but that's really only half my zanpakuto for you." Keade swings her zanpakuto causing the vines to stretch out toward Byakuya, but he blocks by making his shikai form a barrier between him and the vines.
When Keade pulls her vines back Byakuya sends his shikai flying toward her to attack but she quickly stabs the ground with her zanpakuto then large vines come up between her and Byakuya's attack, blocking, then three large vines come out of the barrier and come at Byakuya from different angles, and pierces his body, though Keade does not seem to react victoriously. Byakuya suddenly vanishes from where is was attacked, leaving and empty hoari behind then appears behind Keade releasing a Byakurai kido at her. Keade reacts by ripping the part of her vines above ground connected to her hilt from the rest of the plant, hitting the Byakurai and canceling it, and the thorns across the vines glow dimly. At this instant the vines left behind wilt away into dust leaving Byakuya's shikai open for attack, but as it approaches her she turns pointing her vines at the field of small blades and releases what appears to be Byakuya's previous Byakurai through it then jumps through the opening before it closes leaving her unscratched.
"Did you," Byakuya starts, "absorb my kido into your zanpakuto?"
"Exactly, I am quite skilled with kido, so my zanpakuto is able to absorb and re-fire an reistu based attack, such as kido, equal to or weaker than my own back at my opponent, which can easily catch them off guard, you just got lucky with the fact I had to waste the backfire on your shikai to avoid harm."
"I take it that's why you wanted to test my kido earlier, to see if your zanpakuto would be able to absorb my kido attacks."
"Precisely captain, your catching on. But now you've seen pretty much all my shikai can do."
"As you have mine," Byakuya replies.
"Hee, that's not saying much though," Keade sneers.
"Neither is this, but it's worth much more," Byakuya has his zanpakuto revert to sealed and points the blade at the ground, then drops it. "Bankai," He says as his zanpakuto vanishes and 100 swords appear in line on both sides of him and shatter into thousands on thousands of small blades that resemble flower petals that circle him, "Senbonzakura Kageyoshi." The millions of flower petal blades flow to attack Keade, who Shunpo's back to keep away.
"Well then, this is your bankai? it's just a mega-version of you shikai, nothing special, but it does make it harder to dodge. so I guess I'll show you my bankai now, and you might be able to guess what it looks like, if you think about it a little." Byakuya wide-eyes at understanding what she means, "Bankai," She yells as she stabs her zanpakuto into the ground and letting go of the hilt. In a matter of moments vines of Keade's zanpakuto sprout out of the ground everywhere and forming a dome around both of them made completely out of vines leaving various gaps to let in a soft light, "Rutosupaikushoheki."
Byakuya looks around at the field surrounding bankai, and knows that getting what of his own bankai was left on the outside would prove useless because she could easily close the gaps they try to enter from, so he would have to make due with what small fraction he had on the inside.
"At first glance I also conceive your bankai to be an enlarged version of your shikai, but I am not so ignorant as to actually believe that." Byakuya says, also making Keade curious as to the fact he must mean there is more to his bankai then first meets the eye.
"Good of you to notice, and since there's no way for you to avoid my Bankai's added ability, there is no reason for me to hide it." Keade replies, making Byakuya wonder what this ability could be, that it is impossible to dodge. "Well, it's really an extension of one of my Shikai's abilities, remember how it could absorb any reistu based attacks other than my own or those stronger than my own, well anyone besides me who is caught inside this field will constantly have their very reistu drained from their bodies, but ever so slowly; so in other words, the longer this battle goes on the weaker and easier to defeat you will become."
"Then let us finish this battle here and now." Byakuya says.
"Oh, your in such a hurry to die you'd rather have it done now then later when you would have an excuse to have lost."
"No, but if I were, to lose this battle, I would rather have lost because my opponent was truly stronger than I, rather then being forced down into a weak summit and losing to a cheap trick such as this." Byakuya says and his reistu grows drastically, and suddenly despite all odds his bankai on the outside of Keade's cuts through and surrounds him, then compressing into one single blade, and he is then white wings appear on his back and a white ring surrounds him. "Shukei Hakuteiken,"
Keade then responds to this by having some of her bankai sprouting up and shaping into the form of two simple swords in her hands. "Fine then, you want to end this, let's do it!" She yells to him and they both charge at each other and swing their swords at each other; but before they clash for their final strike...
CHIM, CHIM