(12/16/12)You should know of the upcoming hiatus by now. If not then check my profile. Arc Resolution starts next chapter. Please read the Author's Note at the chapter's conclusion for some important info.
I Don't own Bleach. Tite Kubo does. That is all.
Stormy Weather
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Birds Don't Fly in Storms
September 10th
9:00.04 A.M. The Rikka wielder enters the home stretch of her battle with Tercera Cárcel warden Lía Halconero! With no hope for any in the other simultaneously finishing bouts, it's unknowingly up to her to find the answers Alma Secta seeks!
Orihime and all six Rikka rose out of the dust cloud created by Lía and her five 'Hermanas Sonído' clones(along with the flock and it's five 'flock clones' ) by rushing to Orihime in a speed blitz. Of course they were all indistinguishable so it just looked like there were six sets of both her and the flock.
With Orihime's shunpo assisted jump, she landed ten meters outside the rising cloud only to immediately realize upon landing that she'd already long since been re-surrounded by the same hexagonal formation of Lía and the sonído clones of her flock and herself.
"Did you perhaps think you were going somewhere jumping a few feet over and back? Where's that confidence you had a second ago?!" chided the six Lía's in unison. Sweat matted Orihime's face and started to drip off of her skin like rain off an damp umbrella. She'd healed herself, but weirdly it felt like she missed a couple spots. Maybe it was because she did so without kotodama and had been running low on reiatsu. Regardless, some trace amounts of pain from earlier were flaring up without remorse.
She had only gotten a little better at doing, shunpo, not necessarily 'faster' at all. She was only able to dodge the huge flock-cero earlier because it was a wide-open attack. And Lía'd been spot on when she said Orihime having all the Rikka out and using the techniques along with them using so much shunpo had drained her. And her cero imitation earlier didn't help things either; rather than be a generally concentrated blast like a normal cero, it had been an outpour of energy like the turning on of tap water. What a dire mistake that had been. It'd nearly used up a good percentage of her reiatsu alone and it hadn't even been that strong to show for it.
"I told her so coolly that I'd 'finish things here so I could help my friends', but that was just from the emotional high. If I'm even going to live to the next minute, I'm really going to have to finish this right no-!"
"This time you won't dodge!" interrupted the Lía chorus, all charging up their garnet ceros with the flocks doing the same. The charing ceros all arced around the hexagonal formation due to the effect of the sonído clones. Still one singular flock cero, but coming from all directions this time.
Quickly Orihime eyed a dune to the north and began rapidly thinking; purposely knowing the Rikka would be aware of her thoughts to herself. While she was connected naturally with the Rikka already when doing techniques without calling out the kotodama(no different than a shinigami doing their zanpakuto techniques without calling out their attack names), this was the third time she had actually consciously on purpose done such a thing to relay specific info to the Rikka. The second time was when telling Tsubaki to follow Abdul and the first time being in the fight against Los Tranquilizantes earlier that morning and her wordless use of Ayame to relay her plan to Chad. Now things were even more dire than then.
"Guys! This is going to be a close one so follow my lead!" thought Orihime facing northward and doing another shunpo-assisted jump only for the hexagonal formation to sonído right along with her in mid-air as the ceros began familiarly weaving together like a net all around her.
Lía was at a loss. She'd told this girl that even if she shunpo'd away trying to escape Cero-Tejido Nido, that she and the flock would proportionally sonído along with her. She only escaped before because she'd managed to shunpo away from the blast right after it was already fired. And back then the blast was wide open. But now she was surrounded on all sides. Yet here she was trying to pointlessly escape by jumping away and-
Lía's thoughts were cut off in real time by the actions of Orihime wordlessly materializing Santen Kesshun as she merged into it as it disappeared in a flash of shunpo.
"WHAT!?" exclaimed the avian adjuchas mentally before locating her only just coming out the shield and landing about an Olympic swimming pool away on a tall dune to the north. The girl knew she'd been a sitting duck having simply jumped into the air. She couldn't continue using shunpo after that first jump with no ground to use, so she would've just began falling and be consumed by the by then finished flock cero on her way down. Instead she had smartly used Santen Kesshun's flying capabilities to effectively flash away with the shield.
Like fowls possessed, the six molted Lías all landed back on the ground and burst toward the lone dune, surrounding it in the same hexagonal formation all without powering down their ceros, flocks in tow. In the split second it'd taken for them to surround the dune they'd all buzzed back in their exact positions, the Lías looking up at Orihime on the dune peak and the flocks flapping their wings faster than the naked eye could comprehend like hummingbirds to hover over the dune in a quasi-dome on all sides; denying any escape this time.
Before when Orihime dodged this attack, sonído clones weren't part of the equation. Now not only were they the equation, but she was extremely clustered all around in close proximity to her offenders, feeling the encompassing heat radiate to her in the middle; reminding her of Abdul's cero back in the cave. Her Rikka surrounded her, each intently facing a different Lía each with a flock behind them.
"Now disappear girl!" shouted the Lía sextet as they made to fire.
"THIS IS IT! NOW!" she shouted in her head as she outstretched both her arms, pointing out her index fingers aligned with her middle fingers. Immediately came the compounding consecutive noises of the Hermanas Sonído clones vanishing simultaneously. Their arcing ceros returning to the actual individual avian creature charging it before imploded in their faces. Any sparse few "clones" left went static from the recent attack before buzzing out completely. This split second attack accomplished ceasing Hermanas Sonído on the spot, leaving all flock participants scattered wherever they'd been mid-sonído which surprised Orihime. She'd figured that they would have all been halted in-formation together in the same spot due to their swarm like movements, but as their wings twisted behind their backs and they fell, Orihime's attention centered elsewhere.
Lía's personal Hermanas Sonído was still going. Luckily the disruption of the Cero-Tejido Nido had disbanded the arcing ceros of the Lía clones as well.
"As I thought, it's too weak to effect her anymore. Actually it never even worked on her properly in the first place," concluded Orihime, still with outstretched arms in concentration as the flock rained down on the ground and tumbled off the dune around them.
"So that's the shinigami magic you used on me before!? They taught us at La Pirámide it's called Kidō right?! Oh please!" spoke the chorus of six, charging a new arcing cero among themselves, "When you used it before I was caught off guard but if you think-GUHAAH!" she grunted now singularly looking up at Orihime's back. Yes, she'd come to an abrupt stop, yet managed to keep her balance and not tumble, only falling to her knees. Looking back up in shock, her eyes were in alarm at what she saw.
"It's strange. You said you could kill me seven times faster," began Orihime, back still to the adjuchas, "Yet your 'Hermanas Sonído' only extends to six of you, all while going against seven sets of eyes. And where there're seven sets of eyes, " she said, now turning around, "There're seven sets of hands," she finished turning completely around and now pointing her own arm at Lía along with her six Rikka who'd already been doing so.
At this, the straining Lía's bare-bone arms forcefully twisted behind her back as her mask face-planted into the ground.
"I figured if the Rikka can do their kotodama and now even shunpo through my reiatsu, then what's stopping kidō?"
At this Lía actually forcefully began to stand back up off her kneecaps to which Orihime and all Rikka reponded in unison, "Blood that's bound and wrapped", causing her to fall back. But the desperate adjuchas raised her garnet reiatsu even more, "Rigid, cleft structure," the words were spoken, yet it seemed that had no effect as she was now screaming, and abruptly sprung up, standing fully on two feet, straining to bring her arms back from behind, "Atrophic sinews, arrested flesh, imprisoned spirit! Bakudo #1: 'Sai'!" they shouted, finishing the delayed incantation. Immediately following, Orihime formed Santen Kesshun and placed it over Lía to contain and hold her in place even more, similar to how she'd done with Fátima earlier. Yet with all these safeguards, Lía still strained, actually causing the shield to rumble as stress fractures began forming.
"No way! She's still about to break free!" thought Orihime in alarm before becoming even more alarmed at noticing the flock birds had already reset their wings and were flying up in unison to the top of the tall skinny dune with now, get this; drilling beaks. With barely any time to react, Orihime expanded Santen Kesshun from around Lía more than it ever had before, jumping atop it as it did so as to catch all the birds flying up as their spinning beaks pierced through the shield which then reinforced with reiatsu accordingly, thus trapping them. But impact after impact of drilling bird beaks crashing into the now larger thus less reishi-dense shield all combined together, beginning to make solid cracks in the brittle barrier. And Lía took advantage of the less tight restraint by exuding enough reiatsu so that the middle of the shield around her was about to shatter any second.
The shield only had a couple seconds left so Orihime wasted no time grabbing the top of her right wrist with her left hand and slamming the palm of her right hand down on the shield allowing it to merge into it.
"Stoke the primordial vigor! Provoke! Essence's butcher: Indentured pyre yet sparks!" she said as the shield began to get extremely hot, "Hadō # 3: 'Hitsuki Nokoribi(Kindling Embers)'! she shouted as waves of heat spread through brittle shield causing the squirming lodged clay-like birds to bake as if in a kiln before they broke like pottery along with the shield itself then spontaneously combusting and shattering in a brief burst of heat energy; yet the shattered shield still clumsily held together.
Orihime rose back up, regenerating and shrinking Santen Kesshun around the avian adjuchas held in the middle again as she'd done before with Fátima, making it dense once more as the pottery-like shards fell off, onto and around the dune, most falling back to the ground around it. Then she finally used the shield's kotodama to regenerate and enforce it even further(she'd been trying to preserve reiatsu).
Yet, even then Lía's rage cracked the super-dense shield and the Rikka's hold of Sai was beginning to erode with each deci-second.
Orihime was exhausted and no longer shocked at Lía's resilience. The adjuchas was simply doing all she could.
"I know you're strong, much stronger than I am. So this one-time opportunity is all I have left in me. I'm using everything I have right here!"
Spiritual Pressure built around her in the shape manifestation of a sharp edged six-petal flower, similar to when she trained with Hachi at the Visored warehouse*. In a mutually similar fashion her eyes now turned from brown to marigold.
And reflected in them and emanating from her very being in the form of reiatsu was a perfect storm.
"Tsubaki!" she shouted as the offensive-purposed Rikka flew into her outstretched hands. At this Lía simply began charging a cero in desperation.
And birds don't fly in storms.
"Deluge of aether! Grasp of a mortal! Fair countenanced constituence, Bolting emission! Hadō #4!" she shouted, the same golden light around Tsubaki now crackling with energy as Lía completed her charge and made to fire.
Especially,
"Koten Zanshun-Byakurai!"
A lightning storm.
Author's Note:
Chapter Started: July 12, 2012 11:48 PM est.
Chapter Finished on paper: July 23, 2012 1:20 PM
Chapter Typed: September 7th , 9:26 AM – 9:06 PM 2012
Revisions: September 16th, 9:37 PM est 2012; October 26th, 9:18 AM est 2012; December 16th, 2:38 PM est 2012
Round 3/3 of fights completed. Here's a look at the the timeline of events,
Round 1
16. The Stomach
8:42.58 A.M.-8:44 A.M. Chad vs Klarradi pt. 1
8:42.59 A.M.-8:43.29 A.M. Ashido vs Diamont pt. 1
8:43.30 A.M.-8:49 A.M. Abdul vs Celvia and Zoréno pt. 1
17. The Mockingbird
8:43.52 A.M.-8:49 A.M. Orihime vs Lía pt. 1
Round 2
18. Roaring Fist of the Tiger
8:44 A.M.-8:47.36 A.M. Chad vs Klarradi pt. 2
19. Melting Bone
8:43.30 A.M.-8:46.20 A.M. Ashido vs Diamont pt. 2
20. Erupción
8:49 A.M.-8:59.06 A.M. Abdul vs Celvia and Zoréno pt. 2
21. The Mockingbird Flock
8:49 A.M.-9:00 A.M. Orihime vs Lía pt. 2
Round 3
22. Insomniac
8:47.37-8:59.59(or 9:00.58) Chad vs Klarradi pt. 3
23. Hallucinogen
8:46.20 A.M.-8:54.06 A.M. Ashido vs Diamont pt. 3
24. Acupunctured Breeze
8:59.06 A.M.-9:10.40 A.M. Abdul vs Celvia and Zoréno pt. 3
25. Stormy Weather
9:00.04 A.M.-9:05.51 A.M. Orihime vs Lía pt. 3
This arc finishes in four chapters so the resolution is coming up. Thanks for following this far, but the story and plot keep moving forward.
*See chapter eight Omake/Side Story:"Training with Hachi-sensei, part 2/2"
As stated then chapter 20's "Author Note", Orihime's usage of shunpo will be delved into and further explained later. And here I'm saying her further kidō usage this chapter will as well. All within the next four chapters which are the 'arc' resolution. You'll know it's being explained when you see it and I'll clarify it even further in that chapter's Author Note.
QUOTE: "Actually it never even worked on her properly in the first place,"
-Yeah, up to that point all Orihime's Sai did to Lía was restrict her movement, etc, not the full effect of completely binding the limbs. And even back when Orihime first used it on Lía in chapter 15, she still physically forced her way through it and even tricked everyone that was watching to think she was still under it's effect only to suddenly appear to break out of it and go attack Orihime. She had really only been stringing them along and had broken out of it before then as was implied.
New Techniques:
This chapter showed how charging ceros can possible arc when attempted mid high-speed movement. In particular among clones formed from such.
-"Hadō # 3: 'Hitsuki Nokoribi(Kindling Embers)': Sort of an ignition/explosion technique. How it is used without Santen Kesshun augmentation remains to be seen.
-'Koten Zanshun-Byakurai': Combines Koten Zanshun and Hadō #4 Byakurai. Orihime once again utilized the principles of Nijū Eishō ("Twofold Incantation") kidō, except using a spell with one of her kotodama instead of two seperate kidō spells. She sort of did this previously with using Shō on Santen Kesshun. And then fully demonstrated Nijū Eishō when using Koten Zanshun-Shō. Effects of Koten Zanshun-Byakurai are unseen.