Chapter 31 – There's a First Time for Everything
What she thought of was only a small room, was actually a huge waterfall and she was standing on top of it, and the disturbing the surprising thing was, she was not alone. Another girl was exactly opposite her standing on the other edge of the waterfall, sword out as if she had been waiting for Haruka to show up all this time. Even more surprising was that the other girl was, Haruka. An exact mirror copy, wearing the same clothes, using the same sword and looked exactly identical.
'What the hell is happening here?' thought a bewildered Haruka to herself, but she was cut short as the other Haruka threw herself over the waterfall and lunged at the real Haruka. Haruka moved out of the way and expected the fake Haruka to crash into the door, but for some reason it had disappeared.
'Ah crap, I can't get out.' Once again the fake Haruka immediately attacked her before she had time to finish thinking. 'Screw this,' Haruka said angrily pulling out her sword and counter-attacking. The fake Haruka blocked with great efficiency just like how the real Haruka would block, and also attacked back exactly as the real Haruka would attack.
They fought for what seemed like hours, the stunning beauty of the scenery was barely noticed as the two fought with lightning speed everywhere around the waterfall. The waters churned violently as the two fought above it creating mini explosions and blasting the waters upwards. It was an even match for the most part, neither made a mistake, until when the real Haruka accidently slipped on a piece of rock and fell down into the forest below just missing the rocks in the huge pond to where the waterfall is headed. Haruka was able to flip up and land on her feet without too much effort, and without hesitation she jumped backwards because she knew that if the fake Haruka was like her then it'd attack her straight down, and sure enough she moved just in time to dodge a downwards strike from the fake Haruka.
Meanwhile in the mansion Rangiku and Toshiro both noticed that Haruka had gone through the door and disappeared but they couldn't do anything, because the door had disappeared and it was just plain concrete where the door used to be. They had tried breaking through the concrete but all their attacks did nothing because the concrete was resistant to spiritual energy.
'Damn, what are we suppose to do,' shouted an annoyed Toshiro as his last attack just failed miserably.
'Calm down captain, all we can do it wait, so let's just relax and chill out a bit,' said Rangiku as she lay down on the floor. Toshiro frowned at her and started pacing around the room.
The battle in the 'room' was getting intense the real Haruka had released her sword after nearly being cut across the neck, and the fake Haruka had done the same almost at the same time as well. Now they were constantly blasting arrows at each other. All you could see was an explosion there and an explosion here, the smoke from each blast was rather thick and it easily spread across the top of the forest, but that didn't stop them. They both jumped above the dust and attacked even more. Haruka was really getting annoyed and because no one was there to see it, she released her bankai, and just as she thought, the fake also released bankai. After that all you could see was blades flashing around violently often clashing. Spears flew everywhere, and an odd kido spell here and there causing huge explosions.
One explosion from two hado four broke them apart for a split second, 'I'm getting tired of this,' thought Haruka as she was losing stamina and her clone didn't seem to tire at all. She barely gets any time at all to think of a plan because the fake her was constantly on the offense and never hesitated. Usually acting by instinct isn't a problem for her because she could always depend on her superior skill and power to win, but now her opponent had the same power and skill she can't win with instinct along. Especially when the fake her knew what her next move was before she striked, but then again she knew her fake's attacks inside and out as well. Both attacked with perfection but also dodged with perfection. Only the real Haruka slipped up on a few occasions but they were nothing fatal.
'Dammit.' As another spear just missed her, 'come on, think Haruka, think,' she told herself before the fake Haruka attacked again.
She had to make time for herself to think so, although she didn't really wanted to, use an ability of her bankai known as 'Shadow Play'. This will be the first time she uses this ability after mastering it a few years ago. The ability basically creates decoys by cutting her power in half and creating multiple clones of her. She then blasted a 'roaring thunder cannon' at the fake Haruka and whilst it was enshrouded in dust she quickly escaped down into the forest whilst her clones fought with the fake her.
She quietly observed the way that the fake her fought and found that the fake her couldn't tell that they were clones.
'I see, so it can't adapt to the changing situation if I use a new skill?' thought Haruka watching in silence in the bushes. Surprisingly her clones were holding off the fake her pretty well which was good giving her more time to think. 'If it's a fake then it shouldn't be able to adapt to changes as it only knows what I know when I arrived here. That would explain why it didn't recognized my clones for what they are seeing as I only practiced that move but never used it in combat.' She put her hand onto her chin in a thinking pose, 'so if I were to change my style of fighting or use something new then I should be able to surprise her, tch, I'm surprised why I didn't think of this sooner.' Finally she had a plan to take down her fake, and just in the nick of time as well as her fake had destroyed the clones and has already noticed the real Haruka. The fake had charged straight downwards sword stretched out in front of her. The real Haruka smiled with satisfaction and raised her sword standing her ground, something she wouldn't normally do. The fake's sword smashed down with a tremendous amount of strength causing an impact strong enough to uproot a few trees within a twenty metre radius.
When the dust cleared it revealed that the fake Haruka was still in the air, face full of shock, her sword still pointed downwards but didn't reach the real Haruka but only made contact with what looked like an invisible barrier that was a few centimeters away from her body.
'Now here's a new ability just for you, it's called The Dragon's wing, which is a powerful shield that blocks any attacks that are equal to or less then my strength. In other words, you can't hurt me because you're always equal to me, the only down side is, I can only hold it up for five minutes max without tiring out as it drains my spiritual energy like mad. But, five minutes is enough to beat you,' explained Haruka. She pushed her hand upwards and instantly deflected her fake's blade knocking her into the air. Haruka, instead of jumping in front of her fake (what she'd normally do), went behind, 'I may be an honorable fighter, but who says I have to play fair against myself.' She lunged at her fake's back and easily pierced through, the fake didn't even see it coming. But the fake didn't disappear or anything, it just turned in mid-air and attacked. But her attack was cut short by The Dragon's Wing and didn't come anywhere near hitting Haruka. Whilst her fake attacked, the real Haruka flash stepped above her and launched a Hado thirty three 'Pale Fire Crash' down and it slammed into her fake causing her to crash down into the ground. The fake somehow managed to get up and, although covered in blood and looking like it's nearly dead, jumped up and charged again at Haruka.
It has been two minutes. The Dragon's Wing blocked for her so she stood her ground, and fired out a volley of spears from her sword. Her fake did the same and the spears crashed against each other in the middle causing a big explosion. But that was exactly what Haruka planned, whilst the fake was busy with the volley of her spears, she quickly sneaked behind her.
'Die,' she screamed as she made a final attack of black coffin. The huge black box swallowed up a completely distracted fake Haruka. A second later, the box vanished and a blood soaked Haruka appeared from it. She slowly turned towards the real Haruka, and smiled!
'Well played. Haruka Rose, the eye of Light is now yours, if you can take it,' she said like she was proud of her. At that exact moment she vanished, and a shining eye stood where she was.
'At last,' thought a relieved Haruka, as she glided towards the eye and took it into her hands. 'Hmmm… I remember Ukitake saying that I'll know what to do when I get there, so…' she stared at the eye for a while.
Then suddenly just about when she was getting fed up, the eye started to glow once more. 'Now this is more like it,' she thought happily. But that happiness only lasted a few seconds as the eye suddenly turned bright red and sent out huge waves of spiritual energy. Every wave felt like behind hit by a car going at a hundred miles per hour. Haruka tried to move out of its way by going back but before she could do anything the eye darted into Haruka's necklace.
There was suddenly a tremendous surge of power from inside her, trying to get out, trying to take over her.
Then Hidoragon's voice inside her said, 'this is the final stage Haruka, you must suppress the necklace's power, or you will be controlled by it. Don't fail now, you've come too far to let some other force take you over, I'll help you in anyway I can. Once you have completely suppressed this spiritual energy then you will have complete control of your final and most powerful release. Good luck.' Hidoragon's voice faded, and as it did the force that was trying to escape seemed to have died down just a little bit.
'Thanks Hidoragon,' she thought and she put all her energy into suppressing the tremendous amount of spiritual energy. The energy, even with Hidoragon helping, is still very powerful. Haruka felt as if she had just been stabbed fifty times. Blood had started to drip from Haruka's mouth.
Her eyes were getting blurry; all she could see were huge red waves of spiritual pressure spreading out with huge force with her as the centre. She closed her eyes and concentrated harder on using her own massive amount of spiritual energy to hold back this spiritual energy.
She could feel Hidoragon's strength also inside her helping her. But the pain was still there, she felt as if she was going to burst open. It was all she could do to stop herself from screaming.
'Come on Haruka, I know you can do better than this. We can finish this now, give it all you've got,' shouted Hidoragon so her voice was loud enough for Haruka to here over the pain.
'Alright,' agreed Haruka, she didn't know how long she could last, cuts were appearing across her shoulders and back and she was losing quite a bit of blood. Her energy was being drained, she could bare stand. She was at her limit, 'if this doesn't work, then I'm done for.' She let out a cry, and sent what remaining spiritual energy she had all at once at forcing the other energy back. Hidoragon simultaneously combined her strength with Haruka's, it was a painful experience for Haruka, she coughed up blood and was unable to stand anymore.
'Hang in there Haruka, we've almost got it,' shouted Hidoragon. Haruka couldn't take anymore, after just having such a long a tiring battle this really wasn't healthy for her. She was screaming in pain, blooding was everywhere, she couldn't take much more. She was slowly losing consciousness, and then suddenly, just when Haruka thought she was about to die, it stopped. Everything was still, the pain went, she could see again, she didn't have much strength left, but she could stand.
Then out of nowhere she heard Rangiku and Toshiro's voice calling, 'Haruka, Haruka.' She slowly, balancing on her sword, stood up and saw that she was back in the room she was before. She looked around and noticed that the middle room wasn't there anymore.
And there was Rangiku right beside her, 'Hey Haruka, you okay? My goodness, you're covered in blood, what happened in there?' asked Rangiku urgently.
'Long story, no time to explain, get me to squad four, can't stand for much longer,' panted Haruka.
'Squad four? Of course, come on captain, give me a hand,' said Rangiku as she lifted up Haruka. Toshiro opened a gate to soul society, and they jumped through.
'Rest easy now, this fight is over, need to know anymore just ask me when you wake up, I'll always be by your side,' said a calming Hidoragon's voice, and at that moment Haruka blacked out.
Back to school in exactly a weeks time, i actually don't mind, beats being bored all the time, so anyway, next chp MAY be a bit late because i'm preparing for school, but probably not