Disclaimer: I don't own Bleach
As soon as Koganehiko had shut the door to the underground training gym, Kuukaku reached behind her and whipped out her short sword, sweeping it upwards towards the Kenpachi's back: it met his still-half-sheathed sword with a jarring clang.
Kuukaku grinned up at the Kenpachi, whose eyes had widened considerably. "Keep your guard up, Kenpachi from Zaraki," she said, and began to throw her weight against the sword, "I fight dirty, and the first one to pierce through flesh with a sword wins." He wasn't budging from her pressure; she shouted an incantation.
"Way of Binding number one! Sai!" She felt the kidou move from her fingers and slam directly into the Kenpachi; she leapt away and settled to watch. Sai was a preliminary binding spell; she wasn't counting on it holding him for long, but it was the perfect way of judging his reiatsu strength.
She blinked, and the aura of kidou vanished. The Kenpachi had unsheathed his sword; its serrated edge flashed yellow, and he was grinning. It was the first time that Kuukaku had seen him express any sort of happiness - the empty smile of a few minutes before was nothing to the sheer amount of raw pleasure in that smile. The hard yellow static on the edge of her perception, which had been surging erratically, expanded until it filled the room, and in the moment before she unleashed her own reiatsu, Kuukaku fought to breathe.
Her reiatsu, blue shot through with bursts of red, rose to meet the roaring monster of the Kenpachi's aura, and the Kenpachi turned to look at her.
"Out of curiosity," Kuukaku said, and brought something out of her pocket, solidifying her fighting stance for the attack she knew was coming, "how many men were there yesterday?"
Zaraki began to chuckle, mirth which crescendoed to a full-out, deep-chested laugh culminating in a lunge towards her, sword going for her unprotected right ribs. Kuukaku dropped what was in her hand and sprung sideways to meet him, sword clashing against his, and used the momentum to spring past him, giving a sharp cry: the firecracker she had left exploded, sending up a wall of sparks into the Kenpachi's face.
Already turning as she skidded to a halt behind the the Kenpachi, Kuukaku could hear him swearing and grinned. She ran to attack his unprotected back: he turned just in time, still dazed from the light of the firecracker, and Kuukaku was able to catch his left shoulder before his sword met hers. The blow was enough to send her tumbling back about ten feet; she rolled and sprang upright. He was watching her. The gash on his shoulder was shallower than it should have been: Kuukaku had felt the resistance of his immense reiatsu against her blade as she had tried to cut him: he wasn't invincible, not by a long shot, but now she knew she could. Blood trickled from the rip in his shirt, and the stab wound in his right shoulder had reopened and begun to soak the shirt. Her fingers tingled: the shock of his blade against hers had caused her hand to go numb, and she flexed the muscles furiously, noting the beginnings of a deep bruise on the palm of her hand and her wrist.
She looked up to see a sword: she just barely managed to parry while the force of the Kenpachi's rush, though not able to break her stance, slid her backwards. He continued unrelentingly, that unholy grin on his face, until Kuukaku's heels touched the wall; a matter of seconds, and she pushed her reiatsu between them like a shield. It relieved the pressure, but only a little.
"Fifteen." Kuukaku looked up at the giant bearing down on her: he was at the very least a foot taller than her, and she made up her mind that this fight couldn't be won by brute strength alone.
"Fifteen what?" She asked, only panting slightly, keeping the ragged edges of her scornful smile on her face, thinking furiously.
"Fifteen men, yesterday, woman," Zaraki said, "An' me with a baby in my arm." He bore down on her, and she shouted in his face.
"Disintegrate, black dog of Rondanini! Look upon yourself and burn; tear away your own throat! Way of Binding number nine! Geki!" Red light eclipsed the raging yellow storm around Zaraki, but Kuukaku found that her sword had been enveloped in the red light of binding as well: she could not get away and still retain her weapon. Fine, she thought. More kidou.
She'd only begun to say "Way of Destruction" before there was a splintering noise and the binding spell shattered, the red dissipating in a furious onslaught of yellow. Zaraki's eyes were murderous and his smile elated, and for the first time Kuukaku wondered what she'd gotten herself into.
"What is that shit you keep yelling?" Zaraki didn't increase the pressure, and Kuukaku narrowed her eyes in suspicion.
"Kidou; demon magic," she said, and drew a ragged breath, shifting her stance ever so slightly. "They use it in Sereitei, it...focuses your reiatsu into an attacking force." This one could probably slaughter most of Sereitei if he mastered it, she realized, her own reiatsu struggling with the sheer weight of Zaraki's. She had begun to think of him as Zaraki, she realized. She dismissed the thought and finally saw her opening.
"Weakling stuff," Zaraki was saying derisively, but she was already yelling.
"Way of Destruction number sixty-three! Raikuhou!" The lighting pooled in her palm and shot outwards: up the length of her sword and down Zaraki's, as well as straight out towards his chest. She could hear the flesh sizzle, and for an instant, her opponent's eyes rolled up into his head, smile frozen on his face.
Mustering her strength, Kuukaku pushed suddenly upwards against Zaraki's blade, both with her own strength and with her reiatsu. In the split second opening, she kicked out and upwards, connecting firmly with the place where Zaraki's legs came together.
His reiatsu stopped her. Kuukaku tried to stop her face from showing surprise as she saw Zaraki's face grinning down at her: Kuukaku tried again, this time putting a substantial amount of reiatsu into the kick. She could actually see the pain register in Zaraki's eyes, but it wasn't enough; her kick had been slowed down enough that she might as well have punched him on the shoulder. His grin turned positively sinister.
"Now yer getting the right idea," he said, and in one swift movement disengaged his sword from hers, pushed her against the wall with the sheer pressure of his reiatsu, and swiftly stabbed his blade through her right shoulder, pinning her to the wall of the gym. He really didn't need to say anything else.
"Ouch," she said, surprised and impressed, and sheathed her blade as Zaraki stepped back, still holding the hilt of his own sword. "You win, Kenpachi from Zaraki." She took his blade in her reiatsu-masked hand - the metal was still burning hot from her kidou, evidenced by the smell of her flesh cauterizing - and wrenched it out of her shoulder.
They stood there, bleeding identically from right shoulders, Kuukaku grimacing a little with pain, Zaraki reveling in it. He probably gets off on it, she thought, smirking ever so slightly at her opponent's expense. So what now?
She moved to walk away, but halted as Zaraki began to speak.
"This Sereitei, what sorta place is it?"
"Fulla the nobility and spoilt brats," Kuukaku said, thinking of Yoruichi.
"Any of 'em use swords instead of that pansy-ass magic crap?"
"They've all got swords," she said. "You're bleeding on my floor," she pointed out.
He ignored that. "Some of 'em dress in black?"
"They all dress in black." She turned around to scrutinize him. "What're you getting at?"
"Fifteen men," he said, almost to himself, "All dressed in black, the same, and all with swords that could do weird shit."
Kuukaku felt something nudge at her brain, and she didn't like it. "You think Sereitei sent those men."
"They wanted Yachiru." He gave her an impassive glance. "I didn't stop t'ask questions."
Might have been a good idea if you had.
The words hung in the air, unsaid but clearly there. Kuukaku walked out of the room, and Zaraki followed.
.
A/N: Well shit. Plot.