Disclaimer: The ideas and concepts used in BLEACH belong to Tite Kubo, as well as any regular characters. Most of the characters in this story belong to me. Thank you.
Shin and Mann fought on, shaking the foundation of the crater city. With Mann's super powerful sword, his swings created powerful blasts of wind. With Shin using both hands on his normal sword, he was able to counter the wind waves with his own much more precise slivers of power. Shin still worked to overwork Mann's power while Mann still worked to overpower Shin. Despite the movement, the chaos, and the glaring flashes of black lightning from their swords, the warriors were at a stalemate.
"Is this your limit, shinigami Shin?" Mann growled above the deafening swings of his sword. Shin continued to leap away from the long swings and blocked the less powerful thrusts.
"I don't have a limit!" Shin answered, pushing the sword away. Mann stumbled backwards, having his huge weapon pushed back with his arms at head level and he saw Shin jump up onto the steely paddle. Mann didn't let Shin keep his foothold and moved the sword before Shin started forward. The sword slowly drifted downward as Shin paced, straight-backed and glaring through the black shadow of his brow, down the sword.
His pressure! Mann realized. He's using his pressure to stay on the blade! With this information, Mann took a drastic step to avoid Shin's skillful cutting and thrusted his sword out hard, shaking Shin and forcing him to stumble a step.
"HA!" Mann grunted. "You're finished!" Mann drew in his blade with great swiftness and drew back his other arm to punch Shin square in the gut. Shin didn't care for the primitive man's strategy, so he ducked under his huge fist that shot up into the sky by doing a split. Then, with a stab, Shin's sword went through Mann's shoulder and pierced through the whole, hard muscle. In the stunning sensation of being cut again, Mann froze up and allowed Shin to escape while his injured sword arm went limp and his tremendous sword crashed to the ground.
"Fighting isn't a moron's sport" Shin said, taking his sword in both hands at his waist. "You have to be able to predict the unpredictable, move into the unmovable. In a fight, anything goes, and the regular rules of reality must sometimes be broken..."
"Oh?" Mann lowed, leaning back and swallowing his spit. "Then why don't you just call down some lightning to strike me? Why don't you open up the ground and let me fall into the earth?"
"Oh, I can't do any of that" Shin admitted, "but I'm working on it."
"Good for you" Mann gutturally congratulated. Shin went back into his serious mode and continued to lay the truth into his barbaric opponent.
"What I mean is that you can't be tethered to reality" Shin explained. "You have to release you mind and open your senses in ways that are otherwise foolish. Become aware of the slightest shifting blade of grass and act in tune with your surroundings. Ignore whatever pain is coming your way and find a path through the clouded battleground that leads right to your enemy's heart..."
"Hmm..." Mann growled thoughtfully. Mann just realized that his opponent had perfectly measured his own healing capabilities, as Mann's shoulder and other wounds were completely healed. "I'll be sure to take that to heart in my next great battle." Mann said.
"Oh, you won't get to" Shin announced, changing his position. He stood upright, keeping his sword at his hip and pointed up at Mann's face. "I'm killing you, even if I break myself along with my limits." Mann's grin lowered and his brow furrowed with newfound anger. Shin's energy started to spike, and Mann attempted to strain his body and throw up his own field of spirit. Of course the obvious fact remained: Shin's power daunted Mann's.
Across town, Suichi struggled in his fight with Odo. That being said, it had quickly become much less of a fight for supremacy and more of a fight for survival. Suichi implemented his wild agility honed from years of practice in the field to escape the grasp of the demoniacally transfigured Odo. Neither of their assassin pride allowed them to take the fight on street level, and Odo had the high ground advantage.
"Spiedo Cannone!" Odo roared. His monstrous maw opened up, keeping his ninja mask covering his face the whole time, and out he spat a light-fast wad of silk. Suichi flew away across the street and watched as the wad exploded in a sticky webbing all over the rooftops. Odo worked his long limbs to turn and aim at Suichi again, who was none to eager to try and dodge the same attack again.
"Haganerensa," he started, "Aim!" At his command, the chain tip perked up and extended out from his finger. Suichi jumped up high and drew back his arm without letting his forearm move. "Shoot!" she incanted. With a punch the chain extended and latched into a stone roof. "Reload!" With the chain lodged into the roof, Suichi started flying through the air.
"Spideo Cannone!" Odo repeated, launching a spit wad through the air that screeched past Suichi. The assassin proper landed soft on the bare rooftop. He yanked the chain back out and glanced over at the monster with the bone-white arms and extra, spiked legs. He heard the feint incantation and sped off again, dodging the web explosion once again.
"This is ridiculous" Suichi said. "I need to get back on the offensive! No matter where I go, "I'm open for punishment..." Suichi took a moment to observe his surroundings and saw an perfect spot. Taking no time to aim, he fired his chain from the hip and hit his mark, slicing away the drooping awn of webbing that extended from one high roof to a lower one and he let his weapon carry him over.
"Like that will work!" Odo shouted. "Run and hide as you wish, my webs of steel will still find you and reel you into my mouth! Spideo Cannone!" Predicting Suichi's route, Odo fired his wad where Suichi was about to pass by, attempting to catch him in the air. Suichi, having not properly incanted his weapon's ability, was traveling slow enough for his hideous opponent to track. In a desperate flight of reflex, Suichi pulled on his chain and barely dodged the ball once more, allowing it to explode on the already webbed roof and leaving Suichi's fate unknown.
"Good" Suichi told himself. "My timing was perfect after all." He sat and panted, hearing the continuous incantations and booms of Odo's disgusting ability. The webs he cut with his chain at the distance opened up a hole in the webs just large enough for Suichi to pass through, and because the webs only built up upon themselves he had his own little hovel to rest and plan out his own attack while Odo continued to layer his impromptu den.
"Little bug..." Odo lowed across the barren town. No response. He knew Suichi was hiding now, or he had run away, but he couldn't smell him. "Oh, little bug? Don't make me paranoid..." Still, only the wind and distant sounds of battle across the crater came to him. "I'm coming for you..." With his giant, bony new limbs from his sword-invoked transformation, he made his way across the street and into the block covered entirely in a hill of steel webs.
"Boo" Suichi shouted from behind. By the time Odo could turn himself around the whole way, Suichi was able to slice at each of his joints and ligaments to slow and hamstring him into submission. When he did catch a glance of the puny assassin, he was clinging to his chain, upside-down.
"How...!?" Odo growled. Suichi's chain was in fact extended in a huge arc from a nearby house he broke into through the walls and ended in him hanging on by the knees and hands as the chain stayed perfectly still in the air.
"I dunno" Suichi replied. "Magic?" Odo's eyes visibly drew wide open under his veil. Suichi's chain snapped back into his arm as it drew back and he made another punch at nearly point-blank range.
"Let's go!" Hoji shouted. He blasted forward and tackled Norbel right in his gut, not allowing him the luxury of recovering from his deadly ball blow. Then, as he passed by, he brought his sword behind him with a swing that missed the nimble coward who jumped away.
"You're a maniac!" Norbel shouted.
"Thank you!" Hoji said, turning mid dash and vanishing into the woods.
"I'm not letting you get the upper hand!" Norbel announced. He took his sword, swiftly incanted it into shikai and let the knives fly and scatter around. Once Norbel reached the ground, he held up his hand and his sword materialized in his palm again. Everything had been cut, and no matter where Hoji may have hid, he must have gotten hit somewhere.
"Tch!" sneered Hoji from behind. He fell from the sky with his knees bent and sword bearing overhead. "You're an idiot! I just jumped over you!"
"Gah!" Norbel gasped. He brought up his sword to block as Hoji made his down swing. Then, at the last second, released it and let Hoji's sword sail straight through the spinning knives. "I hope this hurts you!" Hoji reeled back with a startled look and pulled his sword in to block. "Hirogari!" At his command, the knives formed a circle in front of him and blasted out in a wide spray. Hoji twirled his sword at the proper time and deflected a good many of them, but he still got cut along his sword arm and the edges of his torso.
"Tch" Hoji lowed. Once the knives were gone, he sprang forward with his sword at face level and stabbed at Norbel, who retreated into the air and prepared to fire at Hoji once again. Hoji vanished once more, so Norbel released his sword and spun around in the air, firing his knives upwards into the empty sky. "You think I'm an idiot!?" Hoji shouted. Norbel spun around again and saw Hoji on the ground, sword pointed up, waiting for Norbel to fall and impale himself. "I'm not giving you an inch to fight with! From now on, you'll never be able to predict me..."
"Really!?" Norbel shouted. His sword came back and he let himself fall, attempting to simply hit Hoji's sword away and land on his bald head, but Hoji stuck to his word. Instead of jumping up to intercept him, he dashed away, cut down the branch of a tree and kicked it into Norbel's mid section, sending him saulting to the ground with a thud. Then he dove from the sky with his sword pointed down at Norbel's heart again.
"NEVER!" Hoji roared. Norbel scrambled to get away and dodged by rolling at the last second. The impact shattered the fake bedrock and broke a hole down to the ruined floor of the tower below. "You're not gonna get to run for long...Norby" Hoji taunted. Norbel stood up in the forest and became instantly worried. "Before our fight's over, I'm gonna level this tower with your own damn face!"
"How...quaint" Norbel said, running out of elegant words to use for the situation. "I doubt you'll get such a chance..."
"Oh" Hoji growled, taking a reverse grip on his sword and leaning forward in a sprint position with his tongue hanging out, "I'm a man of my word..."
Spiedo Cannone : Spit Cannon (Italian)
Hirogari : Spread
