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 stared each other down, then broke it when Shin darted ahead. His pressure took down Mann's, stunning him for only a fraction of a second. That fraction was enough, as Mann couldn't elevate his sword high enough to hit Shin or block his whole overhead helm-breaker. The sword went into Mann's right shoulder, barely a scratch to Mann. With the force balanced again, Mann grunted and kicked Shin away.
"Huuh" Mann lowed. He started running forward, sword drawn behind him with both strong hands. Shin held his ground and tightened his grip to block, but he kept his back and arms relaxed in case he had to dodge. Mann anticipated Shin's guard and discarded his sword to surprise Shin. It didn't work. "You can't block my body, Kenpachi!" Mann roared.
"Swords don't block bodies" Shin said, "they cut them." Mann changed his pace from a run to a jump and instantly grappled Shin around the waist. Before Shin was off the ground he reeled up his sword and butted Mann's spine. They both flew limply into a nearby house, blasting it into ruins. Mann had to crawl away from the stunning blow while Shin dug himself out of the rubble.
"Crap" Shin said, panting heavily. "That knocked the air out of my lungs. I can't breath right..." He saw Mann stand up with his sword a distance away and started down the crumbling hill. "He's getting worse and worse for me to defend against. I have to get on the offensive and stay there for a while, break him with power!"
"Raahhhh..." Mann growled. His voice sounded very strained and tired, like a tired groan from a monster or a Hollow. "It's useless, isn't it? To convince you that this battle is over already?"
"What do you mean?" Shin said.
"That was your all" Mann explained, "and I'm still standing quite firm. You don't have any more fancy sword techniques or pressure traps to lure me into."
"Sure I do" Shin said, bringing a scowl to Mann's face. "I'm serious about my fighting. I know that my sword and even my skills alone can't win every war I get in. I have my own reserves of magic to use on brutes like you..." Shin took a step forward and held his sword in a traditional, tight stance. It didn't look like the serious pose of a murderer, but the calculated stance of a professional duelist who has mastered his own supreme style. Such was Shin, although Mann refused to acknowledge him like that.
What's he planning? Mann asked himself. Shin started forward in a light dash with his sword pointing straight up, parallel with his chest.
"Boko no..." Shin began. Mann took his huge sword in one hand and prepared to swipe away whatever technique came his way. Suddenly, a high vibration of pressure rang out. This pressure first pressed down, then out, then lingered without any force as a curious mist around both of them. "GAIKOTSU!!!" Shin whirled his hips around and created four afterimages of himself from the waist up, Mann's eyes shot open as the four-fold Shin rushed at him, each with their own very real sword. Once in range of Mann's arm, the Shins separated and en circled him from each side.
"What is this!?" Mann shouted.
"This is death!" the Shins all shouted at once. One attacked and Mann dodged. He went right into another attack which he blocked, then another came from the side that he grabbed and another from the front that stabbed him through the stomach. Attack after attack, rapidly coming like streaks of sunlight through a windy forest. The force of each sword was real enough for Mann to start retreating in full speed, and each Shin's face had that same glaze of apathy that truly frightened any man that faced it.
"How is this remotely possible!?" Mann shouted. "To have you pressure spread out like this is one thing, but multiplication!?"
"Sorry" the Shins said between attacks, "well, not really. This is just the gap of our strength."
"Grr, fool..." Mann growled furiously. "The only gap in our strength is that you have NONE compared to me!!!"
"I agree" Shin said, now from above. Mann's eyes went wide with fear. "The gap lies within 'skill' and 'spirit'. Your strength is better...but strong as you are, you're not my competition right now..." Mann finally worked up the gall to look up and saw Shin, standing above him in the air with his arms crossed. "Ready to face oblivion?" Shin asked. Mann started to shiver. The copy Shin's disappeared and the real Shin, with sword high over head and all muscles building to release their strength at once, started falling.
"Impossible!" Mann growled. His arms wouldn't respond to his brain, and his sword could not move up to meet Shin's coming blade.
"Dai-Sora..." Shin incanted. Mann just stood, back bent and staring up, at the falling star of death dressed in black. "KIRETSU!!!" Shin's entire body powered his swing, which tore through Mann's skin so harshly that his sternum and parts of his ribcage were plainly visible. The blood flow started soon thereafter...
Odo, the failed assassin, now lay on the ground twitching as Suichi surgically removed the invoked sword within his gut.
"What a weird ability" Suichi pointed out, pushing his chain down further. Through the vibrations of his chain, he could feel through the fleshy stomach and other innards of Odo and found his sword, lodged into his lower intestines. "What kind of craziness requires you to eat your own blade."
"It's not so bad" Odo said, having given up on moving with all eight of his legs split at the joint. "After the initial fear of missing the trachea, you can just let the sword slip down carefully into your body. Oh," Odo now started with a more heinous and sinister tone than before, "and I will murder you for humiliating me!!!"
"You're a strange one" Suichi said. Suddenly, a metallic clink from within. With but the minor twitch of Suichi middle finger, the chain coiled around the handle of the blade and firmly grasped it. Then, with a terrible yank, the sword and chain came out of Odo's body. "You alright?" Suichi asked. "I didn't nick anything vital, did I?"
"No" Odo coughed. His body quickly morphed back into his original, tattered form. His elbows and knees were slashed and serrated down to the scared and scraped bones that Suichi had cut into. "I will be fine within a month or more...then you will die..."
"Fair enough" Suichi said, throwing his sword down into the ground. Odo's bloody lips exposed his gnarly teeth in anger as Suichi started walking away. Totally apathetic to Odo's pain, Suichi deactivated his sword and began to sheathe it behind him. Odo gathered his own, arcane strength, and raised up his head.
"Don't be so cocky" Odo growled. "You should know, master assassin, that we can't be trusted!" Odo opened his mouth wide and started to produce a glowing energy from deep within his throat. "Hitama!" The energy came out with the sound of his spell in the form of a flaming, spinning ball of crackling flames. The blast knocked Suichi's back to the point of breaking and singed apart his under-armor tank. Odo glared with a disgusting grin down the street at his defeated foe's body, but it wasn't there to be seen. His assassin's garb and shinigami pants flamed, but no body was there to perish with it.
"You're totally right" Suichi said from Odo's blind side. With his short blade unsheathed, Suichi made a short jump in the air and flipped onto Odo's gut, using his own sword as a sort of vaulting pole to pierce into the ground. Odo screamed bloody murder before losing his energy at last. "We assassins can never be trusted." Suichi stomped on Odo's chest, drew out his blade, and raised it high over head.
Blood splattered on the houses to the right. Suichi got up, now wearing his black loincloth from under his pants and left, holding Odo's pants in his hand over shoulder. "They're a size or eight too big for me" Suichi figured, "but I'd rather have something to wear around here. Anyway, it's no good right now. Shin and Hoji are still fighting and they both seem to be winning. My only task is to find the General and eliminate him, but my instincts are telling me his isn't here...pity."
"Hey you!" a gruff voice called from behind, near Odo's corpse. Suichi turned around and saw a small militia of quivering men wielding swords poised at the tired looking assassin. "You...you killed lord Odo, didn't you?"
"Well, I decapitated him" Suichi admitted. "The headlessness is what really did him in, I just helped."
"You bastard!" the same man called out. "We can't forgive you for this! He was like a brother to us all! A goddamn brother!" The militia roared angrily and started running at Suichi. With his keen mind, Suichi used Odo's pants as a screen and flipped over the ranks, landing on a man's head with his hands and twisting his neck backwards.
"You're about as thick as me" Suichi said to the sturdy corpse. "Don't mind if I steal from you quickly..."
"He got Yobu!" one of the men yelled. Suichi rolled underneath the dead man as he fell and stole his clothes. Yobu, the unfortunate soul, fell limp to the ground groaning and gurgling.
"He's not dead" Suichi said, fitting his robe and tightening his new belt. Then he drew out his newly holstered sword and armed himself to face down the surrounding enemies. "He sure as hell can't move again, but he's alive..."
"You bastard!" the apparent, single-voiced leader shouted. "You would dare take a warrior's pride by rendering him dumb and immobile before killing him!? You're a sick one!"
"I'm an assassin" Suichi explained heartlessly. "That guy wasn't on my list, but he was in my way. Clean work is my business." His lethargic grin extended into a downright evil smile as the desperate men rushed in with eyes afire.
"Prepare," Hoji growled at Norbel, "for PAIN! WWRAAAAGGGHHHH!!!" Hoji's mad rush with his sword drawn far back behind him ended only a step from Norbel's range. Predicting his strategy, Hoji slinked off to the side and let him incant his sword and fire a missed shot. Then, taking a jumping step back into place, Hoji delivered a rock-solid elbow into Norbel's face. Norbel's arm blocked it, but he was still sent over himself and into the brush. "Yo! Come on out!" Hoji roared.
"Huuu..." Norbel breathed. His body was nearly broken from Hoji's unpredictable, endless onslaught of terrible attacks. His sword was used minimally and his fighting seemed to center more on trickery and generally desperate attacks. "He fights like he's losing..." Norbel told himself. "If I don't start doing the same, I may lose my life. No matter, for my next strategum shall succeed brilliantly!"
"Found you!" Hoji playfully growled from behind. Norbel glanced over and saw him wielding his sword in a reversed, impaling motion from the branch above. Grabbing the limb only with his toes, Hoji swung down with his sword stabbing behind his head. Norbel dodged in time and retreated into a topiary walkway. He could hear Hoji running at him, so he unsheathed his sword and threw it up in front of him. It turned to knives once more.
"I've got you!" Norbel exclaimed.
"Tch" Hoji said. "This attack's getting weak." Norbel, regardless of Hoji's criticism, swung his hand and shot out his knives. Hoji twirled his sword around with his strong right arm like a shield, crouching behind it very low to the ground, and didn't get scratched once. Hoji picked up, dashing forward with a push from both arms, and had both arms held back with his sword in reverse grip. "Time to die!" he screamed. Norbel just smiled.
"Tobimure" he politely asked, "Gattai!" He snapped his fingers and all the knives wrenched themselves from the trees and rocks they were pinned in. Hoji understood the direness of his situation, as well as the hopelessness of it. From every side, from a conic area that he was far to deep in to escape, the knives were coming.
I have to block them! He told himself. Hoji took one last step and went on his mixed agenda of offense and defense. First, his last step made him fly with extra speed and he used his strong back muscles to tackle Norbel away. Then, facing the coming flock of knives, he started manically spinning and twirling his sword in front of him. Norbel pushed away and jumped to the side, and all the knives changed their direction as well. Hoji's guard only blocked the ones that would hit him head on, and so his chest was torn and slashed to hell by the sideways knives that flew through his guard.
"The difference between is us simple" Norbel explained. All his knives converged at last into his whole, normal sword, and there was a fine streak of blood across the blade. Hoji hit the ground on his arms, refusing to let his lacerated chest get contaminated with the dirt and dust on the ground. "Namely, you are simple and I am not. If you are a genius with your sword, then I am a god with mine! I have hidden at least 80% of my abilities up until now! Just wait till you see everything I can do with this sword of mine!"
"Tch" Hoji grunted, standing up at last. His blood came streaming out of him and his vision blurred. "You're all talk" Hoji growled. "Just show me this power so I can let it blow up in your damn face, already..."
"Fine then" Norbel haughtily said. "Tobimure! Show this commoner our power!" His sword released, from what Hoji could make out in his blurry vision, and the energy swirled.
Boko no Gaikotsu : Hollow Skeleton
Dai-Sora Kiretsu : Great Sky Fissure (Dai is a prefix meaning 'great' or 'respectable' when used with other titles)
Hitama : Fire Ball
Gattai : Unite
