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.
"RAAAAAAAGHHHH!!!!" The animal that Jin had become charged in with a constant roaring. He swung one arm at Senshi. The other Senshi retreated. Jin stomped forward and sliced through the body with his other wicked blade. That Senshi was gone and, from the retreating Senshi, another came out from behind and rushed forward with his sword held up near his shoulder. With a grunt he jumped forward and sliced into Jin's shoulder. His skin was like hardened clay, baked a billion times into a rock-like hide, and he barely drew blood. Jin shrugged him off with such force that Senshi was thrown into a nearby tree. Jin rushed forward and delivered a flat kick into Senshi, buckling his body and the tree into breaking.
That Senshi was gone as well and the original was just out of sight. Jin took a long, snorting sniff from the air and growled out his breath. He turned to the darkness, his glimmering eyes aimed for Senshi himself. Jin crouched down and sprung up, making a high and distant leap over the trees.
"Think before acting!" Senshi said. He passed through more trees in his retreat while another of him leaped up through the trees to intercept the mad flight of Jin. Senshi waited for Jin to swing and blocked, staying with Jin in the air and lowering with him onto the canopy of the trees. "Why do you waste such time with war, boy? Have you never been in peace before?"
"NO!!!" Jin raged. Jin pressed both his swords into Senshi's with the intent on breaking his block. Senshi held firm, though the pressure of Jin's pure physique began to make him sink back down through the leaves he stood on with his floating pressure. "There's nothing in my mind that resembles peace! All I know is WAR!!!" Jin rose his blades up high. Senshi, rather than sacrifice yet another body to attack, acted to stall Jin's advance to his other body by blocking. Jin smashed both blades into his sword and cracked the blade. Now drunk on rage, Jin started growling with a wide, wild grin as he made strike after strike as rapidly as his long arms could carry, smashing both his blades one after another into Senshi's sword until they started to hit flesh. After so many impacts and after so much blind, terrible power, Jin ceased his attack and stood hunched over a bloody patch of leaves in the rain, huffing out foggy breaths.
Senshi was far away and hidden. He had reached a thin stream in the forest that the rain was already beginning to thicken and took refuge in the mud. He coated his body with the pure scent of the Earth and waited hidden behind a bush. That mad beast will eventually follow my scent here Senshi thought but even so, he shall find me not! I have faced pursuers not unlike him before, Hollows as well, who searched me out by means of my own particularly strong and manly pheromone scent. Alas, in those times, my methods to hide were not as brilliant as this, for not the smell of either fresh fruits nor fresher fish could mask the powerful smell of my awesome stature. Now, coated in this thick river mud, where fish and creatures similar have infinitely swam through, casting their scent into this mud to overpower even the fresh scent of the grass that grows so close!
A flash of lightning lit up the shady forest. A roll of thunder dulled the rushing sound of rain. I only hope that he passes by before my cover has been washed back to the ground by this torrent of rain... Another flash of lightning. A shadow was cast in the brightly lit forest. Jin was walking near. Senshi only saw him for the moment of light, and then as the thunder cracked once more Jin entered the area across the stream from where Senshi hid. He was still smelling the air, his eyes wide and darkened with deep-black rings of hatred and his blood-red bangs jagged in front of his face.
"You're here" Jin said, still sniffing like a loyal hound. He slowly lowered himself to his toes and his hands and sniffed closer to the ground. He immediately found a footprint pressed in the soft grass. He snarled and barked up with a gruff shout and a snap of his teeth back together in a pressed grin. "I know where you are..." Senshi didn't believe him. He stayed perfectly hidden and fixed his eyes on the wild man crouched down to find him. Jin began crawling with quick moves of his arms and slow drags of his feet, a spidery figure clutching two thick butchery blades in each balled fist. He sniffed around the bank of the river and looked down into the water. Lightning flashed and cast a bright glare off the creek. Jin didn't blink or flinch at all from the bright flash but stared at it and let dots form.
"Gah!" Jin exclaimed. "He's sent big, round bugs into this water to kill the fish! That asshole!"
Madness cannot mask stupidity, can it? Senshi thought. Jin reached into the water, feeling around with three fingers while still keeping his blade in his hand. He felt around on the flatly rounded creekbed of silt and mud and then came to an uneven, deep patch where stones were still loose and rolling around.
"He's been here!" Jin realized. He perched his head up high and straightened his arms, still keeping on the toes of his feet like an animal. "He's covered with mud!" Senshi was frightened. "He took mud from the ground to try and hide....so he's still here. There aren't any trails of mud in the grass, so he must have walked...in the water!!" Along the river up the stream there were only two things: a shrub and a rock. Jin stood up and wrung his fingers in the metal handles of his swords. He was on the side with the rock so he advanced to that first.
I can outrun him Senshi realized. Until my reiatsu has recharged itself, Gemini is unable to replicate me yet again. If he smashes that rock it will occupy his mind enough that I shall be able to escape! Jin then departed from the bank and began pushing through the weak current toward the bush. DAMN! Is this insanity of his some form of hidden genius!? Has he realized that I was here from the very beginning!? Jin turned once more and stood with his arms raised and his legs parted.
"NO SURVIVAL!!!" Jin bellowed. He swung at both the shrub and the rock. He split the rock and his arm was stopped in the bush by the clash of metal.
"Very well" Senshi said, standing up full with both hands blocking Jin's blade. "I shall face you down properly! Prepare for retribution, young man!" Jin turned his eye on Senshi and twisted his body. He stepped his right leg across his left and let his right arm come swinging in with all the force of his torqued body. Senshi pushed Jin's left blade away, sheathed his sword fast and leaped just over Jin's swing. Both of Jin's arms were crossed with great tension at his chest and both blades were wound back behind him. Senshi landed with one hand on his sheathe and the other on the hilt of his sword.
"Gemini Charge!!!" He called. He drew his sword, slashed, and sheathed it back all within the movement of a flash-step. When he stopped and the hilt of his blade clacked back into its sheathe he was behind Jin, who had swung as well with both arms extended out like wings with great cleaving streaks in the air. The rain fell, soon joined by blood. Jin lowered his arms laxly and turned with a mad, evil grin and dark, glowing eyes. Across his belly was a cut that bled down to his belt. Senshi could not move. He did not bleed nor was he injured but somehow his arms were shaking and his knees were weak. Only by the sheer manly force of will did he not fall over until Jin had turned full around and kicked him. Senshi tumbled away numbly and stopped himself to sit on the ground.
"You ever fight a real animal before?" Jin asked. He spun both his blades in his hands and lowered his head to darken the shade of his brow even more. "A man who lives without rules or limits, that kind of animal?"
"Even such limits as honor and humanity?" Senshi lowed. He stood up with a hand tightly clutching near the top of his sheathe. "You say you're a warrior? What kind of warrior, man, anything, would attack in such a way?" Jin just smiled. Senshi's brow furrowed deeply with scorn. His sword had been sheathed only so that it could not be unsheathed. He checked it, very slowly drawing it, but the blade ended in a break just above the hilt. Senshi was without a weapon against a man who was, to him, a living weapon...
Horoshi stood over Suichi's body at length and stared down at it. The light of his kido had faded. Now he stood in an open area of the pathway in a cool, depleted mist, staring at the fallen shinigami. Then, with a scornful hiss, he scoffed and smashed the head with his foot. It shattered into ice and frost.
"That bastard" Horoshi growled. "He must have replaced his body with this thing when I wasn't concentrating!!! Damn him! I'll kill him yet!!!" Horoshi was reduced to growling in the open, so utterly mad that his sword hand shook. Suichi was gone, vanished like the assassin he was, and left his opponent with neither the honor of victory or defeat. Instead, he took to the woods, towards the safest source of pressure he could perceive.
As much as he'll hate it Suichi thought I'm going to help Hoji out since I can't fight that kid. I've exhausted practically all of my energy already just screwing around with attacks that hardly worked! Whatever he did with that illumination kido was just a set up to power his sword for that attack. If he revealed his shikai in a fight it may very well be the death of me... Suichi, having surrendered his well-trained honor for life, continued dashing through the forest, weaving his dark figure through the trees with his sword sheathed at the back of his waist, with no end to his run in sight.
How far away did Hoji go? Suichi wondered.
Hoji and Kakugari continued their fight as if they were the only ones fighting in the world. They existed and one of them would die. That's how their thoughts seemed to go.
"TCH!" Hoji exclaimed. He kicked up high, just missing Kakugari's chin as the man dodged to the side. He grabbed the edge of his cape and swung it in. Hoji retreated and clawed the ground to slow down. "Ha!" Hoji shouted. "Kazetsumi!!!" He bladed fingers swept in a crescent arc that scraped the ground and ended in his whole body following through with a slashing uppercut. Four blades of wind formed and rushed through the air into Kakugari's blocking cape. They were strong enough to push him back despite his defense and ended when he threw out his cape to throw that slicing wind aside.
"Ha!" he laughed. "Is that the be-" Hoji was already at his face with a flying-knee to the nose. Hoji's arms were crossed in spite. He leaned his body forward and pushed off of Kakugari's face to see it scowling hard. His hands were already reaching for his cape as Hoji slowly fell. I'll absorb every single ounce of his reiatsu and crush his hollow body into dust!!!
"Tch" Hoji scoffed. He landed plainly, stepped a foot back and held out an arm with an open palm. "It's just a piece of clothing, in the end. You think you can fight against the wind with something so flimsy?" Hoji spread out his fingers and forced his hand forward into Kakugari's abdomen. Then he blew out a long breath. A huge blast of air began blowing out of his guarded, golden palm into Kakugari's skin which curved off of him and around in a round stream that billowed his cape far and away. Kakugari was stunned at first, then the scornful and mysteriously evil smile returned to his face.
"I have faced enemies like you" Kakugari said, "beasts which, with but a howl, summoned up the demonic winds from the north to blow against me. Never once did I let them command my consuming cape! It absorbed them all, just the same, wind or no, for it is of the ability of my powerful weapon to resist all force but mine!!" At the end of his speech his cape edges consciously came back into his hands and the back of his long cape stayed billowed and forced back like an open sail against a powerful wind, blown up so wide that it pressed against creaking trees. He grinned with wide eyes as Hoji kept blowing into the back of his hand and brought his cape in to absorb the young man's body.
"Tch!" Hoji scoffed, stopping his gust stream. "I thought so!" Hoji gripped Kakugari's skin and made five deep cuts with his claws. Then, with the speed of the wind, he slid out from under the pressing clutch and stomped his foot to stop, a mighty wind still blowing against him. He stopped the wind by taking hold of it, spun it around and powered himself to toss the whole invisible body at Kakugari.
"I shan't stand here to take this!" Kakugari said. He took the edge of his cape and threw it forward. "Reach!!!" The extending, amorphous form of the cape's fur-lined edge reached out with amoebic extensions for Hoji.
"CATCH!!!" Hoji roared. He threw the wind against the reaching arms of the cape and they diverged into the nearby trees where they stuck and snapped to tension. Kakugari withdrew his arm and the stretchy cape was brought back to him. Hoji beat it there with his right arm wound back at his waist. He growled and stomped, powering his left shoulder suddenly into Kakugari's gut. The tall man resisted without his cape but with a solid punch into Hoji's drawn-back elbow, jarring him out of his planned attack. "Tch" he scoffed. Hoji pushed himself away with his left arm and jumped back before Kakugari could catch him with the swipe of his cape.
"You are a marvel at retreating" Kakugari said. "Surly all that amazing speed is not without its use in proper combat, is it?"
"Oh, you're a bitch" Hoji growled. He shook his head and his arm to get the tingling numbness off of it and set up once more, his left arm straight up in front of his face and his right drawn back.
Don't overreact, Hoji Torakaze warned. Mind your condition. Mind mine!
I am Hoji said. He uncurled his index and middle finger on his left hand and saw the blade had lost its razor shine. His blades were beginning to dull already from his constant output of force on the wind. This isn't getting any better for either of us, but something tells me he has a lot more energy than I do. How long would it take for you to recover?
I can't while you're fighting she replied.
I'm well aware of that! Hoji snapped back. If I stopped using you for a bit, how long would it take?
It's not worth it Torakaze said. It would take too long for such a fight. You would have to run away and lose him completely to give me enough time to recover.
Forget that Hoji thought. Just stay steady and useful for a little longer. I've got a plan.
Damn Torakaze said. I was hoping you'd get to live a little longer than this, but if you're destined to die-
Shut up, bitch! Hoji shouted. "Alright, ass. Let's get this going!" Hoji ran forward with no particular strategy visible. He held open his left hand with the claws aimed forward and shouted as he stepped, rapidly closing the space between him and his opponent. Kakugari closed in as well with his cape gripped in his right hand, the arm drawn back as if to punch as well.
"Then it is a contest of will!" Kakugari exclaimed. "Strength be damned, we shall push fore with only our guile of battle to inspire us!!!"
"TCHAAAAA!!!" Hoji roared. He clawed into the air and made a pouncing leap, powered by his legs and his arm at once, doubling his speed in an instant, and then he made the gold-knuckled punch to Kakugari's grinning face, right between the eyes. He had abandoned his defense and was strictly a fighting creature. He clawed the air with his left hand, bringing it in to pierce through Kakugari's neck with what ferocity it still had in its dulled blades. Hoji's hand swiped through something unseen and thick, slowed and then stopped before reaching close to the full length of its sweeping arc of travel. Hoji looked over and saw that Kakugari's hand was still punching and that his claw had caught the tar-like fabric of his cape as it was in mid-swing.
….....ah, dammit! Hoji thought. Suddenly he was overtaken by the force of Kakugari's devouring cape. He felt his strength drain from him the instant the engulfing substance surrounded his flesh. His mouth was covered and he lost the means to breathe. His right arm and leg flailed away as he fell defenseless to the ground, the cape fusing his body into it and devouring his reiatsu which instantaneously began healing Kakugari. His nose straightened out immediately and he took in a grand breath of damp air through it.
"Ahhh!" he sighed. "What a wonderful day for a fight to the death, don't you agree, my maniacal friend?" Hoji couldn't speak. His eyes were wide and jittery with an incredible sense of anger. With what energy he had he continued the fight, piercing through Kakugari's sock and stabbing his right claws through his foot. The shining sharpness of his claws was back and with his fingers in the ground he raked forward, slicing Kakugari's foot apart.
"GAAAAHHH!!!" Kakugari screamed.
You clever bitch Hoji thought, trying to communicate with his sword again. You transferred all of your energy from the left gauntlet into this one, didn't you? I'll make up for this later, but for now, thank you! Hoji took his newly sharpened, bladed claw and made a body-winding swipe for the cloak. It turned into tattered, dark patches and freed Hoji to jump up and leap away, leaving Kakugari lacking a foot. The remainder of the dark cloth fell from Hoji's body like shed skin and left his entire left side looking pale and uneven. The left gauntlet was gone. "One-handed martial arts? Why not!?" He posed with his lone gauntlet forward and his claws knotted into a hard fist.
Shin, tactless in his ego, grinned and scratched at the sore red spot on his forehead where he rammed into Netami's mouth. Then, in a gall move, he spun his scythe between his fingers in a slicing circle and took steps backward as he did, keeping a constant rotation that built force upon force within the speed of his scythe's blade.
"Which way should I cut you now?" Shin asked. Netami stood up and wiped the blood from his lip away with a throw of his arm. "Across the chest? Shoulder to hips? Maybe your arm can come off...." Netami swung his sword from where he stood and let his tearing blades travel Shin's way. He guarded the same as before. He simply held his scythe in front of his body and let it slow itself down, bracing it from behind with only one finger. The blades hit into the shaft of his weapon and turned and spun it into more and more of them. None hit Shin, they only sailed past him if they didn't hit his scythe.
"You know" Shin began as he rested his weapon on his shoulder, "I don't think you need that head there..." Netami armed himself, both hands on the hilt and the sword pointed forward from his shoulder, and dashed in. He swung hard to the side which Shin blocked with the blunt end of his blade. Their weapons parted, Netami drawing up for another quick attack and Shin beginning his spinning style. "I'll give you the last words today...Saishuu Serifu!" He blocked again and let his scythe spin freely around his body, rotating with the blade leading it and his arms and hands providing pivots for it to spin around. Netami stabbed with a powerful thrust, followed it with a slash from where the blade pointed, an attack in the opposite direction and then a swing to stop Shin's weapon. All of his attacks and subsequent waves of blades were deflected, all of them only adding to Shikei's constant acceleration.
"Not working" Shin lowed. He slid his foot toward Netami, caught the shaft along his forearm and powered down a fierce swing into the ground. Netami stepped back just in time and stomped on the back of the scythe's blade to keep it in the ground. The rain kept up so much that neither of them noticed it anymore, and thus Netami was initially shocked when Shin managed to cut his blade through the wet dirt so easily and let it spin in reverse at his side. He quickly changed it over to his left side where the blade led down once more and then stepped back while Netami advanced.
"Makai Myaku!" Netami called. He pressed his open palm forward and a dark blast echoed out. Shin jumped clear over it with his scythe as a black, wide halo over his head. He stopped it and spun himself with its force in the air, leading his body down into a mighty swing powered with both hands.
"Dokurosatsu!" Shin lowed in response. His scythe swung down and into the ground while his own body stayed in the air. He took the shaft and hooked the length of it across the shelf of his shoulders and between both arms, then kicked his legs and swung again. Netami blocked the attack and retreated, curious and defensive as Shin continued his attack. He swung his scythe into the ground, moved down the shaft and swung again, repeating until his scythe was slashing in a circle as a black, slashing wheel with Shin spinning sideways in the air, holding it in the immovable grip of his right hand.
"What the hell?" Netami said. "Is this supposed to be a serious attack?" Shin kept it up, his body spinning the scythe into the ground, pulling him along as a wheel would, piercing into the dirt and slashing up a splatter of mud each time, creating a slim path carved into the ground as he went.
"You should treat any attack seriously" Shin said, unfazed by what would seem to be incurable dizziness. "You never know what can really kill you in this world..." Shin's scythe suddenly met Netami's block, over and over, building speed each time. "Everything of my style is based on rotation, on making a straight-shafted, in-curve-bladed weapon into a razor-sharp circle. It's not a weapon that can just be swung around randomly, it requires tremendous skill and power to master using a scythe for combat!!"
"It's nothing more than a novelty to me!" Netami said, catching Shin's blade and keeping it still. Shin hooked himself onto the shaft and pressed his back against the straight metal to steady himself while still holding it in his hand. "A sword is all one needs to fight in this, or any, world. Anything beyond the power of a sword, the perfect form and substance, is meaningless to those who can't use it!"
"Well that works for you" Shin said. He dropped down onto the blunt edge of Netami's blade and kicked him in the face. "You sword stays a sword, after all, but we're not all so lucky are we?" Netami was stumbled backwards from Shin's unexpected attack. Shin landed back on the ground and spun his scythe back up right so the blade was up and the butt of the shaft was in the ground. Netami held his face in pain and let himself retreat by a few steps. He gripped his sword tight in his left hand and glowered through the space between his fingers. His orange eyes were shining out with a visible, almost palpable, danger. He spoke to Shin with his eyes and told him only of death and murder. Shin grinned and stabbed his scythe down into the moist dirt at his side. Then he went to cracking his knuckles with a fist in hand, one at a time.
"You're an arrogant man" Netami said. "Ego won't win everything. If you can't back what you say with skill you're better off with the honor of killing yourself. At least then you'll know you died to a worthy opponent that you couldn't truly defeat."
"I'd rather die in a battle" Shin said as he rolled his head around, cracking his neck. "Not that I care about honor. Just fighting."
"Is that why you're here?" Netami asked. His grin had returned as he watched Shin prepare himself. Shin took in a calming breath, armed his scythe and spun it as a dark blur around his body to get it into pose, the tip of the shaft and blunt curve of the blade aimed at Netami.
"Yup" Shin said. "I fight til I die, then if I get to, fight my way through Hell." Netami swung his blade into a stylish spin around his body and set it yet again at his shoulder. The grass around him lightly fell and the ran dripped away from his feet. He ran in. Shin engaged him. Netami and Shin both swung and caught each other's weapons. They parted and tried again, once again coming to a draw.
Netami wound his sword from his hip over his head and stomped forward to power an attack down through Shin's guard. Shin spun away and swung his scythe. Netami dodged the blade and swung up from the grass. Shin's side was exposed and he blocked what he could of the invisible blades flying at him but still his kimono was cut and his flesh was hit. He was strong enough to ignore it and tough enough that he didn't bleed. Instead he turned his scythe around and rushed in, powering a sweeping horizontal attack into Netami's upside-down sword guard.
Netami had the pinky-finger sides of his hands pressed together on the hilt, his right hand lower on the handle, and used his awkward position to make an arcing swing for Shin's neck. The sheer pressure of it made a red streak across his skin, but Shin retreated before the blade of air blasted out and cut the rain apart. Netami flashed up to Shin with his sword already swung and pressed into Shin's horizontal block. Netami took the advantage in terms of bloodletting madness and headbutted the blunt edge of his sword, powering a myriad of tiny attacks into Shin's blade that shook his guard down. Then he slid his sword up and stabbed bone-deep into Shin's chest, scraping his sternum.
AHHHHH, nostalgia... Shin mentally groaned. He made a similar effort and hooked the blade of his scythe into Netami's hip. When they broke away Shin's scythe blade scraped through Netami's thick skin and drew blood just as Netami had on Shin.
"We're only going forward when we both bleed" Shin said. "But who will bleed to death first?"
"Whoever loses his head" Netami said. He rushed in, leaving Shin to grin and raise his defense while the grim phantom of Death watched over them both from within the dark metal of the scythe. Shikei observed intently as Shin fought with him, his skull face giving no emotion but the flatness of death...
Kazetsumi: Wind Claw
Dokurosatsu: Skull Splitter (Satsu meaning, among things, kill and murder)
