I drew Zabimaru with an enthusiastic

"Howl! Zabimaru!"

The great double-sided hourglass-shaped blade with the diamond-shaped head and the intricate hilt materialized in my hand as I leapt into the fray.

The fire-beast met my enthusiasm with some of his own and roared a great stream of fire, sort of like someone had let loose with a fire-hose (only it was water instead of fire) in a line straight at me to intercept my charge.

:Of course he would be able to breathe flame!: I thought to myself as I brought the flat of Zabimaru around to block the worst of the gout of fire even as I nipped around to avoid the rest.

I returned the favor by flash-stepping in for a swing at him which he blocked with one of his massive forelimbs. So then, not only did he breathe fore but parts of his body were covered in a hardened shell as well. This was going to be interesting. His reply to my sally was to belch another spiraling sideways pillar of flame at me. I shielded again with Zabimaru and swung at him, landing a nice slice into his side, at the point just before the segmented carapace that protected his ribcage started up. He roared with pain and angrily shot another flame at me. I dodged back and he kept trying, herding me this way and that with firey breaths until I was too far away to attack up close easily.

It started to occur to me that this was not the sort of enemy I wanted to fight at close range.

:Hey, Zabimaru, is Snakey up fer a battle yet?: I asked him.

::He is not yet recovered,:: Zabimaru reported to me. ::However, that is of no moment.::

::Well the long-range fighting abilities would sure come in handy right now!:: I snapped back as I dodged flame after flame shot my way without managing to land a single scratch on him.

::You have them,:: Zabimaru said. ::Unbind your chakra and release your power.::

"..." I said eloquently.

I paused for a split second and did as he commanded. After re-binding my chakra behind restraints by myself I had discovered that I was more comfortable with them that way, it didn't feel like I was about to burst from out of my skin, like an overripe berry being squeezed, at a touch. But keeping the bindings in place all by myself (Zabimaru refused point blanck to help me out by doing it for me anymore) was a little weird at first, there would be times when I wasn't paying attention and I felt them slip and I'd have to pause from what I was doing and shore them back up. All in all, I was more comfortable with the majority of my power safely put away where it couldn't inadvertantly hurt someone. Unbinding my chakra felt a little like releasing a muscle that's been tightened for a really long time, like if you'd curled your hand into a loose fist for hours on end and then suddenly straightened your fingers.

I kept the chackra at my lowest setting about halfway open for normal use so i slid that one open all the way then turned to the next chackra, the orange one, mentally turning the spiritual lock and releasing the sluice gate to flood my body with power. Too late I realized that I should have been a little more careful when I released the power from its bindings. Far from being natural and easy when it was loosed, the power of my reiatsu crashed into me in a wave, feeling like mudslide coming down a mountain and carrying away everything in its path. Even at the best of times my spiritual power had always been difficult to manage, it was contrary, pernicious and inclined to pull and pop and struggle when I tried to get it to form the pattern of a reiatsu spell. And that was only just when I had the minimal amount that Zabimaru had deemed safe for me to handle unleashed. Throwing wide the sluice gate and letting two full chakra's worth of completely uninhibited reiatsu loose all of a sudden, without any attempt to control it before hand, had not been one of my brighter moves... I realized that fact a moment later as my chest tightened and my muscles constricted from the painful feeling of being hit with that rush of power.

It felt like my soul was trying to push out of my skins. Now I knew how a water-baloon felt when Jinta filled it up at the sink in Urahara's place.

:It feels like I'm gonna explode,: I gasped inside my mind, my chest heaving.

My unharnessed reiatsu pushed at the bounds of my mortal shell. An image of a water-balloon being filled was an adequate description. Unless that power was channeled and controlled I was going to burst outward from the massive pressure.

::Pull in your power and channel it through your meridians!:: Zabimaru snapped at me, mentally slapping me into focus.

It felt like I was a man who was not a very good swimmer, suddenly being tossed into the ocean in the middle of a storm. My head was ducked under the water and I was flailing my limbs uselessly, trying to find purchase enough to take my bearings and gain control. I had begun to panic. I couldn't breathe and the power was so dizzyingly intoxicating that I wasn't sure which way was up, literally, I could not tell up from down!

::Focus!::

I groggily pushed my mind through the grounding exercises I'd leaned in the Soul Reaper Academy decades ago, managing to push myself far enough, mentally, from the sloshing swirling pulling power that so overwhelmed me that I was able to gain a little control over myself. I utterly had not been expecting that. I thought about asking Zabimaru why, if I had gone though all the trouble of clearing and unlocking my chakra, was my reiatsu still as pernicious as ever? It would have to wait though.

I breathed out once and stretched out my will to encircle the river that was now expanding out to try to fill every part of me. With a great mental heave of effort, I pulled in all the sides of the power, forcing it to center in. It fought. My reiatsu was persnikety by nature and, like me, it didn't like being told what to do. It popped on one side and shoved on the other, like trying to herd cats, all of it wanted to go its own way. I reigned it in by will alone and started spiraling it through my body's meridians. It struggled every bit of the way and I wrestled with it. It felt like it took an eternity for me to get most of it spiraling through my meridians into a semblance of order, once it was traveling through my bodies channels it was easier to control because there was no place else for it to go and it had a place to go, instead of just collecting in a pool and trying to burst outward.

::Now concentrate it so we can use it,:: Zabimaru prompted me.

I gathered my power, pulling it in and condensing it until it became a flaming blue-white star of super-concentrated energy. I hadn't noticed it at first, having been so intensely focused on what was going on inside of me to the exclusion ove everything else, but a small wind from the release of some of that power I kept sealed away inside kicked up around me in a soft breeze laced with spiritual power. In that strange way of knowing without really being sure how one knew what to do that existed on the level of instinct between Zanpaktou and their wielders, the power I had gathered together I pushed down my meridians and into the blade of Zabimaru.

The elegant blade glowed with a powerful luminescence; star-white in the center along the tang of the blade fading to a softer blue-white along the razor edges. Instinctively I gathered together another orb of power, the soft breeze of gathering energy around me kicking into a stiff wind, and pushed that down the length of my blade through the channel at the center, where it gathered at the tip in a firey ball of brilliant blue-white luminance surrounded by a paler haloed orb that looked like glass made of light. Jags and darts of lighting crawled over the surface of the halo around the tip of Zabimaru, weaving and and undulating in unpredictable patterns, occasionally fizzling off into blue-white sparks. I turned to face my opponent.

"Denkou...Hou!" (Lightning Cannon) I cried, slashing the around to one side then curving it up and bringing it down sharply, releasing all the energy pent up at the end at my enemy. The orb of pure power shot at him like a cannonball, hitting him square in the chest where it flared out in a brilliant white flash of light. I felt a little bit weak when I separated the power from myself and attacked with it, but all in all, even after the enormous amount of power I'd spent in the attack, it was barely a fraction of what I had to call and I still felt more than ready to go.

The fire spirit slumped back, clearly affected by the strike, and roared with pain. Before he could recover, I took advantage of the fact that he was clearly off-guard and flashed in to attack. I scored two hits on either of his massive forelimbs before he shot another flash of flame at me. I darted back shielding with the flat of Zabimaru (when the blade was active with spiritual power the diamond-fire along the edges could flare out at will to form a better shield, I discovered) and waited for my next opportunity.

The fire-spirit was clearly hurting from my attack, and had apparently decided, that since I'd moved the battlefield from low-level attacks alone, that it was time he unleashed some of his own powerful moves. He roared up into the air once, bringing his arms back and then punching his fists together in the air before him. Pulling his fists back a little bit an orb of pure live flame gathered in the air between his hands. He roared again and the flame grew until it was twice as big as I was. He shot another gout of flame out of his mouth at it and the massive globe of fire flew up into the air and the enormous behemoth launched himself straight up after it, crouched and turned in the air and slammed his massive paws into the fire ball knocking it right down at me. I hastily shot power down the length of my blade and pulled the flat of it in front of me as a shield to block out the worst of it, flaring out the power along the edges to protect me fully.

The air turned red and hot, I closed my eyes and held my breath, preying that I didn't get immolated. The attack was a once-off, so as soon as it faded that was it, it was done. I just had to endure until then. It seemed to take an eternity. I felt some of my clothes crisp away in the hot wind.

Even as the inferno curled around either side of me, I gathered in for another attack, pulling in three times as much as I had for the first attack I'd made. Zabimaru had something else he wanted to show me. Following his silent mental instructions, I pushed about a third of that power I had gathered into another halo-orb around the tip and the rest I separated out into six smaller balls of lightning-kissed luminance circling around me in a ring. The orbs looked sort of like those plasma-globes I'd seen in the human world, there was a ball-shaped fairy-light of raw liquid energy in the very center with sharp little jags of blue-white energy crackling out n snake-like tendrils, seething and just beneath the surface glass-like outer shell of power.

Once the fire-globe that the beast had sent at me had spent itself, I straightened from where I had crouched behind Zabimaru as a shield and brought the brilliantly gleaming tip before me. I flared out one final burst of power, feeding it into the lighting seeds circling lazily around me in a ring before I brought Zabimaru out and around in a slashing motion.

"Raikou Enjin!" (Lightning Ring)

The six orbs of lightning-power that had surrounded me, circling lazily in the air, flew forward in a ring to surround my enemy on all sides, slightly reminiscent of the Higa Zekkou that Snaketail was capable of, though this one did not seem to take Zabimaru out of commission for any amount of time). I sent a pulse into my sword and the orbs attacked the beast from all sides, landing hit after hit on him, causing him to stagger first to one side and then to the other as they came at him relentlessly. As a final coup de grace I brought Zabimaru, with the main orb of light still sparkling at the diamond headed tip of the blade, before me and slashed downwards. Lighting and power concentrated into a single crackling ring blasted at him, tearing up the ground a little by the ferocity of its attack. It hit him square in the chest, knocking him back; actually, sending him flying back on his ass.

The give the asshole credit though, he was down, but he wasn't out. He opened his mouth as if to gather in another breath to breathe flame at me, but this time instead another fireball formed in front of his snout, concentrated there, and that's when he breathed another gout of flame at me. It was a little bit different in that it was a concentrated burst this time. A huge meteorite of fire shot at me and when I flash-stepped aside to avoid it, it blew up the ground in a good-sized crater where I had just been standing.

:Somebody's decided ta take the gloves off,: I thought.

I hastily gathered another round of power and shot it down Zabimaru, slashing to intercept. The two attacks met in midair and there was an explosion of fire and lighting that made me stagger. Small sparks of fire shot out like shrapnel from a landmine in 'nam, and I didn't move quickly enough to avoid them. Some of them landed some pretty good hits on me, and did they ever burn like hell. I had to finish this guy off already.

I knew, in that way of Zanpaktou's and their wielders, that there was a greater attack that I was capable of but I needed a little time to prepare. I quickly gathered in and formed another omni-directional attack and sent it flying at him to distract him while I gathered in for my real attack.

"Raikou Enjin!" I cried, as I sent another omni-directional attack at him to hit him from all sides. Then I gathered in and sent another, followed by a third. It ate at the reiatsu, firing them off in rapid succession like that, but all in all, I was still good to go. My enemy however was staggering from the brunt of the successful attacks hitting him from all sides. While he was staggered, I would prepare.

I unlocked the seal on my third chakra. Having learned from my first experiment in unleashing my power without any thought, I released the sluice gate on that Chakra, slowly and carefully, channeling all the reiatsu from that chakra directly into my meridians without letting it have a chance to swamp me and overwhelm my body. The reiatsu from this one felt... thicker somehow, more substantial than the first two chakra had, it was like the power had a greater concentration to it than the other two. It was a heady sensation, almost like being drunk, as raw primal energy flowed through me, gathering in to my will. It was dizzying and exhilarating at the same time and it sort of made me want to laugh drunkenly at nothing at all but the pure joy and exhilaration I felt.

I also felt the air around me saturate with power, thick as pea soup and tasting heavily of ozone. Adding more reiatsu into the mix had upped the ante. The sourceless that had only been a breeze before was now suddenly a hurricane of golden-white light. I flared my power out into it, feeding it and making it grow ever larger. It felt a bit like pushing my hand into a still pool of water and swirling it around faster and faster to make a bigger and more powerful water-funnel. Powerful bolts of lighting wove into the misty golden-white energy of raw power that made the clouds of the maelstrom scream around me, as the wind tugged at my hair and clothes and then began in a spiral up into the sky, creating a great swirling tower of light. I almost felt like laughing, so wonderful and powerful it made me feel, spiraling around me.

With a mental command I sent the hurricane of power straight over at my enemy, the winds and lightnings crawling over him and picking him up off the ground as though he was nothing more helpless than a toy. He hung, suspended in mid-air in the center of the maelstrom as I gathered power at the end of my sword. A massive frothing knot of lighting bolts curled around each other into a ball. The orb of power grew and grew as I poured more and more reiatsu into it while my enemy hung helplessly suspended in the air in the eye of the storm.

"Hikari Senpuu Higyou!" (light whirlwind strike) I cried, my throat feeling raw and hoarse from the power stuck heavy on the back of my tongue.

The power at the end of my sword blazed at him in blinding a tail of sparks and little shoots of lightning trailing behind it like a comet as it tore up through the air over the center of the top of the whirlwind where it stopped. I could feel a nudge from Zabimaru and so I fed a final burst of power into my blade. The orb at the top of the whirlwind pulsed outward once, then gathered in on itself, turning a brilliant white too bright to look at. Then it blasted downwards through the center of the whirlwind in a pillar of pure white molten power. The air turned white and I shielded my eyes. I felt it in my bones when the bolt struck the ground, the whole world shook with the blast as the sky flashed white-gold too brilliant to look at.

"Renji-i-i!" Isana called in panic.

I looked back up just in time to see a ring of light, like the crest of a wave, shooting out from the bottom of the dissipating whirlwind in all directions... including straight at us. I reversed my grip on Zabimaru and thrust him point down into the ground, and beckoned that Isana should get over here now. I wasted no time and we both crouched in the shadow of Zabimaru. With one hand around his hilt, flaring my reiatsu out around the edges in a shield, and the other hand around the woman to keep her from flying off, I hunched my back against the worst of the blast, the girl protected in a hollow created by my body. When the shockwave hit it was like a thump through my chest, all around me was howl and light. A moment later, it was gone. We peeked up. The place had been a crater already, but now it was about ten times bigger. In the bottom of that crater slumped the barely conscious form of the fire spirit.

"Jesus, Maria and Jhoseph," Isana said, crossing herself. Her accent got stronger when she was upset, I noted. "What in the hell was that?"

A wide, fierce grin split open my face. It looked like I had me a new bag of tricks. An' I knew just who I couldn't wait to try them out on.

:Let's see him keep that smug little aristocratic smirk on his face after that one!: I thought in anticipation.

I rose from my crouch and walked over to the fire-beast, setting the point of Zabimaru down beside his throat, wordlessly demanding that he surrender.

"I yeild me, Mortal Warrior," the fire beast gasped out in a deep growling voice.

I took the point of Zabimaru away from his throat and before I turned back, the fire-beast rose to his knees, resting much of his weight on his tree-trunk forelimbs.

"From this point forward my strength belongs to your mistress."

I really wished people would stop calling her that, it was bad enough she'd slapped a binding spell on me, it made it just that much worse that it seemed like everyone could tell and insisted on naming her the master of me. Ta tell the truth it kinda pissed me off a little.

"I accept your allegiance," Isana said solemnly.

One of the charms on her bracelet glowed brilliant orange white and began to expand until it was full-sized, a three-quarter length staff that flickered with flames in her hand. Another of those intricate multiple rings with designs and glyphs on them glowed on the ground beneath her feet with her in the center of it and a small wind kicked up as she twirled her staff in elaborate patters while her power gathered in a small nimbus of flame before her. She paused as the pattern at her feet finished drawing itself, then drew a circle in the air that hung there in a ring of fire.

The beast looked once at Isana, bowed deeply, and stepped into the ring, disappearing as it closed up behind him. Then everything went back to normal, or at least as normal as things ever got in this place. She slumped down a bit, clearly feeling a little exhausted, then firmed her legs and smiled wearily up at me.

"Here, let's get those burns of yours taken care of."

I stared a little at her in surprise. She just walked right up to me and summoned up her healing circle.

"I... uh... thank-you," I managed at last as my wounds began stitching up under the light of her green sigil-circle.

"De nada," she assured me. "After all, you were the one who got hurt protecting me, the least I can do is heal you up afterward."

After that, we were on the road again.

So there it is at last, we got to see Zabimaru's special attacks! Pretty cool huh? Was it worth the wait? Thanks again to all those who have read and reveiwed and I hope you look forward to the next chapter.