The arrancar woman and Hikari stared at each other, evaluating each other's strength.
"You are different from the other captains" the arrancar mused.
"And you from other arrancar" Hikari replied
The woman nodded "I am the 2nd Diachiken, Aza Monela, my power is second only to Lord Crisis himself, there is no other arrancar as powerful as I, save for him" she said.
Hikari stood up straight and placed her hand on the hilt of her zanpakto "I am Hikari Mikon, Captain of the Kido Corps, I'm afraid I've been secluded from the other squads too long to say for certain, but I am the strongest captain save for the Captain Commander"
Aza smiled "I see, then I shall not hold back" she said as she gripped her own zanpakto, a standard katana with a star shaped tsuba.
Hikari and Aza both drew their blades and assumed similar stances. Their names had been exchanged, and the time for words had passed.
Two pillars of reiatsu, one golden, the other black, shot into the sky as both women prepared to attack. The combined reiatsu was so great that the 3rd divisioners at the wall were forced to their knees even at such a distance.
Hikari made the first move, using a shunpo to appear behind Aza with incredible speed, Aza turned and hastily parried the slash Hikari made the moment she appeared.
Sparks flew as the blades met, then Hikari let Aza push her away into the air and pointed a finger down at her, appearing to be open.
Aza saw the opening and darted forward, slashing towards Hikari's neck to behead her.
"Sho" Hikari said as Aza attacked, leaving herself open in the process, a sphere of force erupted from her finger and nailed Aza in the chest, sending her crashing back into the ground like a rock dropped from the sky.
Aza landed on her back and immediately rolled to her feet, narrowly avoiding Hikari's blade where she had just been moments before. Aza gritted her teeth in pain, "A hado 1 of that level, she is truly a kido corps captain. That spell would've killed almost any other arrancar outright" she thought. She didn't get much more time to marvel at Hikari's kido though, because Hikari wasn't even close to done with her .
Hikari slashed at Aza with both hands, Aza blocked, but her eyes widened as she felt the force. Aza backed away, but Hikari twisted her blade and redirected the force, sending Aza skidding backwards, the ground breaking as she made a futile attempt to plant her feet. "What is this power?" she thought as Hikari attacked again, this time knocking her skyward.
Aza flew backward, still trying to get her footing and stop her momentum. Hikari's raw power was overwhelming, for the first time ever, Aza realized she was on the defensive. "Impossible… She's pressuring me? ME?" Aza thought angrily as she finally stopped herself "I will not allow it!"
Hikari appeared before Aza again, and Aza braced herself, preparing for the overwhelming power that was to come.
Hikari launched three consecutive slashes, Aza parried each, redirecting the force away from her rather than trying to stop it.
As Aza knocked the third slash upward Hikari spun and bent over, then slashed underneath Aza's blade, which was still traveling upwards from the force of redirecting the previous attack.
Aza couldn't hope to bring her blade down to block in time, so she began to sonido away, but she wasn't fast enough, and Hikari's blade cut into her stomach. A splash of blood flew into the air as Hikari's blade left a long deep gash across Aza's midsection.
Aza proceeded to continue her sonido and land on the ground. Hikari landed on the ground as well, and with a causal flick of her blade she removed Aza's blood from the shining steel. Aza's stomach spat out blood like a ruptured tank.
"Unbelievable, I've fought against countless captains in my life, and all of them have needed bankai simply to keep up with me, but you… you have wounded me with your blade alone" Aza grunted, gritting her teeth against the pain
"never before have I needed more than my sword to kill a shinigami" Aza coughed as her wound filled with a white bubbling liquid and healed. Aza held out her free hand and spoke "Be honored, Hikari Mikon, that you will die against my true power, cero"
Instantly a huge red cero shot from Aza's hand, more powerful than the gran rey ceros of most other arrancar, it traveled with shocking speed.
Hikari was taken aback, but dodged the cero with a shunpo "no charge time? How is that? And how is it so strong?" she thought as her shunpo began to end.
Aza moved her hand to where Hikari was appearing and fired another cero with no charge time, this one even stronger than the last.
Hikari was still stopping from her previous shunpo, and couldn't move in time to dodge. "Bakudo 81, Danku" she said, a transparent wall appearing before her. The cero slammed into the wall and began to surge around the barrier.
At first it seemed like the barrier was stopping the cero, but before Hikari's eyes her danku spell began to crack. "It's overpowering MY bakudo?" she though in shock. Despite her surprise, Hikari was far too experienced to be caught flat footed, and she responded quickly
"Bakudo 77 Atto Tenrai Sakeru" Hikari exclaimed, a sphere of golden force not unlike sho formed around her, bolstering her danku and providing an additional shield around her.
The last of the cero faded away, and Hikari's barrier stood, cracked and at the point of shattering, but still intact.
"Your cero is incredible, but in a contest between cero and kido…" Hikari said "my kido ALWAYS wins, Hado 51, Atto Tenrai Sho."
From Hikari's palm a ball of force shot out, very similar to Sho, but vastly more powerful. Aza fired another cero, the attacks clashed, then canceled each other out.
Hikari sighed "well since that didn't work, I suppose I can't afford to mess around anymore…"
Aza's breath caught and her eyes narrowed "she's just been 'messing around?' What IS she?" she thought in a panic
"Light em up, Lux Tractus" Hikari said, she was engulfed in a explosion of golden reiatsu, but when it cleared her sword was exactly the same.
Aza took a step back, she had seen things like this before, a shikai with the shape of a sealed blade, and she knew one thing for certain. This type of blade was the most deadly of all.
"How long has it been…" Hikari mused "since I REALLY used my shikai?"
With that Hikari charged, appearing before Aza she slashed towards her neck, Aza blocked, then pushed the blade away in a shower of sparts and countered with a slash of her own. Hikari parried, then thrust downward towards Aza's leg tendons.
Aza brought her blade down to intercept the obvious strike, but her blade connected with nothing, and she saw the tip of Hikari's blade erupting from her chest.
"I missed your heart… it really has been a long time" Hikari sighed as she pulled the hilt of her blade back and jumped away, as she pulled her hilt back the blade slid back out of Aza's chest.
"Wha…" Aza coughed, stumbling back as her regeneration closed the wound.
"What happened? She thrust towards my leg, I know she did! And then her blade stabbed me from behind as if she were attacking me from there all along! Is this an illusion type? No, I'd see through that" Aza thought, her mind racing "did her blade teleport?"
"You're probably wondering what just happened." Hikari said "It's no illusion, and my blade isn't teleporting, not exactly"
Hikari held up her sword "Lux Tractus is the strongest of all light-type zanpakto. Aurora's Taiyo Kamujin simply utilizes the condensed power of light as destructive energy, it's basic, but insanely powerful… However, my zanpakto exerts total control over light." She explained "at will, parts of my blade can travel through the light and appear elsewhere almost instantly, while still being connected to my hilt."
Aza's eyebrows furrowed "I see, so when you stabbed downward, your blade entered the light and exited in the air behind me, as your thrust continued so did the blade, effectively letting you stab me in the back as if you were standing behind me"
Hikari nodded "exactly, I can attack from anywhere, at any time, at any angle, and never move from this spot" she said
Aza closed her eyes "so be it, I will simply crush you before you can strike" she said as she raised her hand towards the sky and charged a cero.
Hikari tensed, "what's she planning?" she though warily as Aza fired a truly massive cero upwards.
The cero shot upwards, then gegan to twist, spiral, and compress, until it had become a long red whip
"Cero…Azote" Aza said as she cracked the whip down beside her, as the tip of the whip struck the ground there was a massive explosion of fire and rubble.
Hikari's eyes widened, then narrowed "if that hits me…" she though grimly "there won't be a kido in the world that could save me"