Cad
New Member
Senka Shuffle
Cad- Okamii Igasho
Rob- Amaterasu Nana
3718
Rob- Amaterasu Nana
3718
Igasho’s bare feet dug into the dirt, heels first, as he slid back from a powerful impact. Leaving a tread of soil in his wake, the assassin was braced and leaning forward, still recoiling from a simple but effective strike. Stabbing his zanpakuto into the dirt, the man anchored himself and came to a stop, kicking up a wave of dirt and soil that clouded up the air.
Sweating and now breathing heavily, the bearded warrior leaned forward against his sword and caught his breath.
“You know,” he said with a grin and wiping his forehead, “you don’t have to show off.”
An almost devious smile spread across the Blitzkrieg Captain’s face as she strutted with mighty steps towards Igasho. Wielding both her zanpakutou and Murakumo in hand, Nana inched forward towards the brave assassin who had so boldly proclaimed that he wanted a proper training session with her.
Her hair, usually worn in a pigtail, hung wildly on all sides with large strands moving erratically with the wind in front of her eyes. As darkness had already fallen upon the Third Division’s perimeter, the unnatural red glow and warmth could be seen and felt from every inch of her dark brown hair by the bearded warrior.
Her ruby-teardrop necklace shook softly from her earlier attack, and the sheer speed behind her movement had dragged the right side of her haori from her body. As it started to slide of her shoulder, she glanced over it quickly, took a hold of it and tossed it to the ground, revealing her black, long dress and ripped stockings.
Clearly in view this time was not the scar running across her face, but the scar from her taishuu fight with the Soutaichou instead. Starting just under her right shoulder, it expanded outward in every direction and showed a clear lightning-tree form.
Closing her eyes, she disappeared from Igasho’s peripheral vision once more - just a single blade aiming towards his neck engraved in the man’s mind.
The assassin was fast - and growing faster each day - but it paled in comparison to the noble-woman’s. Each movement was untraceable, pushing the reaper to a place that most warriors could only fear. Instead of relying on training or skill, their life, facing such a god as Amaterasu Nana, was in the hands of instinct. A feeling that one can never get used to, the tiring man could only hope that his will to survive was enough to keep from harm...or even death. But that’s what he asked for.
That’s what it would take to become the leader of the Twelfth.
The grin faded from his lips as his blade was yanked from the ground. With barely enough time to defend himself, Igasho’s zanpakutou was violently caressed by the captain’s. One hand held the hilt while the other gripped the blade horizontally. The woman’s stroke pressed his own blade with such force that it’s edge glanced the skin of his neck. With a shove forward, the stalwart man only moved with Nana’s own momentum, as she was already gone from his position. Only able to assume the second blade might be following for second strike, the man turned and dove out into the opposite direction.
Rolling across the ground, the man wasted no time getting to a launching position. He knew it was a losing battle but battle’s were rarely won solely on defense. Bounding forward, the reaper sped into a senka himself, slicing his blade sideways.
While Igasho was certainly no pushover when it came to high-speed movement based attacks, as well as the execution of shunpo themselves, it was a foolish notion of him to think that he could fight her, Shunshin Amaterasu Nana, with the one discipline she had mastered beyond mastery.
Before the bearded assassin’s blade would nick the woman’s body, he could see a look of slight disappointment on the blue-eyed captain. What followed next was not the sound of Igasho’s blade slushing through Nana’s body, but the sound of Murakumo impaling the brown-eyed death god from behind instead.
Igasho’s torso leaned forward, the momentum of his swing pushing him into the direction of the attack. In that moment, though, the piercing blade came into view, jutting out from below his collarbone and, before he could realize the blood was his own, something was thrust into his back.
The object was Nana’s foot, which then gave a hefty shove and knocked the man off of her blade. The assassin fell forward, stumbling to the ground. He hit on all fours, eyes pulled to the blood that spilled from the wound and soaked into the soil. Clenching his hands and grabbing at the dirt, a single thought bore through the sharp pain.
More...
The assassin crawled forward and pulled himself to his feet. He wanted to throw a hand to cover the wound but he didn’t. He turned to face the captain, rolling his shoulder and wincing in pain. Readjusting the blade in his other hand, Igasho readied his stance again and gestured for Nana to attack again.
It was almost cute seeing the bearded assassin taunting her to attack him once again. It made her wonder if the man either had a deathwish... or was a masochist. Or maybe both. Or perhaps he was just looking to improve himself, in which case she could only applaud his willpower.
Yet, at the same time she couldn’t help but think she wasn’t exactly the best person to ‘train’ with when there was such a gap between them. She was no Sayis Inuzuri who always seemed to know what to do in any given situation, whether his opponents were weak or strong.
Likewise she wasn’t Mabara Tsubaki either, or Lilith Maikeru, both of which were great teachers in their own right.
She herself, though, was no teacher. Not by a long shot. She had no real experience teaching anyone anything, she wasn’t even sure if she would be any good as a student either. It was just not her nature.
Closing her eyes for a second she sighed deeply to herself and then shifted her attention back towards Igasho.
“Why do you fight?” she asked, her piercing blue eyes drilling a hole right into the man’s soul.
“I could have a thousand reasons...or none at all.” His voice was stern, almost as if to intentionally ignore the pain of the stab wound. “What does it matter, though?” He asked, knowing how it would instigate the Captain.
He briefly looked at the blood in his hand then back at the woman, who was ages from breaking a sweat or labored breath.
“What does it matter - if I fight with everything I am - why I fight? If I’ve lost in battle, it’s not because of my reasons...it’s my own failure. But I can’t let that happen.”
He stood straight again, grasping his blade tightly.
“That’s why I’ve come to you, Nana. Where there is true fear, when we face failure and death, there is no room for lessons or honor. That will not destroy your enemies. There is only power. You are that power, Nana...the sharpened edge of the Gotei’s blade. I am a man of my own reason and I need not follow anyone else’s heart....but I do need to grow stronger. You don’t have to teach me. That’s why I came to you: because you merely have to show me.”
“Wrong...” Nana began as she entered into a shunpo and plunged her blade into the man’s shoulder, “answer.”
Disappearing from the man’s peripheral vision before he could even react to either her assault, or the wound now appearing on his shoulder, Nana stood in front of the bearded assassin again.
“Now I’ll ask again, why do you fight?”
Igasho stumbled back from the sheer force from the speed of the attack.
Damn it, he thought, trying not to look down at the shoulder. She’s not going to relent on this...
Throwing a powerful swing upward, the assassin felt the sting from both wounds as his muscles tensed. He arched the blade upward to strike at Nana and try to gain some distance between the two.
Arching her body back slightly, she avoided the man’s attempt at... cutting her, a crude smile on her face.
“I can go about this all day, you know.” Her voice carried the sort of weight only one in her position could produce. “But, would that bring you any closer to your goal, I wonder?
“You ask me to ‘show you’, but I wonder if that will suffice. Some things cannot be taught, this much is true. But,” she paused for a moment and adjusted her stance to a more aggressive form, “that doesn’t mean ‘feeling’ or being ‘shown’ this lesson will teach it to you either. In more cases than not, you will find this to be an incorrect assessment.
“So, I’ll ask again... for who, or what do you fight? If you cannot even answer me this much, I am afraid there is nothing for me to ‘show’ you.”
The assassin struck out again, his blade coming from below his waist up toward the woman, slicing through the air with greater speed. The effort would spill more blood from his wounds, though Igasho wouldn’t notice.
“I fight,” he said through his teeth, “because there is no other way for me. I’ll not sit idly by and waste what has been given to me -”
He followed his stroke with an open palm towards Nana, black with the poison that coursed his veins.
“-What is mine to take!”
“Better,” Nana responded as she let her feet do the talking. With a graceful sidestep, one only she could execute, the Captain of the Blitzkrieg Strike Unit redirected the man’s foul attack with more ease than perhaps both of them had expected.
“Better is not yet good enough, though,” she followed up as she drew her blade on the man once more.
The mark swirled within his open palm, pushed back behind him, easily, by the captain.
“My division is in ruins,” the warrior yelled through his grit teeth, “and I will do whatever it takes to bring it back from the grave...”
Spinning on his heel, the assassin brought his blade up with his right hand, arching down from overhead and sending it toward Nana’s drawn sword.
“...so I have to fight...”
Just before the steel blades would make contact, he threw his hand out again, aiming for Nana’s arm.
“...so I can kill!”
All Igasho could feel was the wind brushing past him. All he could see was a blur of fire, a burst of incredible flames course through his very being. His hair whipped up, his arms were tingling from the sensation as Amaterasu Nana was no longer anywhere to be seen.
Though his eyes had certainly not deceived him - he had clearly seen the mark on the blunt of her arm - when he turned around and looked at the woman now behind him, he could see nothing of the depravity of the Mark of the Hunted.
“But,” Nana responded in kind as she readied her blade once more, “what if you kill, so you can fight? What happens then?”
Singed cloth burned against the man’s flesh, as he faced Nana and his eyes briefly turned to the scorched arm. Looking away from the burn, the virulent, sub-dermal storm subsided and his palm smothered the remains of fire in his sleeve.
Breath visibly moving his chest up and out, Igasho’s eyes settled comfortably on the captain and resignation resonated in his wane of energy. If it couldn’t be felt, it could have been seen in the lowered sword and the drift of his eyelids.
“What happens,” he repeated, “is balance...justice.”
The wind was hot, still swirling from Nana’s swift evasion, tossing the stray hairs that had escaped the fold behind the killer’s head. He slowly moved the sword around, guiding it back into his sheath, though he wouldn’t let it fully slide to the hilt, just in case the woman would refuse his neutrality.
“There’s a very real difference between eliminating a threat and killing for the sake of necessity. The Gotei has thrived on those willing and able to kill in battle...but it’s not enough. What would happen to us if you suddenly went rogue, Captain? How many warriors would burn at the edge of your blades before you were defeated?”
The broad shoulders of the assassin held firmly as he steadied himself, but they drooped slightly, showing his wear.
“It shouldn’t take our Captain-Commander to eliminate a threat...especially when an entire division should be equipped with soldiers who can stop it before it happens.”
“They would all meet their end at my blade, Okamii-san,” Nana responded in a heartbeat, but then tossed that conversation away. “You never did answer my question, though: what if your desire to kill, gets in your way with what’s desirable for the Gotei?
“What if you kill, so you can continue fighting, continue killing. Not for the sake of what’s good, or for the sake of justice... what happens then?
“What happens if your ideals become that which imbalances the worlds?” she said, her voice a stern, cold, but surprisingly indifferent tone, “What makes you think you won’t step into the same footsteps left behind by your predecessors?”
Predecessors.
The word instantly brought the image of Louhi’s ghostly visage to mind. Her pale and painted flesh - semblance to flesh, really - coming in and out of the darkness. The resonance of his encounter beneath the Twelfth grounds only strengthened his resolve. The deep breath, filling his straining lungs, only fumed out his flared nostrils and his chin rose slightly.
“Control. The biggest weakness within the Gotei is the lack of control...the sheer number of warriors and officers that have little to no hold on their emotions is astounding.”
Though she stood at a distance, Igasho’s soft brown eyes were unwavering, locked in with the Captain’s own.
“I am the contingency plan...the Twelfth will be the contingency plan. I will no longer allow the assassins be seen as a pack of deviant, leaderless scum. There’s only room for the unquestioning and devoted - armed with stealth and armored by their resolve.
“Should there come a time that I or the division is lost to personal desire...then we are lucky to have others who are willing to do what is necessary...like you.”
Nana moved around the man for a bit, before commenting. “So eager to talk about control,” she said, her voice surprisingly calm, despite her mild frustration with the man. “Do you not realize how much of a hypocrite you’re being right now? You talk about the very thing you’re lacking in big time, right now!
“I look at you, and what do I see...?” She let her words linger for a while. “No bark... but, no bite either. You’re like a snake, a venomous, slithering soul trying to entrance before striking...”
“And who is brave enough - foolish enough,” he said, eyes tracing the woman’s footsteps, “to get so close to a venomous...”
His head turned quickly, body remaining motionless, as he watched her move around to his other side.
“...slithering...”
Fingers moved slightly on the hilt of his still-not-fully-sheathed blade.
“...snake?”
“Humans.” Her response was curt, and she stopped dead in her tracks. She levelled her eyes on the man, and let them rest just as she crossed his gaze. Slowly, but surely, she let her massive reiatsu begin to weigh down on the man now in front of her again.
More than that, though, it burned, as the very heat emanating from her being began to scorch the earth below her.
“Now show me what you’re worth, Okamii Igasho!”
Igasho’s hand tightened on his hilt, the leather around the handle pressed firmly against his skin. He stood inside the wave of heat, skin glistening with sweat, as if he were prepared for it, paling in comparison to what blistering energy could come from the captain. The moment of tension - Nana coming so dangerously close to the assassin...her unbridled reiatsu being able to potentially crush the killers internal organs, if she chose - would come to an end in only a second.
With a heavy thrust against the sheath and a look of dissatisfied finality, the bearded man let his blade rest inside its case.
“No,” he said simply, “I’ve nothing left to show you.”
There was no proving himself to Nana - a soul of such radiant and expansive power, that it was only rivaled by the Captain-Commander himself. Neither tactic or strength could surmount her efforts, right now, and he knew it.
“I know my limitations and when they’ve been met...and I have a division to build up. I’ll only be hurting it by sending myself to the Fourth.”
He turned, slightly, eyes still fixed on the woman, “So you are right:no bark and no bite.”
“I suppose it’s a start, but...” Her voice trailed off for a bit as she gazed into the man’s eyes. “Really? That’s it? You’re just going to leave it at that, nothing else? The great Okamii Igasho? The one who so vehemently came at me with reckless abandon only moments ago?
“What did you try to accomplish here today?”
“Simply put,” he said, still unsure whether Nana would strike out again, “I need to face defeat to know my limitations. I told you I need to grow stronger.” The wounded officer let a hand cover the still-bleeding gash in his chest, looking down briefly. “I’m only hoping you won’t kill me where I stand...because I meant what I said: I intend to bring my division back to life, no matter the cost.
“But I know pushing myself any further onto your blade is useless...so yes, that’s it. I have nothing else to throw at you. You are faster, stronger and will likely stay one step ahead of me, tactically. I can’t forsake my division to foolishly bleed out at an ally’s feet.”
Igasho focused a portion of energy into his hands. The strain of keeping Lilith alive within Dunan had granted him the ability to recreate the act, channeling his own reiatsu into mending wounds. It certainly wasn’t chiyudou, but it was helpful at times like this.
“I need to stand before you,” he continued, “and the other captains, one day, to prove myself worthy of a haori.”
“Then leave now,” she said in a commanding tone of voice, her eyes drilling a hole into Igasho’s very soul - if there was ever such an ability. “Leave, collect your bearings and come back - standing here right in front of me - when you are ready again.
“Tomorrow. No excuses, if you have not found yourself ready by then, I will end your life right there and then. If you have, pray to god you’d better be ready, because I will torment you until you wish you weren’t ready in the first place.
“I will make a force to be reckoned with yet, and not...”
She waved her arms in an odd attempt at showing the world how pathetic the assassin looked right now.
“Whatever the hell it is you were trying to do today. You came here today with a single purpose, a single mindset, but it was the wrong one. You came here today to lose and that, my friend, is why you failed.”
Tomorrow...
The thought came with a small sense of panic...defeat and failure were nothing new to the stoic but the Captain’s command came down more heavily than the judgement from the Central Forty-Six.
Tomorrow.
The word echoed in his mind, unable to sink in, immediately. She was right, though, saying that he had come to lose. His entire mindset was all wrong - he had come to lose and try to grow from it and that could have been a fatal mistake. He almost felt foolish, embarrassed, for having represented the Assassins and yet his conviction was not that of total, conclusive victory.
For all he had said and felt about doing whatever it would take, it meant nothing without his full intention to win. Another shaking thought entered his mind, though, just before he turned to leave: He hadn’t, once, heard the voice of his zanpakutou that day.
Igasho’s mouth had opened slightly, ready to speak, but the look in his eyes made it clear that there was an unfamiliar, troubling realization coming to mind, public for Nana to see.
“I have no superiors in the Twelfth,” he said with a softer, defeated voice. “I will need a Captain’s permission to release my zanpakutou...”
“I thought I made myself perfectly clear Okamii-san,” Nana said with an unapologetic look on her face. “You will leave, collect your bearings and meet me back here tomorrow. I want you to answer me then, and if I find it to be a sufficient enough reason...
“Then, and only then, will I be up to discussing anything. Now hurry along, get out my sight. We’re done.”
Though she thought she would be feel more remorse for the man, there was surprisingly little for her not to justify at this point regarding his behaviour. If he was really as ambitious as she always took him for, he would pull through...
Probably.
He nodded in accord with her request. Moving his hand away from one of the several open wounds, the well-framed man bowed and then straightened his posture. Saying nothing else, he turned nd walked away from the woman.
“Until tomorrow.”
Nana too, in turn, nodded softly in his direction just before he left and crossed her arms. Sighing, she wondered if she was doing the right thing by taking him in as a protege of sorts. Sure, after Yoshinaga Gorou and Kagetoki Manzou had left, she had been left with a lingering feeling...
She wondered if this was the best way to remedy that, though.
Closing her eyes, she shook her head softly and disappeared from sight.