[7th/10th/2nd]: Week ---: No preference

[Bish]

Satoru glanced at Eiji for a brief moment as the clouds began to shift and swirl in his eyes. He believed that Eiji's words had merit, but he also knew that there were some questions in life simply could not go unanswered.

He refocused his attention back on Kazu and repeated, "If someone had not the ability to help you directly, but the will... they would do all in their power to get you to someone with the ability to help?

"You're right about that," he eventually said with a sigh, not enjoying the feeling of having to admit that he was wrong. "That person would do their best to bring someone who had the ability."

The Mystic put his glove back on, pausing the conversation for a brief moment. When he spoke again, it was with purpose.

"I need both. I want a teacher who has both the ability and the will to teach," he said, taking a deep breath before asking, "Do you have what I'm looking for?"

 

[K3]

Kazu went silent, and this time it seemed to be for good. A bird perched on his knee, his leg pulled back to point the joint into the air.

A deep, resigned sigh came from him. Then, "If you cannot be dissuaded, it is my duty to help you understand the gravity of what I am going to teach you."

The bird flew away, and the man finally turned fully to the pair. Beneath the patched and mussed up haori, an equally scruffy haori was worn. The sleeves were torn off, making it impossible to discern what division he may have called his own.

His eyes were invisible to the pair. Instead, a thick visor of solid steel was worn across the front of his face like a mask. Two sets of three lines ran diagonally towards his nose across it, denoting where his eyes were underneath the mask. His blue hair obscured his ears, and where the visor might've ended.

A strange, dull blue coloration, it almost looked like a wig at first glance. It ran down to his shoulders, tucked lightly into his haori. Then, Kazu drew himself to his full height.

Standing a good couple inches over Eiji, he looked straight ahead, seemingly unaware of the location of the two. Then, he breathed deep.

"Shunko, it was called. The Flash Cry. So named for the sound it made when used." He explained, putting name to the hypothetical that Satoru and Eiji had asked him for. "It is power. Raw, and untamed. Terrible, and overwhelming to those unprepared for it."

His smile slipped away for the first time, and Kazu's head inclined in the direction of first Satoru, then Eiji. The shinigami's gaze remained locked on the assassin.

"Are you absolutely certain you want this?"

Both opened their mouths, prepared for an immediate answer, and Kazu's voice raised - as though he had sensed the intention - with a previously unknown intensity. "If you say so, I cannot undo what I bring upon you. Think first, Inquisitive and assassin. You may only answer once."

[ 346 / 792 ]

 

[bankzu]

It was not a matter he had to think of. The assassin sought power and an ability to be able to act, he had realized as much about himself already. He knew that it would not be easy to get it and even harder to master it. But he wanted it. He wanted to ability to act, the ability to change things. He wanted to be capable. He stared right back into Kazu’s eyes. The only answer he could think of was-

“Yes.”

[83/1270]

 

[Bish]

The Inquisitive watched Kazu's demeanor suddenly shift from an eye of the storm to the controlled swirl of a tropical storm. The change in his aura was almost tangible, an unspoken warning that saturated the very air their breathed.

Nonetheless, he was not deterred.

Shunko: the highest merging of kidou and hakuda. Satoru knew that if he could master this ability, he would never again have cause to doubt his potential as a shinigami. It was time that he proved to himself and to the world that his desire for understanding was never to be underestimated.

He nodded at Kazu before responding with a simple, "I am certain."

 

[K3]

Nodding once, and sighing explosively, Kazu scratched at the deep blue scruff at his chin. "Very well."

He sat once more, and held a hand forward, fingers splayed. His tone was rehearsed, carefully managed, as though recalling details from some text. "When a shinigami performs kidou, they are shaping and empowering it with their intent, but reiryoku is fickle, and dangerous. A way was needed to tame it, to control it. To that end, we created incantations to associate with these forms."

As he spoke, energy rose from Kazu. His haori ruffled and billowed with the latent reiryoku. Bubbling to the surface, it flashed into a thin aura about his extended hand. Power danced between his fingertips like streaks of light, and he named it. "Kyuuzou Maou, the Devil's Surge."

For an instant, a grim look crossed Kazu's jovial features. Then, before it could be fully comprehended, he was launching into the remainder of his history lesson. "Shunko runs contrary to every instant of this. It is raw power, loosed and untamed. You do not control it so much as you steer it. To this end, it was fused with the disciplines of Hakuda."

His gaze swiveled slightly towards Eiji. "Why do you think that is?"

[ 206 / 998 ]

 

[bankzu]

The surge of spiritual power amazed the assassin. There was an overload of spiritual energy covering Kazu, as the scarred reaper tried to apprehend what was happening in front of him. There was something special about the spiritual power around him. He spoke of it being uncontrolled, yet he had created a thin cover of reiatsu over his hand, extending to the rest of his body. It did not make more sense to Eiji than kidou did.

He took a few steps back, somewhat frightened by the power that was showed to him. It was just like the shinigami said, raw and uncontrolled. And yet it seemed as if he had control of it somewhat. This was the part that frightened the scarred reaper.

“I don’t know.” His eyes were still on the fingertips of the shinigami, where he had first seen the ability spawn, where it had almost blinded him.

He spoke the truth though. He could not connect it to hand-to-hand combat in any way, at least not at the moment. He knew way too little about the ability that Shunko was, to give an answer to Kazu.

[190/1460]

 

[Bish]

Satoru's greatest strength as a shinigami came from his innate understanding of reiatsu manipulation. It was how he managed to learn the techniques that were so closely associated with the Mystics of the Divine and his skill in such matters was enough to draw the attention of even Captains.

Despite this, the afrogami found himself utterly amazed at the level of raw power that the man was keeping contained in that instant. His hand had been covered in enough power to match some the highest level of Kidou without so much as an incantation. Such mastery of reiatsu required intense mental concentration that could only be found in a select few shinigami. Knowing that fact made it very easy for him to find the answer to Kazu's question.

"What you just did, controlling raw kidou energy like that, requires a lot of discipline and self-mastery," Satoru stated.

The tone of his voice lilted curiously upwards as he went on to suggest, "Doesn't Hakuda, at its core, require and encourage a high degree of self-control as well as discipline in both body and mind? The traits required to master the use of one's body would be the only thing that could help one steer raw power like that. That's my guess."

 

[K3]

Kazu hummed thoughtfully, and nodded once. "Something like that."

The energy in his hands crackled and roiled, Kyuuzou Maou demanding to be unleashed. Yet Kazu seemed strangely at ease with the raw power contained in his hand.

Nodding once more, he continued. "Hakuda is, at its core, an art dedicated to honing one's body into a weapon equal to any zanpakuto. It is a dangerous, and carefully maintained school of abilities. It demands you be aware of yourself, your opponent, and everything in-between, at all times."

Nodding to Satoru this time, he asked another question. "I said that Shunko could not be contained. That is something of both a falsity, and a fact. It cannot be directly restrained, but there are ways to postpone its unleashing. What do you think I am doing?"

[ 133 / 1131 ]

 

[Bish]

Satoru stroked his non-existent beard, tuning out the meaningless droning of his environment to come up with an answer. The chirping that was around them faded along with the rushing of winds that coursed through the grove. All that mattered to Satoru was the object of his focus. He concentrated on the man's spiritual energy, putting the months of training in reiatsu manipulation to use. The Inquisitive closed his eyes for a few moments and reached out for the old man with his spiritual senses. His own reiatsu quieted itself, lending itself to his search.

Kazu's display of Shunko was different from anything he'd ever encountered. Most Kidou had form and purpose, but this was different. Instead, he could feel the arcane power surging within and on the surface of the veteran's body. Shunko wasn't bound or cooped up...

It was alive.

Suddenly, his eyes began to flutter. The spark of understanding drove his thoughts, guiding the words as they left his lips.

"Most kidou is achieved by binding your spiritual energy into a preset form in order to control it. But you aren't doing that," he stated before continuing. "If shunko is kidou energy when it isn't bound to a set spell, then you would have nothing to contain it within. No, you've got to be circulating it around your body: shifting it constantly and without ceasing."

Satoru's eyes opened, showing the booming curiosity that was beginning to firmly take hold as he concluded his analysis.

"This begs the question of how? It's unlike anything that they teach in the Academy about controlling reiryoku. I can't imagine what mental process one would have to go through in order to constantly control something like that! I think it's also worth asking what happens if the circulation of energy is broken prematurely."