ARE YOU OKAY? [Makoto, Shishiyuki]

"Right."

Just because she acknowledged how much a weight it was, it didn't mean that a part of Makoto would happily accept all that weight to have her humanity just worked away until she lost her sense of morality. A machine that just hated people and lost its sense of remorse for killing them.

She was mostly silent as she followed, Shishiyuki didn't seem like the type for smalltalk and it wasn't until they arrived in the living realm that she took it in. What a foreign environment for her to be in, being on guard and tense was her approach. Just don't let her guard down.

"Of course... Do you do this frequently?"

"Not frequently, no. I would rather not allow my most violent tendencies any more purchase than is absolutely necessary for the sake of my own mental health. I travel here on the rare occasion that I feel it necessary to put new developments in my technique to practice, in such a manner that would not be feasible among my family training partners or the Gotei."

Naturally, much that Shishiyuki knew was shrouded in the general lack of knowledge anyone might have had about the Koizumi. It was something of a blessing, to have been the least remarkable of the Great Noble Families; few had ever thought to try and glean much information about them. Beginning the trek onward, Shishiyuki kept her eyes thoroughly open, and her reikaku exceptionally focused outward. It was quite unlikely that anyone she might meet in this place would be even remotely friendly, and so there was no reason to prepare for a less hostile meeting.

"Do stay aware. There are many in this part of the world who are quite adept in ambushing and the like."

"I see."

She did do it though. Makoto's mind didn't gloss over that little snippet of information. Why did she come here? Was it because the Rukongai was more secure than it used to be? In the past there was very little security in it's neglect or even survelliance and Shishiyuki did seem to always be hiding something. Whether it was her violent nature, her appearance or her exceptional skills. What was another skeleton in the closet to this woman?

"I will try not to fail your expectations, I am however more comfortable with a sword than my bare hands so please bear with me, Lady Shishiyuki."

How stressful, how confusing, how exciting. All feelings that were blowing around inside her head.

"Rest assured, you will not fail my expectations. If there are any who accost us, I will handle the matter. I have not brought you here to stain your hands with blood, Makoto."

Whether or not Makoto would have enjoyed such staining was not the matter that Shishiyuki wished to address. Of course, Shishiyuki knew that she would have, but she had already acknowledged the importance of being able to engage in this violence without feeding into that violent desire. It was something she had spent many centuries on, and it was wisdom that she would pass to a student.

Ah--well, it did not surprise Shishiyuki terribly that she could already sense someone, off in the distance. Removing her hairband, she briefly shook her head, loosening up her hair as she held out the band toward Makoto. Her eyes, however, never left the direction from which she sensed the impending threat. They did not seem particularly dangerous, at least not to herself. They may have been a bit much for Makoto, however.

"Hold this for me, if you would."

Taking a centering breath, Shishiyuki focused on her training, allowing her energy to flow through her body at a more genuine pace. She did, after all, keep her energy quite restricted at all times within the Soul Society. She did not wish others to know the degree of a threat she posed, and as she did so, the cosmetic kido she maintained, another method of obscuring the scope of her energy, dissipated completely. She, despite undergoing nothing that could be called a genuine shift, seemed a radically different woman now.

"I understand, I will just observe you today."

She bit her lip at that but sincerely took the headband of her teacher and held it safely. Something like that was what she was more than capable of, her teacher was guaranteed to get it back in the same condition that she had given it to her. Makoto was good and diligent like that.

It annoyed her a little bit, why did she hide all that? There was no reason for her to hide her power, right? Makoto always thought there was no reason to hide anything about yourself unless there was a reason. Her horrible misanthropy was one such example, but her talent and skills or power? That was completely different.

"Are you going to wait or engage of your own volition?"

Taking up what was a fairly neutral stance, all things considered, Shishiyuki's gaze did not falter in the slightest as she continued looking out for whatever danger was coming toward them. Ichibyou Senkuka was an art built upon versatility, and as such its stance was one which could rapidly adapt. Of course, she would not be utilizing any of its more advanced techniques; that was a level of trust she could not yet place into Makoto.

"They will come to us, rest assured. The scavengers in these lands will not let potential prey go unaddressed."

No sooner had Shishiyuki spoken those words than she gained proper sight of the vagabond coming toward them. Dressed all in leather from head to toe, and with chains wrapped quite firmly around his hands as if some sort of mockery of bandages. How amusing. He was fast, impressively so, in fact, and Shishiyuki realized she would likely need to step if she were to keep him a reasonable distance from Makoto. Very well.

"Follow what you are able to follow, but do not pay such attention to the minutiae that you miss the overall flow of the techniques."

And then she was off, a single flash step carrying her toward this interloper as her fist met his own with an impressive impact. Oh, he would certainly put up a bit of a fight, wouldn't he? Very good. She opened with an unremarkable Tesshou, which would most certainly have been enough to decimate the whole torso of an average man with little effort. However, this was no average man that Shishiyuki faced, and he met the blow with a knee that carried quite a good deal of power.

Shishiyuki would have praised him, if the situation were not one of life and death. Instead, she simply used the leverage of both her hands still in contact with his body to grip and utilize a Chihaya Raitonsui, her own knee flying into his midsection with a resounding crack. A good start for her. She normally would have avoided any usage of Ichibyou Senkuka, but such a technique was rather basic, and more pressingly, she had already used it on Makoto, regardless. There was little harm in it being seen by her own pupil.

Was she holding back? Makoto's eyes recognised the techniques being used but after everything she had gauged it stood to reason that her teacher was not honest. Did that bother her? Yes. A lot more than she liked the fact that it did, she was a person that normally didn't care if her superiors kept secrets. Abalia was free to do as much as she pleased but from Shishiyuki it frustrated her.

Her eyes were fixed on the fight and the technique, trying to imagine and visualise the flow of energy going through her body while gently fingering the headband in thought. She abstained from speaking, trying to give her full focus to Shishiyuki except the smallest amount of attention that she had to dedicate to her surroundings.

It would be shameful if her teacher saw her be snuck up on because she was lax. What a pathetic way to die that would be.

In the brief pause afforded by the sheer impact of her knee against this vagabond's solar plexus, Shishiyuki removed both of her hands and recentered herself, though it was only for the briefest of moments. She was not one to allow her opponent any sort of respite, and her blow was quite swiftly followed by a single swift punch to the exact point that she had targeted with her Chihaya Raitonsui. It was a basic principle of combat to attack a consistent weakened point, as that would wear down an opponent the quickest, and she suspected this would be no different.

Indeed, his best efforts at a counterattack were already rather tremendously worse than his intitial blows; it seemed he was not one who was used to being injured in the heat of battle. Just as well, she supposed. The man's arm swung toward Shishiyuki with such force that most likely would have been unable to see it coming, but the energy coursing through his body, and the shifting of his stance, had told her all that she needed to know. There were countless manners in which she could react to this, but she supposed there was no harm in showing Makoto the full scope of another technique already used upon her that first day they met.

The man's fist was met with a Tokikaze Kantsuukon, her fingertips striking each of the key knuckles in his hand. However, she did not hold back as she had with Makoto. As Shishiyuki's hand met her opponent's, the blow's energy coursed through the whole of his arm, shattering every bone it met to the shoulder. It was a degree of injury that likely could not be repaired through any mundane means--every bone had, for all intents and purposes, been turned to near dust.

Realistically, there was no feasible way that he could have continued to face her at this stage. Shishiyuki, however, was not one who cared much for such things. She had little that particularly needed affirmation at the moment, no developments that she felt ought be confirmed in their practicality. So, instead, she simply chose to demonstrate to Makoto another hakuda technique they most certainly did not teach in the Shin'o standard curriculum.

Seeing as her foe was relatively incapacitated in the shock of his arm having been all but ruined, Shishiyuki had more than ample time to bring her leg up in a speeding kick to the shoulder, the full strength of her leg focused entirely into the back of her foot. However, alongside this came an extreme rotation of spiritual energy through the back of her foot, as there was much of it to move through one's leg. When the actual impact came, the energy's velocity proved so extreme that it brought her victim's energy into its rotation, ripping the flesh as if it had come into contact with a saw in mere moments. The Houtou was a vicious technique, and by the time her leg had been lowered, there was nothing left at the shoulder but bone.

How gruesome, how satisfying Makoto hated how much she enjoyed the way she got to watch the man's arm collapse. It didn't take much to guess what had happened by the way she remembered the force crawling up her arm from the way she received the same technique. It really made her sickly happy to watch.

Even more so did they get exaggerated when she saw the new technique, it was hard to understand. All of Shishiyuki's techniques seemed incredibly esoteric. Makoto did like the second technique, one part of her wanted to see the opponent begging for mercy and getting torn to shreds by their own body. The other part of her was sickened by the way she enjoyed the scene like a spectator at a sporting event.

Hands came up to fold under her chest while she continued to analyse. Trying to keep up with the scene as it came and went. It was so quick that she had to use every ounce of focus to follow when it was split between her own spatial awareness and the fight.

While there was a tremendous portion of Shishiyuki's mind which fully wished to drag this out, she knew consciously that it would have been quite detrimental to do so. Instead, she decided that this would likely have been best ended quickly. She delivered a second kicking technique, the Houkyou, a sweep across both kneecaps with energy coursing outward from the tip of her foot. Its effect was not dissimilar to the Houtou, with the energy ripping the foe's out of their own body, but this time its effect was intended to split the kneecaps cleanly in a single stroke.

As her foe collapsed, Shishiyuki took a moment to center herself, then focused on her own palm, unconcerned with any sounds of agony on her victim's end. Such a thing was inconsequential now. Instead, she merely struck out with her palm once more, opting to demonstrate to Makoto another technique that had, before now, been only relayed to her through discussion. Shishiyuki's palm struck the man beneath her, and her energy's flow ceased, then shifted, altering his own flow in much the same way. Were he stronger, he might have survived the Jitteika; but, alas, he was not remotely comparable to her. The shock was enough to simply slay him, and she turned away from the body with little interest. The act was finished, and she did not associate with corpses. One flash step, and she returned to Makoto, any thought of the blood which coated her seemingly a non-issue.

"I hope this has proven educational for you."