Seaside Fight Night: Elyss vs. Shaoling

Not bad at all, but being sent flying was hardly much of a detriment to someone like Shaoling. She smirked to herself as she simply came to a stop in the air above, the wind of her shunko making it effortless even without the flight that any half-decent shinigami was capable of.

"You were supposed to be quite the terror when I was still in Soul Society. Word got around quite a bit, but is this all they were worried about? The Gotei are even worse off than I'd imagined."

From her spot still in the air, Shaoling all at once swung her leg in a scything motion downward, a blade of wind shearing toward Elyss at speeds well beyond what the typical shinigami would have been able to even register, let alone avoid. Of course, if this was a captain she was dealing with, Shaoling hoped Elyss might at least be able to sidestep it.

The cocky smirk on Shaoling's face stayed squarely where it was for now, looking down at Elyss with an undeniable air of superiority. A scolding, from someone like this? Please. Shaoling had moved well beyond worrying about her pride being defined by others, and least of all by someone from this new era of the Gotei.

"Look at you, keeping up with glancing blows. Since you're so confident, I suppose I ought to properly see how good this new Gotei is."

Shaoling cracked her neck, and then all at once stepped back down to the ground with a single, blindingly fast flash step. Even as she'd stepped, however, the wind of her ever-present shunko had already begun rotating at extreme speeds, a vacuum left in her wake that immediately created a shearing wind that pulled everything toward her landing point.

62 Fushiki: Hibi.

At the instant she landed on the ground, her whole arm moved, muscle tensing as she replicated the motions of the Ikkotsu. However, this was far more than that. Her shunko's intensity grew tremendously as the energy she focused into this blow was brought to bear, and as her fist struck out, the wind of her shunko created a cutting impact before her fist even did. The blow itself was a full-force Ikkotsu, one which could surely have destroyed most opponents to their very being. And behind it was another impact of equal intensity, her shunko's wind replicating it for a third blow in the span of a single instantaneous punch.

111 Fushiki: Sandoku.

"Oh, releasing? Well, I wouldn't want to seem like I'm falling behind."

Without so much as a word, Shaoling drew her zanpakuto from the small of her back, and the blade immediately shifted into its shikai effortlessly, the gauntlet covering her right hand and the stinger-like blade extending from a single finger. She knew perfectly well that killing blows were strictly forbidden in this bout, but that wasn't even a limitation for her. She was more than skilled enough to simply never strike the same location twice.

"Not a bad defense. Is that all you're capable of? I suppose that sort of passivity is exactly what I'd expect from a captain in this current Gotei."

Shaoling simply pointed her hand toward Elyss, speaking confidently and with an amused lilt.

"Hadō 33: Soukatsui."

All at once, the blue inferno of energy burst out of her hand, exploding toward her opponent. Shaoling didn't actually expect that a simple Soukatsui would take this woman out, but it was also such a basic spell at her level that she was still perfectly capable of keeping mobile. She just wanted to see if Elyss would actually start attacking.

She was fast, but Shaoling wasn't afraid of speed. As Elyss approached, ready to strike, Shaoling used that unrestrained momentum to her own advantage, a flash step moving her past Elyss as she replicated the principles of Senka. This, however, wasn't mere Senka, and she came out of that step with her leg already raised for a crushing axe kick aimed for Elyss' back.

17 Oushiki: Kari.

As her foot scythed downward, however, it wasn't simply her heel aiming for Elyss' flesh. The wind of her shunko had formed a shearing blade for this strike, and it was intent on doing a single thing--cutting a straight line down and striking the saketsu and the hakusui in a single fluid motion.

Even at Shaoling's level, this wasn't a technique she considered flawless. It still required refinement, but this wasn't an opponent she imagined was remotely skilled enough in principles of hoho or hakuda to understand it. And that was to say nothing of the natural increase in her own capabilities simply from releasing shikai. She hadn't done so in quite a while, so in a way, it was almost refreshing.

Almost.

Shaoling was fast, and she was skilled in Hakuda, but she wasn't so fast that she could effortlessly respond to her ankle being grabbed like that. The moment she felt Elyss' fingers enter into the vortex of her shunko, Shaoling knew that her ankle was about to be crushed. She could do little other than accept that fact, and she braced for the pain of such a bone-shattering injury to accept it with little more than gritted teeth and a wince. She could have said something about the woman's form, but this had become a serious battle now. The time for comments was over.

As she fell toward the ground with Elyss, Shaoling intensified the rotation of her shunko around her leg, fully intent on destroying the hand gripping her leg, and the winds became so shearing that even Shaoling's own flesh wasn't protected from the volatility of them. At the same time, the woman bent to strike with a slicing motion, the same hand that wore her shikai moving down to cut through Elyss' wrist with two fingers surrounded by a cutting gale.

331 Zushiki: Nokogiri.

She didn't necessarily expect that Elyss would maintain her hold for long. After all, her ankle had already been shattered. Releasing it would presumably be the logical course of action, unless the captain intended to grapple her even with her shunko in place. That was something Shaoling was certainly prepared for, but she didn't consider it an impossible situation if it happened.