No Reply from the Wind [Kizuna, Safira]

Kizuna wasn't staying in the water any longer than necessary, and she'd had the time to move courtesy of the sheer onslaught of cero she'd thrown out. Now, though, she didn't have any choice but to give everything her best, and the attack Safira had thrown wasn't going to give her a ton of opportunity to get far. Even joking around was just a waste of energy now. Holding out each hand, a Cero Oscuras forming in each, the ring of her Resurreccion quickly shot in front of her, widening to its biggest possible size.

"Break Buster!"

Her pylons continued to assault Safira from every angle, keeping mobile enough to not be stationary targets as each one unleashed a Spark Array to shower the serpent Arrancar in untold attacks. But that was wholly secondary, as Kizuna crashed the two forming cero together, the spheres of energy screaming out and releasing a massive shockwave as they coalesced. The energy within both needed to go somewhere, and where it went was directly toward Safira and her tremendous attack.

But toward Safira also meant that it went through the ring of her resurreccion, and the mutated Oscuras grew exponentially more powerful as it was forced to evolve, to grow. By the time it was finished, the beam was nothing short of catastrophic, an attack Kizuna doubted many Arrancar alive could match without giving it their all. She was certainly always glad to show it off.

Clever but it would take more than that to overwhelm her senses. The sensitive nature of her pesquisa made it easy to discern the reality of the situation unfolding before her where Kizuna was trying to keep her distracted with the pylons but the real prey was down below.

She beckoned her zanpakuto to come, shooting like a golden arrow through the sky like a missile as it sought out its mistress. Safira hated to use the full extent of her hollow powers but she would at least keep it on standby, if she had to bring out her resurreccion then this would no longer be a friendly spar but a snake devouring its victim in a drive of singleminded instinct.

How unsightly that would be.

So she dragged out from her wellspring of spiritual power, gathering it into her palm and coating it up her arm. It was every bit a fusion of her hierro, her cero, and her hollow powers. The amount of her power could easily decimate a small town but it had only one job to do right now which was to allow her to dash through the beam and cut it in half.

Stopping just shy of the ring to have her own zanpakuto detour around the ring to try and coil around Kizuna in a surprise attack.

Cleaving such a tremendous cero in two like that, eh? Well, Kizuna wasn't that surprised. The gulf between the two of them wasn't one she expected to overcome in a single bout, even with all the hard work and guts in the world. Most people probably would have been fine just taking what she got already, scorching off the hierro of someone like Safira was no small feat.

But Kizuna was never satisfied with accomplishing enough. She was always reaching just a little bit further, and as Safira approached her from the front, the zanpakuto coiling around behind, Kizuna simply crossed both arms in front of her, bracing for one hell of an impact.


While the six pylons above each unleashed a Gran Rey Cero downward, it wasn't half as impressive as Kizuna's own offensive. From every possible point on her body, a cero rocketed outward, unconcerned with accuracy or targeting. It was simply a mass defense.

So she would continue to resist? It was cute how inferior creatures seemed to always give it their all. Somehow people truly believed that they could overcome fate if they tried hard enough and maybe that did work for some but Safira had no intention of letting Kizuna have her way. Some hourglasses might be flipped but as sure as the sand fell so too would this woman remember her place amongst them.

"Second Advent."

She gathered her spiritual power to create a Gran Rey Cero of her own, given the fact that all of Kizuna's pylons were aiming at her then it didn't require her to bother launching at six different beams. They would all converge on a single location which made it easy to spin around to shroud herself in an extra layer of defence for the sake of enduring the bothersome attack.

The real threat still remained though and it would be resolved. She hadn't forgotten about the scantily clad mouse in the clutches of her coils.

"Vile Lance..."

Gathering her own spiritual power above each of her fingers to form a cero on each, she launched them towards the woman. Far more dense and compacted than an omnidirectional defence and so the bound Kizuna would be met with five of her dense spears of reishi.

"Crucifixition."

All five being designed to penetrate her body and force her body to painfully twist and contort until she was speared through at five points, her limbs and her chest with the corrosive energy burning at her body.

Coughing at the sheer force of the impacts, Kizuna couldn't help but grin even now, despite the wounds she'd taken. It hardly mattered to her, she'd been hit plenty of times in the past and it'd keep happening for the rest of her life. She didn't need her body to do much, anyway. Her pylons were already in position from last time, and she allowed herself a small smirk as she spoke quietly, more to herself than her opponent.

"Mega Break Cannon."

All six pylons unleashed their final attack, a sixfold Gran Rey Cero that quickly combined into a singular attack of far greater power. The only unfortunate part was that she couldn't put her ring in front of it too, not without making the attack that much more obvious. Either way, though, she'd go out shooting. That was just how she was, as the massive cero shot toward both Safira and herself.

Good way to end things, she thought.

"Nice try."

She sneered at the bound and impaled Kizuna who had thrown her final gambit. If she thought that ring would protect her then she was wrong, yanking on the zanpakuto and vile spears impaled in her body to drag the roped up arrancar through her own ring of empowerment towards her.

Safira couldn't make a meat shield without her meat right? So the bikini clad warrior was drawn towards her and grabbed to be held up towards the oncoming mega break cannon to take the brunt of her damage. By using Kizuna's own ring she expected to get some benefit for not having her shield die on impact. It would be such a waste of Kizuna to have her die just like that.

Kizuna felt herself pulled toward her own ring, Safira's pull the sort of thing that she wouldn't have expected in this match. Her grin of acceptance seemed to widen in an almost manic way as the sheer rush of energy coursed through her, her eyes shooting open and looking as though she'd been filled to the brim with pure adrenaline. It was manic, wild, and unrestrained, Kizuna in a way she rarely ever displayed.

And with a flex of that power, the ring having naturally unleashed an intense degree of energy into both herself and the spears piercing her, Kizuna destroyed her bindings with a flex, energy already rapidly leaking from her. It was temporary, and even someone with the lowest possible spiritual energy could have told how quickly she was leaking what had just been put into her.

That just meant she needed to act fast.

"Strange Cross!"

As her own cero barrelled toward her, Kizuna shot her hands forward, a cero blowing out of her fist and splitting the beam for only the briefest of moments. It was everything she had, but it was enough to keep the attack from impacting herself. Whether or not it even hit Safira didn't matter much to her, and she simply began to fall down once more, the manic thoughts filling her mind coalescing into a single thought.

Surprised, you overgrown snake?

"Hmmph."

She smirked at the attempt to turn the tables but if the mutt thought she was going to get away with this little trickery then she was sorely mistaken. Well, at the very least she would have some reprisal for her actions given their positions providing Safira the ample opportunity to strike the woman from behind.

Wasting her power boost on splitting the beam and leaving herself open from the back? Tssk-hisssk Kizuna. Safira's hand would strike through the woman's back, using the woman's hollow hole to make it have less resistance puncturing the woman's chest and sticking the bloodied hand out of the woman's chest. The centre of her quarry's bikini top in her closed hand which yanked its way back out of the flesh to pull the top through it in the process.

At least her hierro was still dense enough to take the brunt of the beams. The last shreds of modesty dissolving away as the last hierro layer was more comparable to leftover fragments than a proper armour.

"My my Kizuna. You are always so troublesome."

The handicap of being unwilling to use her resurreccion certainly gave her opponent an edge to wittle down her layers to scraps. Then again she hadn't given this bout much thought, Safira didn't optimise her moves for something as simple as a spar.