The Lioness and The Serpent[Amaranta, Safira]

There was indeed little opportunity in shifting her body in favor of a counterattack. The overhead swing was deftly avoided and countered within the space of a single serpentine movement. In the next moment, Amaranta found body swept away by the force of her attack, lifting an eyebrow in amusement. It was an expression reminiscent of a child who had stepped across something that unerringly held their attention in thrall.

"Oho. Oh wow. Guess you aren't just a pretty face with a haughty personality, after all. Alright, prove it then. Make it a reality!"

Airborne, the leonine woman's booming voice was accompanied by a cleave of her zanpakuto through the air, using the friction gained from the momentum of the swing to loose a crescent slash of fire at the woman from above.

Another dodge but this time she was bathed in fire. Unfortunately for Amaranta, the snake lady's hierro was at play and she had no need to really pressure the advantage for offensive purposes. For now she would play and taunt the weaker woman, she would ensure that Amaranta understood the gulf of power between them and so in retaliation to her outer layer being set aflame Safira twisted in the air bend.

It was ugly the way that her body twisted in an almost impossible way, a disgusting display of inhuman proficiency but combined with sonido to get behind her foe it was to be bondage. Her thighs wrapping around Amaranta's neck while her upper body sailed down, her hands trying to grab at the woman's ankles and hold her still.

"Why must you make me exert myself?"

She groaned with her thighs pressuring Amaranta's neck and head like a snake trying to squeeze the life out of its prey.

Amaranta acknowledged that layer of energy shielding Safira from her flames, eliciting an excited gaze as she held her claymore in preparation. It appeared that there were was some force resisting her fire. A quick deduction told her that this was hierro, but it was certainly unlike anything she had ever chanced across. An outer layer of hierro that allowed little in terms of offensive access.

What a pain. An exciting pain, surely, but a pain nevertheless. Whatever force she was protected behind, Amaranta would simply have to burn it away. Of course, she felt nothing short of awe in the next moment, a wide grin curving her lips as she witnessed that serpentine woman contorting her body through midair in an inhuman fashion.

In the blink of an eye, Safira's thighs were tightly wound around her head as she felt her body rolling onto the ground in a struggle that found the woman trying to pull at her ankles as she attempted to squeeze the air out of oxygen out of her throat. Whoa... she was more amusing than she thought. Even so, there was only so much time she could afford admiring her approach to battle, offering her resistance in the form of attempting to wrap her own legs around one of those arms as she grinned up at the lady, speaking - albeit somewhat strained considering her position - words of approval.

"Because it's fun. That's why. You have all this talent as a combatant. Why not let loose every now and then, eh?! Hehehe... shit, if I knew I could get this close and personal, I-I would have started shit earlier."

Why not let loose? This woman was so boorish, she could only perceive the immediate situation but Safira's pleasures were not ones that could be gotten from cheap thrills such as this. It was the cultivation of something, growing it until the fruit bloomed and once it became ripe she wanted to harvest it. All of her kind were just so short-sighted and uncouth.

She snickered at Amaranta's attempts to trap her. Very clever, very stupid. Being close and entangled with her prey like this was exactly what she wanted. No dodging, no moving, it was just writhing in this trap of her's. Safira didn't even have to contend with the fabrics, Kariya's antics were oh so helpful she mused while leaning in to bite Amaranta's thigh. A cero forming at her mouth to sear, her jaw tight to try to puncture the hierro, and get into the flesh so that her poison saliva could start seeping in and getting to work.

Time to see how far this little oaf's stubborness went before she collapsed.

Amaranta was arguably on cloud nine right now. Cheap thrill or not, she wouldn't serve anyone or anything that didn't excite her spirits. Safira proved quite exciting, and so there was no complaints to be offered, no disdain to express. Even under the duress of two thighs reinforced with deceptively adept strength, her grin didn't lessen in the slightest.

Of course, Amaranta was far from content to remain stationary in this position, enticing as it was to wrestle with another woman in such a barbaric fashion. Offering a greater expenditure of her physical strength, the leonine woman rolled her body around through the golden sands of the beach, wildly flexing her muscles about to offer resistance and force this woman's body off of her head.

Mindful of those teeth trying to earn purchase against her flesh accompanied by a cero, no less, she flashed a shit-eating grin in response. There was clearly a purpose in this act; this woman hardly strikes her as the type to simply sink her fangs into the skin of someone else. She was a relative stranger, sure, but this woman just oozed a haughty disposition that couldn't be ignored. What was she playing at? Reinforcing her hierro, Amaranta looked down at Safira.

"Biting, eh? What's your game, lady? You don't exactly strike me as the barbaric type, but... I suppose if we're playin' this type of game..."

Opening her mouth, bearing her own sharp set of elongated fangs, Amaranta used her free arm to grind her teeth against, creating enough friction to draw a fire within her own maw, she attempted to offer the same aggression in kind. Granted, these layers of hierro were a pain in the ass to contend with. If a crescent of fire hadn't landed successfully, what good would her fangs do?

Resistance was annoying. The way that Amaranta thought that she could match her, yet she did attempt to and take a go at reciprocating the action. If poison wasn't going to do the job from this lion's wants to bring out some more resilience then that was fine. There was no need to be nice if Amaranta didn't want to go down without a fight.

So as the heat built up in her thigh and burned its way through her Safira opted to instead use her hierro as a buffer. It would not penetrate to the next one but rather the flames would spread out like it was slowly burning through the entire layer from its point of origin.

Placing her hand around and against Amaranta's stomach, her frown turned into a sneer. Reinforcing your hierro was a nice little trick but if you focused too much on one area then it was bound to take energy from elsewhere to do so. A well placed cero would wake Amaranta up to that fact.

"Vile... Lance."

She muttered after taking her mouth away from her victim's skin. The sickly green light gathering before sending the compressed reiatsu to try and blast right through the lioness' guts.

"Guhhgh! Hrgh... Keh... Crafty Bitch..."

Blood pooled from her mouth, replacing the taste of ember that that danced against her lips prior. Damn. Crafty, wasn't she? Or was she simply incredibly foolish for leaving her body defenseless? Hierro reinforcement was something Amaranta specialized in quite well from her point of view, and she certainly would have considered it a forte by her own standards, yet none of that accounted for her inability to recognize her misstep in leaving every other part of her body unguarded. The price for her untimely negligence lies there---a gaping hole in the center of her belly where there was once flesh and sinew.

A grotesque sight, to be certain, yet the unruly lioness eyes burn as brightly as the fire she embodies, a voiceless declaration that she will not be felled so easily. Opening her blood stained maw, using her own globs of sanguine essence to mix with the heat, Amarata formed something akin to a frankenstein cero, firing off that grisly blast towards her back. If it earned purchase, the leonine woman would transition into something equally as bullish.

Lifting her body off of the ground through sheer force of will, stubbornly bringing every measure of physical strength to bear, Amaranta rose from the sand only to descend toward it with Safira in her arms in an attempt to brutally slam her against the ground and wrench her form off of her own. The success rate was far from high considering the gruesome wound that had been bore into her stomach.

Indeed, her technique left something to be desired, but like a wild animal, her intent was to rip away from this woman and find a way to turn the tables. A hole in the stomach certainly raised the stakes, something that should've frightened the average warrior by all accounts, but for Amaranta? Such a wound only elicited a blood-stained grin across her lips.