The Intoxicating Sound of Rock n' Roll [Asher, Safira]

It was that simple, break their defences like kicking a child's sandcastle over. As much as her companion might've found the whole thing to be a struggle the first time around a little bit of help to her inferiors could get anyone over a line if she wanted. How marvellous, no?

Since it had all settled down and Kizuna was so beat up after taking the brunt of the punishment she left her to recover. Her on the other hand have every intention of venturing down into the abyss to investigate what was going on at the bottom of this throat so with the dim green light to guide her Safira floated down into the darkness from on high.

It was sure to be a fruitful venture she thought, if she didn't think that then she never would've come in the first place would she?

In the wake of Asher's bout, he had been slow to recover. The warrior he'd faced presented an impressive danger, a corrosive force which he had never faced even among the greatest of beasts in all his hunts. Lesser warriors might have been afraid of such a force, but Asher only thought of how best to face it in the coming days. It had become abundantly clear, as the din of battle faded, that his conquest had proceeded well, and that there would be further battle in time.

What he had not anticipated was an interloper into his own domain. Hollowkind, but different from he and his own kin. Asher did not relish those who challenged his authority, but curiosity and the ever-burning drive to grow stronger compelled him to meet this without turning immediately to the blade. After all, domination was as useful a tool as slaughter. Alighting with the wings he had taken from his former favored mount, Asher rocketed upward, his glowing red eyes marking his arrival before anything else could be seen in the inky blackness.

"Speak, unless you've come to kneel."

Of course, she would kneel regardless. The question was whether it was now or later.

Kneel? The very word makes her sneer at the hollow before me. The knave that had the audacity to utter those words to her should learn that there's more beyond this fascinating little microcosm that he had called home for however long it had been. Those that belonged the earth should know that the sky was the domain of gods, it was how it had been now and forever would be.

So she should clip his wings.

No, the impulse to deprive him of that hard earned pride needed to be curbed. After all she was better than that, she was above the behaviours of hollows. He had approached diplomatically and so should be responded to in kind, words made better weapons than than anything else and to raise your sword at an adversary who had approached with words just meant that you had no answer.

"My name is Nahash, the one that arranged to open the door to your freedom for you. Though it's far more mannered to introduce yourself first."

Safira can forgive the lack of manners though. So far she had seen nothing but savagery from these creatures in their dingy little hole so you can't expect too much from them.

"The only path I walk is the one I carve for myself."

Asher's eyes studied Nahash, the sharp gaze of a predator sizing up another beast in the jungle. She was strong, that much he could tell immediately, but the question was how strong? The urge to put that to the test was no small matter, but he would stay his hand for now. There were other matters he wished to consider.

"I am Asher the Empty-Hearted. Warrior without peer, and conqueror of all before me. You are undoubtedly hollow as I am, yet your face goes bare. Curious."

He wasn't one for ceremony or formality, and while this woman before him seemed to wish for him to speak courteously, such things had never existed in Asher's realm. Savagery, where strength decided all things, such was his way of life.

"What do you hope to gain from opening this door for me? Subservience? A comrade in arms?"

Such things could not have been spoken with greater disgust.

"Knowledge of your existence and the origins of you is the greatest boon that you offer to me, Asher the Empty-Hearted. You're correct to determine that while hollow in origin I am something different."

She explains to him, prattling on a little bit like there is no need to rush. They had all the time in the world now that those rodents had fled at the sight of monsters.

"You are correct, my face is bare and only a fragment of the mask I wore remains on my person. I am an arrancar. Are there no arrancar amongst your kind?"

It's fascinating to consider but it made sense if she thought about it. There were no humans down here if she had to guess, nothing to adopt the likeness of and so their evolutionary pathway must be distinct from the rest of their kind.

"'Arrancar' is a term that has never been uttered in my lands. You are certainly not weak, to come here unwounded. Either the removal of your mask crippled you from strength beyond compare, or it is what brought you to your current level."

Asher understood well the meaning of the mask he wore, of the power behind it and the nature of a beast such as himself. To remove it was a concept that had never once crossed his mind, but this creature before him gave him pause, a moment to consider it. He was uninterested in the minutiae of it, the intricacies of how it might have worked. Strength was all that interested him.

"If it is the latter, then you have given me something worthwhile. If it is the former, then you are only wasting my time."

The sickly green reiatsu flared around her as if to answer his question. What simple creature would even consider the former? The purpose of evolution was to adapt to the surroundings and become stronger and more tenacious against their environment.

"I have yet to give you anything Empty-Hearted one. Regardless, the fact remains that you have certainly reached the pinnacle of your evolution that this place can provide you. For there to not be a single arrancar amongst you speaks more loudly than anything else. So if you were to be let loose upon the world would you too become arrancar or would you become something completely different, I wonder."

The possibilities were fascinating, endless to consider really. An unpredictable variable that could upset the status quo held by the balancers for thousands of years by this point. The greatest kind of poison to be introduced into their river of souls.

"All I desire from you is for you to ravage the world and drink your fill."

She could think about betraying him when she had seen the extent of his potential in a new environment. For the moment however, his rampage and trials were the greatest thing this creature could give her to watch. A monkey dancing to the music for entertainment.

"What you give me or desire from me means nothing. I take what is before me, and crush what stands in my way."

All at once, Asher bolted forward, one arm unraveling into a burning hot tendril that whipped toward Nahash at speeds well past what a normal human could have even seen coming. Her words were well and good, but he'd grown tired of them now. Strength was what mattered in the world, and she'd made it clear there was nothing of value to be gained from listening to her any further.

"I will become whatever serves my strength. And you, messenger who gives me nothing, will be a pawn or a step forward. Nothing more."

"Do not make me don my mask, you mongrel."

She threatened him whilst back-stepping from the assault. Her vile green energy leaking into the air before coalescing in her palm to manifest in the form of a large ball of energy.

"Vile Lance."

Safira declared as the cero fired with enough coverage to make the entire area around Asher be engulfed in green light that pierced straight through the darkness and burrowed into the side of the Hole.

Forward. Asher could sense no tremendous power in this woman, could taste nothing from her in the air that demanded he back down, and so he did not. As her cero cut through the air toward him, the Warlord of Alhireth simply barreled into it, slamming his helm into it to lessen the impact. She'd left a bit of a burn, certainly, but the burning of the attack was quickly regenerated as Asher's flesh knit itself back into place.

"Don it. Or do you choose such weakness willingly?"

With a beat of leathern wings that caused no small amount of shearing wind, Asher shot toward Nahash once more, a blood-red wake following in his path like waves in the sea. The burning glow carried by the technique made it abundantly clear that this was nothing to be trifled with, for Asher was not the sort of warrior who wasted time with testing blows.