Let's Enjoy [Klein, Amaranta]

"Hmm? Ah. You're such a sweetheart, Amaranta. Making other people grow, watching them get stronger. Looks like that figure of yours isn't the only motherly thing about you, eh?"

With a smirk, Klein watched his adorable lioness use her resurreccion, a form he already knew about well enough. It seemed like she wanted something extra spicy, huh? Well, he was fine with that. A little more effort this time definitely wasn't so bad, and he toyed with the Hollow Cross around his neck for a few moments as he once again spoke, loud enough for Amaranta to hear him clearly. She'd seen him release before, yes, but that was why he really wanted to give her a nice surprise, to make sure she heard the different release phrase spoken now.

"Break, Lämmergeier."

The chain that held his Hollow Cross tightened around Klein's neck, as the hair that cascaded down his back suddenly dispersed into reishi, returning to a length not unlike his smaller form. The reishi just as quickly formed into six white wings on his back, and even being the weaker of the two Arrancar here from a perspective of rawk power, the only thing Klein gave off was absolute confidence.

"Don't misunderstand. I don't want to hold you back or keep you down. I just don't want you thinking I'm someone you can go ignoring. That's all."

With a flap of all six wings, an array of razor-sharp feathers shot toward Amaranta, each one moving as quickly as any other of Klein's attacks. Even if she avoided them all, that was fine. This was just preparation, after all.

"Show me something worth holding my attention, then, Klein. Enlighten me."

Amaranta offered no other dialogue than that. After all, that was what a woman of her ilk desired. At this point, the only thing that would hold her attention is a display of unrivaled strength. From her point of view, charming worlds could only carry Klein so far. To become the unequivocal locus of her attention required resounding defeat. That was all there was to it. The alternate release phrase piqued her curiosity during his shift in appearance, to say nothing of the absence of the crimson mist.

The unfamiliar nature of it isn't exactly a bothersome affair, no more than something to account for if anything. She had already intended to observe him with a pinpoint focus from the outset. Falling in line with that intention, Amaranta shifted her body in preparation for an explosive punch, shooting her fist forward to release an incendiary explosion of heated air to knock those razor-sharp feathers off their intended course.

Whatever the intent of that attack was, the leonine woman found herself unimpressed. Still, if her perception of the man is anything to go by, he isn't the type to approach a battle without a game plan. Which meant that taking him for granted was out of the question. Forming a column of golden flames to defend herself from any further attacks, Amaranta rushed forward to position her fingers like a gun, releasing a far-reaching beam along a straightforward line from the point of her finger. Rudimentary acts, no doubt, but with a battle this crucial, she wasn't exactly aiming to throw her own set of cards out here by any means.

"Haha, wow. You're pretty strange. Now I'm really curious to see what you have up your sleeve."

"Enlighten you? I'd rather you get a little heavier, personally."

Klein's cocky smile only grew more at that little quip, but his sharp gaze was studying Amaranta's actions carefully. It was fine to see his feathers stab into the ground, and as her beam shot toward him, Klein flapped his wings to release another array of feathers, though this time he quickly moved to evade the beam rather than simply staying still.

"I am pretty weird, yeah. But there's plenty of normal Arrancar out there already. What good's being normal, babe? I only care about exceptional stuff."

The array of feathers, however, was equal parts distraction and set-up, rather than an actual effort to attack. His pesquisa scanned the battlefield, seeking out the corpses of fallen hollows and shinigami from the previous battle here in Africa. Ah, there. Sonido carried him the rest of the way to a body, and his hand reached out to touch it as it quickly began to dissolve.

"Another neat trick, just for you."

The corpse all at once turned to nothing but dust, reishi pouring into Klein's hand for a brief moment before he raised it upward, his katana melting into silver liquid before turning into an impressive bow. The energy formed into an immense arrow, which he drew back with a grin before firing it off toward Amaranta, watching it scream through the air at an impressive velocity. Such an arrow wasn't one he could have made normally; but, thankfully, there was plenty to work with on a battlefield like this.

"Of course you would. What? Ya trying to tell me my tall and thick body ain't enough for you anymore, Kleeein~?"

The playful hum at the end of her banter illustrated that her words were no more than lighthearted in nature, a faux display of disappointment at hearing those words. Whether he took them in stride or not was the furthest thing from her mind, after all. The real amusement was in observing all these new tricks he had to offer in his arsenal. In the moment he evaded her attack, Amaranta remained alert enough to swing her enflamed fist forward to deflect his second array of feathers.

"Well, if you were the average Joe, I doubt I would have entertained spending any amount of time with you to begin with. Exceptional is obviously what I want out of a man who is trying to claim an extraordinary prize like yours truly."

There was no rush to her pace nor any tension in her movement. Inquisitive sapphires were positioned directly on him, observing his movements until she felt it was the right time to pounce. Considering her overall scope of power, she could afford to be patient. No need to reveal the entire depths of her flames if he wasn't pressing her into a corner right? Well, yes and no. One part housed no intention whatsoever of overestimating him, while another was thinking of any strategy that would throw him off his game.

Perquisa allowed her to track his silhouette as he vanished toward one of the bodies of the fallen foes. Hm? What the hell was he playing at? What purpose did it serve for him to---in the next moment, an answer is provided for her in the form of an immense arrow slicing through the air at an impressive velocity. Throwing her fist forward to collide with that arrow, Amaranta felt her body shift back by ten meters in the resulting clash. Casting a glance back at her fist, the leonine woman whistled as she tilted her head.

"What in the scavenger's hell is that ability? Sheesh. Don't go coming near me with that one!"

Booming laughter echoed from her lips as she used the ground as a springboard to throw her body into the skies above. Manipulating the flame surrounding her body, Amaranta spun around in several rotations until a tornado formed around her. Positioning her finger in the same stance as a gunman, Amaranta released an array of her own projectiles, launching several beams of light and fire to strike at Klein from above. A rain of hellfire to test his agility.

"Dance for me, little man!"

"Now now, I never said it wasn't enough for me. I just think you'd look all the better if you had a little more bounce. Not that I'd ever say the current bounce is unappealing."

Damn. Klein's ego was certainly much too firm to ever actually acknowledge it, but he could tell that this was going to be a much closer fight than he might have really liked. Amaranta was hardly just some piece of eye candy, after all. She was his favorite kind of lovely creature, strong and willful, yet still willing to accept her place if it was laid out for her. If she won, he'd never accept that particular outcome.

Her spiritual reserves were impressive, moreso than his even if he did keep eating corpses. And unfortunately, Klein knew doing that wasn't going to be possible forever. He'd already filled the battlefield with plenty of feathers, still strewn about and waiting for the right moment. With a sigh, he once again drew back his bow, aiming it upward as another arrow formed.

"Dance? I've never been much of a dancer, but I'll see what I can do for you."

Before the arrow was released, one of the six wings on Klein's back was engulfed in blue flame, burning away to nothing as the reishi it had been made up of suddenly flew into the arrow. Compared to a corpse, this was far more energy, and he winked to Amaranta up above as he released the projectile, which quickly split into countless arrows to ideally overwhelm Amaranta's assault and push her back onto the defensive yet again.

In truth, he wasn't happy about having to do that against her, but he'd rather win than anything else.

"Don't worry. I'm sure you'll put on an impressive performance all the same, Klein!"

Arrows and hellfire clashed in a roaring display of intermingling energies. To overwhelm her assault, he executed a vast number of shots to set her on the back foot, a feat that brought her no small ounce of joy. Amid the roiling mixture of fire and reishi, Amaranta maintained an enthusiastic grin as those leonine sapphires bore down on the winged archer from below.

His offense was impressive, a step beyond what he displayed the last time they fought. There was no fault in it whatsoever. Questions of capability shot through her mind like a wave of inspiration. What was the extent of his capabilities now? Where did his limit lie? Where did her limit lie? Even under the threat of fire, the booming laughter did not stop. At present, she was consumed by the exhilaration of battle. A bliss that no words could describe.

That same rush of exhilaration led her to compose two polearms of blazing fire. Spinning them around with immense physical prowess, Amaranta pointed her weapons in Klein's direction. The sheer force of momentum draws the wind around her emblazoned form, feeding into the flame to form a gathering of incandescent fury that dwarfed her last attack in offensive capability. In a contest of sheer firepower, who would win out? Amaranta desired to see that answer for herself here and now.

Rotating her arms backward at coordinated angles, she shot the polearms forward to release a vast stream of conflagration from above. Like a burning meteor falling from above, it roared from the skies to burn everything in its sight. Of course, she expected him to dodge the attack. That would be the expected reaction, after all. Yet she wasn't so foolish to ignore the crucial effect that might have on his offensive. If that attack hit the ground, it would start a wildfire, eliminating the resources he could scavenge from in short order.

Awaiting his reaction with unrestrained glee, Amaranta would dive through the skies with weapons in hand, soaring around in preparation to attack him wherever he appeared next. To earn her in her entirety, he would receive her in her entirety. Such a prize would not be taken lightly; she would offer every iota of strength to make that fact known.

"Your little display with those arrows inspired me to get a little creative myself. I'm no archer, but I'm really good at causing a lot of destruction. Whaddya think, babe? Impressive, eh?"

The longer this went, the more sure Klein was than ever that he was going to lose this fight if he played with his food too long. That was pretty annoying, considering he always liked to mess around, but maybe discipline was a little bit more important. He'd just have to think about this as setting himself up for better things later.

The incoming inferno was going to make this fight much harder, and Klein's expression soured a bit more as he realized the loss of resources. Well, that only further reinforced his thoughts that he'd have to bring this to an end pretty quickly, didn't it? He evaded the flame itself, sonido carrying him away perfectly well, but it wasn't going to keep Amaranta off him for long. No, she was going to come straight for him no matter where he moved.

Good.

"Yeah, it was impressive alright. You have an alright brain in that pretty head of yours."

His wings once again released a barrage of feathers, but this time, he had no intention of even waiting to see whether or not they struck Amaranta. He had to end this definitively, and if he kept waiting around he wasn't going to have a chance to take advantage of what he'd already set up. Another of his wings then went alight, incinerating itself and leaving him with only four as reishi poured into his hand. This time, however, he simply hels his hand upward, palm open to allow the intense amount of reishi to flow outward.

Every feather flying through the air, and the countless feathers he'd already peppered the ground with, began to glow. Much like the coins he'd utilized before, spiritual fusion had begun to take place, but empowered by the sacrifice of his own flesh, it was in far greater scope. She'd handled one of them well enough, but could she handle dozens upon dozens?

Well, he wasn't going to simply wait and see. His weapon had once more shifted its form back into a sleek blade, and he cut toward Amaranta several times to only cause more problems for her. Klein understood she was a woman who respected only overwhelming strength, and so he would show her just how capable of that he was.

"Haha! What can I say? When push comes to shove, I can get a little creative with my repertoire, too. From the looks of it, you've picked up some pretty cool tricks yourself the last time we fought!"

Compared to Klein, Amaranta was freely swimming in every wave of euphoria this battle afforded. The twists, the turns, the sheer unpredictability Klein presented in this unfamiliar form. His efforts were pretty commendable, all things considered, and if he was showcasing a display of why he ought to demand the full scope of her attention, she had to admit he was making a reasonable case. The phenomenon unfolding with those feathers in the air did not go unnoticed under the gaze of her Perquisa. There was some rumbling energy on the horizon; predatorial instinct told her that it would be foolish to ignore whatever he was cooking up even in the middle of her adrenaline rush.

Much to her amusement, though, rather than play another game of cat and mouse, Klein opted to meet her head-on with sword in hand, a multitude of feathers accompanying his charge as each shot at her in various directions. Naturally, there was no way she would be able to evade every single feather, but with her level of hierro and her durable frame, she didn't exactly feel she needed to, either. Relenting was the last thing on her mind. No, she'd move forward and plan carefully. Shooting forward with enough speed to shatter the sound barrier itself, Amaranta's body carved through the air like a fighter jet controlling its trajectory with superlative precision.

"Aw. An actual clash, eh? Look at ya. Treating me to my favorite dance."

She applauded his audacity to face her head-on as they danced together through the air. After all, in a contest of sheer strength, she was pretty confident that she'd win every time. In addition, each time they crossed each other, those polearms would shoot forth with the intent of sending him backward, using the explosive impact of her release state to set him on the defensive. His bold offense proved distracting enough for some of those feathers to earn purchase against her imposing frame, each forcing her off course now and again until she redoubled her flight. They packed a pretty hefty punch, no doubt, but she was something of a durable lady. She could handle it.

"Whoa! Someone's starting to actually put me on the defensive. These bird feathers might overwhelm me at this rate."

Extending her flaming tail outward, Amaranta motioned her hips around in a whipping motion to deflect any other feather off its intended course. Weathering the storm to a respectable degree, she recognized that clashing with him, remaining wholly ignorant of these feathers peppering her from above, would only work against her in the long term. On one hand, she loved seeing him display his best techniques for her. On the other, she wanted to win. Weighing the options between which she preferred most, victory was far more illustrious than the performance he was putting on. Affirming that within her heart, two actions would unfold in short order.

"Nowhere else to run from hereon out, Klein. Let's keep on embracing each other, shall we?"

The first was Amaranta seamlessly fusing the two polearms into a medieval lance dwarfing her tall frame in size. The second, through the snap of a finger, was the expansion of an intense heat wave that expanded to a total of forty meters. It was a natural extension of her release, but she hadn't felt the need to apply it yet... until now. What better way to turn up the pressure than turn up the heat, right? The explosive roar of the conflagration below was intensified by the heatwave, the wildfire empowered to such an extent that the flames began to surround the both of them in a calamitous cage of fire. Pointing that lance above her head, Amaranta grinned excitedly as she soared through the air in preparation for another attack, the tip of her blade glowing, her expression overjoyed at the wildfire melody filling the air.

It didn't really matter if the feathers hit Amaranta or not, as they simply shot through the air and took up a better position. From glowing to outright incineration, every feather became another miniature sun, spiritual fusion finally taking place as the energy of Klein's sacrificed wing initiated the change. He'd have plenty of soul synthesized gold to work with later, at the very least, but the fact that he'd yet to make any wounds from which he could draw was getting increasingly annoying.

Not because he thought he would lose, obviously. It was just his ego refusing to tolerate a struggle. It seemed she was only getting more serious now, knocking him back as he only barely defended with his spirit weapon and his wings both. If not for his ability to layer hierro well beyond himself, that searing heat almost assuredly would have been enough to ruin him outright. Hell, as it stood he could feel himself being scorched just from the proximity. Even so, he was far from out of this fight. She wanted to clash, eh?

As the burning expenditures of Rheingold's fusion shot toward Amaranta, now-golden feathers raining harmlessly toward the Earth below, Klein himself simply glanced toward the fire at his back. He had only one option, it seemed. What a shame, he hated being so forthright. Coating the edge of his blade with another blood-red layer of energy, Klein took in one breath, the third of his wings turning to ash as blue flame consumed them. The next stroke of his blade wouldn't be anything comparable to the previous ones, Klein knew that for sure.

He then exhaled, and the fourth wing incinerated as well. Sacrificed for the sake of nothing more than a single sonido, enhanced to the utmost and beyond what he ever could have accomplished. He shot upward toward Amaranta far more quickly than he was typically capable of, his energy disappearing in that step. He was wholly intent on cleaving through as much of her as his exceptionally long weapon could reach. So long as he succeeded, whether or not he was injured was nothing short of inconsequential to him.

"Sure, kitten. Up close and personal, just for you."

The blade swung toward her, the crimson reishi coating it flaring outward to make the swing far stronger, far wider-reaching. The sacrifice of his wing had hardly been for nothing, and this certainly made any of his other attacks look like little more than child's play.

His tenacity was impressive. There was no denying that. He appeared relatively unfazed by the overwhelming pressure of the conflagration surrounding him. The product of his release state perhaps? Or was it Hierro? Or was it neither? Burn through it all. No matter what it was, she wanted to incinerate it all to ashes. Go beyond her limit. Compared to that, this discipline of his was relatively inconsequential to her. It was certainly entertaining, no doubt, but meaningless in her grand scheme of conquest.

Fierce sapphires followed his every movement and action until his form temporarily transcended well beyond the speed he had typically displayed thus far. Instinct told her that this was the natural result of Sonido, yet there was something decidedly different about his application. Since it momentarily removed any trace of a spiritual signature, Amaranta maintained her offensive charge regardless of what came next, devoting the embers of flame onto the tip of her lance, focusing her entire sense on reaction time alone. Additionally, as her body gained further momentum, accompanied by the heat and flame surrounding her, she became shrouded in a column of golden fire, as though her body were akin to a meteor hurtling through the sky.

There, in the blink of an eye, his form reappeared shooting toward her like a bat out of hell. What filled her vision next was the mighty column of crimson swinging toward her. Even in the face of that tremendous strike, Amaranta remained unfazed. It was impossible to telegraph the direction of his far-reaching swing simply by merit of deceptive speed and overall range of attack, and so the natural result ended with his attack cleaving through some portion of her flesh as a spray of blood streaked through heated air. Even so, her body remained in constant motion.

Like a spinning cyclone of fire and heated wind, Amaranta's body continued to dart around at the highest velocity she could achieve at the current moment. A maddened cackle danced from her throat as she used the gathered friction and momentum of her charge to increase the overall size of the blazing pillar encompassing her body. The wildfire that surrounded them was now, at every turn and revolution of her body, being altered to suit Amaranta's needs. Greater momentum, greater friction, greater speed. Her current offense was not enough. It was not meriting the results she desired, and so she felt it didn't really belong on this stage anymore.

The wildfire was being drawn inward by the sheer force of her momentum as she swept through the air, creating a large tornado of fire, intent on engulfing them both. The lance was filled to the brim with her spiritual energy, but she hadn't seen a reason to employ her next attack quite yet. A large gash across her skin was less than ideal, but that didn't matter. She was still standing tall. Surrounded by a pillar of flame amid a conflagrating tornado. Nothing was ever easy with this deceptive bastard, new form or otherwise, and she wasn't ready to stake all of her cards until the right opportunity presented itself. For now, her body would continue to stride through the air until they were completely and wholly covered in fire.