It's Not Anime [Kizuna, Aina]

Fuck, the fight in Africa had been a nightmare. A fun nightmare, to be sure, but definitely a nightmare nonetheless. Rubbing the stump of her still-missing left arm, Kizuna called out to her most recent student as she returned to her local hangout in Brazil, a sturdy, secure, but also exceptionally messy basement. The garganta closed as quickly as it had opened, and even as she spoke, Kizuna was walking straight toward the liquor shelf.

“Yo, kiddo! Sorry I’m late. Got a little held up, you know how it is. Didn’t get into any trouble while I was gone, right?”

The amused grin on Kizuna’s face suggested she did, in fact, prefer if Aina had gotten into trouble, and certainly made it clear she wasn’t too terribly bothered by the fact that she was completely missing a limb at present. Instead, she just popped the top off of a bottle of cheap fortified wine, took a long drink, and sat down to look through some of her research notes.

“Anyway, whatcha wanna do? Go for a run? Throw down? Or I can always try and do a little bit of poking and prodding, get extra scientific on ya. We can do whatever you think you’ll need to work on most.”

Before Kizuna had entered, a saddened look was on Aina's face. Her eyes were glazed over in thought as the woman gazed out the window, contemplating where her significant other was. It had been quite some time, and it was weird for him not to have announced himself by now. Was he dead? Did he leave her? Did she do something wrong?

A myriad of thoughts buzzed in her head like hornets attacking her peace, but when the Arrancar arrived, Aina's head moved slowly to assess the situation. After taking a long stare at Kizuna, the woman blinked as she was missing a left arm. So, in a quiet, startled tone, she spoke and pointed at her arm:

"Uh, your arm. Are you good?"

As those words left her mouth, Aina's expression gradually changed from one of unhappiness to one of concern. She knew Arrancar's and Hollow's could regenerate, but who knows what type of fight or battle she came from.

However, when the question flipped to how she was doing, Aina wearily stated.

"Trouble? Yeah, you could say that. It's just dumb relationship crap, though."

Aina doubted she'd be interested in those types of woes, so her eyebrow rose in curiosity when the question of training was brought up. As a sphere of plum energy gathered in her palm, the room around them started to have winds gusting about as Aina raised her reiatsu.

"Well, the last training I had was with my boyfriend, and I haven't seen him in some time."

A mixture of irritation and sadness flowed in her tongue when the word "boyfriend" came up, leaning more on the side of anger as her eyebrows furrowed with annoyance. But, in a few seconds, her eyes seemed to focus, and her expression gradually relaxed after her thoughts were collected.

"Before he left, we were trying to beef up my offensive power so he wouldn't have to protect me as much, so I guess that's a good place to start."

"Huh? Psh, never better, kiddo. You shoulda seen it! Some motherfucker turned my arm basically into mush, so you know what I did? I burned that shit right to dust, made the coolest cero you've ever seen! Gotta make a new one now obviously, but I've made crazier, so I'll figure it out."

Of course, at the mention of boy trouble, Kizuna stopped drinking her lovely beverage, pausing for a moment as a bit of the bright-orange alcohol dripped down her chin onto her shirt. Damn it, she couldn't even wipe that off. This was annoying.

"Absentee boyfriend, huh? That's fucked up, you're a cutie pie. No accounting for taste though, I guess. Some guys just get bored or have weirdo interests, you can never tell. Don't worry, we'll get you sorted on that too."

After another moment or two of thought, Kizuna made a gesture that seemed as though she'd been about to snap her fingers, only to remember she was missing the hand that would have done the snapping. She really needed to fix this, ugh.

"Alright, well I'm a pretty big girl, you know, so I don't mind you trying to beat me up for a while. I'll give you some pointers about whatcha get wrong."

Well....Kizuna was nonchalant about the whole ordeal. Aina wasn't sure how potent her regeneration was, but perhaps she had something sorted out to keep that cool about it. She almost envied the woman's ability not to care.

Soon, Aina's head tilted to the side as she had a puzzled expression behind her plum gaze.

"Given how calm you seem about it, I guess you have something figured out. I'll take your word on it."

With intrigue and confusion behind her words, Aina's thoughts shifted back to her previous concerns about her missing boyfriend. That's when her look turned into a scowl, as if she was contemplating something behind her stare.

"Guess you can say this will be a good way to relieve stress, huh? Honestly, I'd take you up on some drinking if I weren't about to train."

Purple, black, and red hues of energy swirled around her body. By this time, the woman's conflicted soul seemed to generate a more potent energy source than before. So, with a more focused look, she spoke out to Kizuna in a calm tone:

"Yeah, even if you are missing an arm, the differences between our power are probably like night and day. But I'll give it a shot regardless."

She wasn't discouraged or frightened as her body prepared for this. Acknowledging reality was the first step to overcoming an obstacle in her mind.

So, without further delay, her palms reached out toward Kizuna before a flurry of plum spheres shot out at the woman and surrounded her. Planning to consume her in a frenzy of energized strikes, the woman tested her energy reserves and got a better feel for these attacks. Following that, the woman made sure not to be a standing target, and she started to move around the basement from the floor to the walls and ceiling to utilize the space they were in to her advantage.

With her heart beating, energy roaring, and sweat beginning to drip, the woman's body was in the moment, and all she could do was see what happened next.

"Psh, nothing wrong with a nice drink even before you- Hey, wait a minute!!"

Kizuna's hierro quickly hardened over her skin, the hexgrid pattern of her specialized A-Type Hierro mitigating even more of the damage than would already have been prevented. Despite the energy behind her exclamations, however, it didn't really seem like Kizuna was so much bothered by being caught off guard like this as she was just genuinely surprised.

"Listen, kiddo, I like the spunk and all that, it's great, really. But my place here ain't exactly cut out for a throwdown or anything, I'd like to keep my notes at least a little in order, yeah?"

Raising a finger, Kizuna blew a hole in the other side of her little ramshackle house with a small cero, gesturing to Aina to go outside as she herself moved with a quick sonido toward the nice cool shore outside.

"That wasn't bad though, do it again."

A strong gust erupted in the room as Aina took pursuit after Kizuna. Once they were both on the beach sand, she didn't waste time in resuming her assault. Eyes filled with ferocity, she leveraged her burning emotions and moved each of her hands forward to throw another torrent of plum energy straight toward Kizuna.

Aina could feel her heart pumping as her blood boiled over. At that moment, her gaze reflected the buzzing contemplating of her conflicted soul. Not long after those two assaults, the woman breathed out, moved to Kizuna's flank, and aimed to coat her elbow in that same plum-drenched energy to have it explode on contact. Regardless of whether she made a direct hit on the Arrancar, tons of sand would move around for half a city block as her breath increased in speed.

"You want more, you got it. I have a lot of bad blood to get out of my system, even if it probably won't hurt you worth a damn."

"Yeah, I can see that. Dunno what kinda shitter got you all pent up, but we'll get it out, no problemo."

Ideally, Kizuna would have had more to drink, but she was still down an arm until she got that little issue sorted out. But oh well. Her eyes moved to the side as Aina moved forward, her hierro once again forming over her body in a grid formation and layering upon itself, an active defense far beyond typical hierro to keep Aina's energy attacks from doing anything more than bounce ineffectually off of her.

"After that, we'll see what we can't get figured out for you to do with yourself. Hopefully something a little more exciting."

Even as Aina's elbow shot toward Kizuna, she let off a bala from the point of impact, weakened enough that it simply clashed against the blow rather than meaning to seriously injure her. This wasn't a fight, after all, just letting the little one let off some steam.

"Cala Paracer is the shitter. I doubt you know the hollow, but he was my ex-boyfriend."

Glancing down at the hierro activation, Aina decided to focus her attention on her spine and began to amplify the energy pulsating toward it. Her entire spine felt like a hot flash of fire before another layer of energized attacks came from behind herself at Kizuna in the form of three dense energy spheres sent at the woman's gut.

Was it going to do anything to try and stack up her attack? Doubtful. The difference in skill and power was like night and day, but she still needed to get up and try.

As the force of Kizuna's bala meshed against her skin and caused the sands around them to blow back, a mild hiss escaped her lips. as Aina felt her body being prodded with pain. Pain prodded her body, yet she retaliated with a sharp kick to Kizuna's face, sending a wave of plum energy from her foot before jumping back and panting.

"Damn. I'm pretty shit at this. But we'll keep going."

Her voice tinged with annoyance as her fist clenched, not out of irritation for Kizuna but frustration at herself. Her leg, trembling from exertion, steadied as adrenaline surged through her. Simultaneously, her purple energy flared, heating the air, perhaps even making Kizuna feel the winds whipping around her.

As admid this physical strain, the woman's anger boiled over, steam escaping her mouth as share furrowed her eyebrows at Kizuna. It was then, at that heated moment, a new realization dawned on her.

"I guess I'm not too different from you hollow. Using all this negative energy to fight. Oh well."

After those words were uttered, she breathed in and out to let that realization sink into her soul. A tightness in her chest gave way to a mental shift, a grappling with understanding her anger and will. Her gaze, now calm but resolute, fixed on Kizuna as she internalized her next move, feeling the depths of her emotion driving her forward.

Kizuna's defenses were fairly impressive among her kind, though she certainly knew there were others who had been better. That was why she wasn't really worried about plateauing any time soon. However, the name that left Aina's lips caused a much wider grin to cross Kizuna's expression, and she laughed hard enough that she didn't even bother activating her Hierro A-Type. Not that it mattered, really, she still only took a modest impact given the gulf between the two of them, but there was a little bit more spark in her voice as she replied to the purple-haired young lady.

"You kidding me? I know that fucking squirt, he wanted to train under me once a while ago! Disappeared after I ran him ragged once though, so I guess I can't say I'm surprised to hear he ran away from you, too. Ah, that's some shit luck, kiddo."

With a headbutt accompanied by another laugh, Kizuna simply clashed against the kick aimed toward her face, hardly concerned with injuring herself. Sure, she was here to help the kid along, but she was gonna at least have a little fun herself.

"Nothing wrong with burning some negativity. Makes good fuel."

Aina laughed with a hint of defiance in her tone after Kizuna's words about Cala ended.

"Tch, well, I ain't running."

Feeling her head spinning and a jolt of pain racing down her spine, Aina breathed out and got a grip as she steadied herself upward. She spat a small dripping of blood from her lips before streaks of plum energy wisped around the wrist and ankle Kizuna to both burn her and bind her in place.

Even if her precision faltered, Aina didn’t pause – she ducked and surged upward, aiming an uppercut engulfed in a flare of plum energy to amplify her strength.

"He's a decent training partner, at least. Not much, but it's something."

Exhaling another tired breath, the woman felt the taste of iron in her mouth, her heart beating with adrenaline, and her anger and spite boiling over. In response, the air around her heated over like a midsummer day as each of her eyes narrowed with resolve behind them. Embracing the pain and the hate, she let it fuel her, her energy spiking.

"Your right. I'll burn this negativity until nothing is left in the tank."

Aina grumbled out with one last small chuckle, channeling her tumultuous emotions into raw power, determined to exhaust every last bit of her energy in the fight.