Between Theft And Envy [Veralia/Mura]

Man, he wasn’t showing off to an ordinary civilian human being… what did he expect? Coins thrown at him again? He hadn’t even prepared a bucket yet, but he’d take what he could get – she was impressed by the display, at least… but it was unsatisfactory. He aimed to make his audience drop their jaws, damn it.

It wasn’t him, in the end… that aura was definitely visible to him. A troublesome, tricky aura – one that demanded it not be trusted in one way or another. She was plotting something, wasn’t she? She did come off as rather friendly after a bit, but Mura couldn’t quite read her yet. “What, catching feels for her?”

“Shove it.”

Quickly burying that thought away – along with Kyūken’s naggy bickering – Mura was visibly intrigued by her request. Her aura was strong, no doubt about that… and she was this Arrancar kind of girl, and the only reference Mura had was one of those ‘Hollows’ or whatever whom he’d fought before. Powerful and bloodthirsty, and she was an evolved version – one far more… human? Was that the right term here, or was that sensitive?

Either way, if she wanted to spar… he was in. That was when her aura heated the air around them, making his breath heavy as if he was climbing the mountains once more, and even pushing out a couple sweat pearls from his back. Yet his gaze only sharpened at his current opponent, zoning in on that grin of hers. Frankly, I have no clue how she fights, but if she’s anything like Akira… he pondered, deciding not to take her for any easy foe. Remember, evolved Hollow – she was assumably stronger than anyone else he'd fought before.

Niten… Gokōgiri!

Unsheathing Harukami once more, Mura swung it in a circle motion in front of his form, zooming the blade in on the middle and suddenly performing a diagonal strike that whipped the gathering Reiatsu, pushing out wind that transformed into a cylinder tornado shooting across the field. Like a beam, the horizontal tube of spinning, cutting air rushed straight towards Veralia’s position, his blood already bubbling from intrigue.

Technique Used:

It was hard to see through the vortex of wind, so what Veralia pulled up to meet his technique was unseen… but the effects of her weapon certainly weren’t. A large, dancing expansion of energy born from a collision of sharp wind and flames of emotion spread in all directions, forcing Mura to cover his face with his arm for a brief moment to not be slapped in the face by that level of heat. If only for an instant, before he went to face the heat head-on, as if trying to force himself to acclimate to the power that Veralia commanded.

He was still human, after all. In spite of her admiration, he still saw heights to reach just from their first exchange.

She soared up in the air herself, and Mura bent his legs to gather Reiryoku. He intended to leap up to her level himself, but once she launched towards him like a missile, his face grimaced in shock. Instead, he leapt to the side with enough force to kick up dirt several feet into the air from his previous position, appearing on the surface of a tree trunk that shattered off the root and crown from the weight of his force alone. When empowered with his own Reiryoku, his competence with Fa Jin was yet satisfactory… and that was honestly the most he could say. Mura wasn’t easy to please when it came to that kind of stuff.

Instead of leaping off the now flying tree trunk, he held his foothold on it. In that split moment where the tree trunk floated in the air, carrying his form while spinning backwards, he split the wind ahead of him with an X-shaped cut from Harukami that turned into an X-shaped wind gust cutting through the debris towards Veralia once more. Try this, then! Niten Batsugiri…!

Technique Used (this time >:3):

He saw it for a brief moment, soon to have his field of vision disturbed by the turning tree log he was standing on. She was about to swing her sword again, so another assault of green flames was about to envelop the area ahead of him, and he’d have to brace-

Which he managed to do in the nick of time, the tree log smashing into the ground with one end, the other raised in the air until the log was almost completely vertical. Mura slowly slid off the log when the wave of heat finally reached his position, faintly glancing at the rather cataclysmic result of fed fires rising into the air, kicking up dust, dirt and stone everywhere. Not gonna lie, that’s so fucking cool, I wish I could shoot fire like that!!! he awed like a young kid again, a smile creeping up on his amazed face-

Which left his guard down in the worst timing ever. “I TOLD YOU TO FOCU-“ Kyūken was instantly ready to berate him for losing focus like that, leading to Veralia’s kick landing squarely on his belly right between the kidneys, kicking out all the air in his lungs and sending him smashing through a line of trees that shattered like matches.

Sliding off the dirt, he immediately felt the inability to breathe – his diaphragm was bent and trying its best to stretch back to normal from that kick, sending waves of pain through his abdomen. Writhing a bit, his face looked agonized and stressed out of his mind, but he knew what to do… he had to stretch that organ back out again.

Taking a deep, deep breath… his Reiatsu would start to flicker once more. And then, a slap-like sound emerged from his belly, shocking him back to the present and making him rise up in a flash. “D-Damn, that hurt like hell… you’re not at all as dainty as you look! Wait, forget that – HOW ON EARTH DO YOU SUMMON FIRE LIKE THAT?! Please, I can’t manipulate Reiryoku like that – is it a ‘normal’ skill for Arrancars, or am I way off?”

Technique Used:

Wait… he recognized that word. Zanpakutō, the same shit that pharmacist carried. His Head Master knew little of it from his own notes, but older records at his dojo back in Kyōto held some sections of predecessors’ encounters with these soul-purifying sword spirits that were called Shinigami – and they carried swords embodying unique souls called Zanpakutō.

But was she a Shinigami? She just said she was an Arrancar… and honestly, Mura couldn’t tell if being a Shinigami was a job or a race or a title. Thank the heavens that she made things clear right after.

… A knot was forming somewhere in his usually single-minded heart. Encountering this particular swordswoman – if you could call that flame she swung a ‘sword’ to begin with – had made him see a bunch of new things now. This was the first Zanpakutō he’d ever witnessed… and he was quite env-

Oh… certainly, that must’ve been what she meant. It felt uneasy, realizing the feeling he’d developed in his chest in this particular situation. In front of an Arrancar who was interested in what he sought, who wanted to see what he yearned for which wasn’t within his grasp… in front of her, he felt… envy.

His rusty tsurugi might’ve been a national treasure, but it was old, rusted steel and could break at any moment. It was frail and worn from the flow of time, and nothing in Mura’s power could bring it back to its former glory. The sword was clearly separate from his own, physical condition – a powerful, shapely swordsman- ignoring his missing arm. But she had a spirit sword, a Zanpakutō, and she seemed… pretty close to it.

Not only was he quite envious now, but more of her brazen charms slapped him right in the face. What a troublesome woman…

…

She’d give the first hit to him next. Pity, eh? Envy, arousal, when faced with such a statement, they were both washed away – in the very end, Mura hadn’t proved jack shit about the sovereignty of Niten Muryū. It didn’t matter if she could control fire to her very whim – Kyūken’s worldview was that this martial art was unbeatable, and Mura damn well must prove that. But he could feel Kyūken’s disapproving eyes burn through his cheek-

“Wait, before we continue… g-give me a moment,” Mura called to Veralia with a hand raised up to signal a pause, a small moment as he pulled on Kyūken’s Chain of Fate to drag him along towards some shrubbery, “-Okay, before you say anything- shut the fuck up, and I do mean every letter of this, shut the fuck up. I can already tell what you’re thinking: ‘Ohhhh, why are you struggling so much against a woman? Back in my days-‘ I won’t hear any of your bullshit, okay?! Have you ever fought an Arrancar before, huh?!”

“… P-Perhaps? They have horns, eh?”

“… J-Just let me go on for a bit longer without your judgement carving into my back, capisce?”

“I’m just trying to keep you focused, Mura! I can’t believe you’d devalue my efforts so-“

“HOW CAN I FOCUS WITH YOUR CONSTANT BERATINGS AT MY EVERY BREATH?!”

“You’re clearly seeing her as an object of your attraction – in the end, you’re still just a kid! Countless women in days past have gotten warriors killed that way, and what makes you think she’s not playing us like a cat playing with its food?!”

A bunch of bickering on both sides, until they came to some sort of middle ground as Mura walked out of the shrubbery again. “Okay, no more wasting time – I’m ready,” Mura warned Veralia, lifting up Harukami and pointing the very end of the double-edged blade towards her. Holding the sword in a perfectly horizontal angle, his Reiatsu began gathering on his arms and legs once more, strengthening them further.

“Let’s see if I can blow your fires out…”

Niten, Ryūseigungiri!

If strong enough, a gust of wind can spread and cool down a small fire – such made blowing out a candle possible. Mura jabbed the sword forward once, a beam-shaped shockwave escaping from the swift motion and shooting forward like… say, a Cero.

Technique Used:

Was it just him, or was she getting more and more agitated for some reason? Clearly, he mistook her emotions, but one thing was for certain – she suddenly moved faster and hit harder. And she looked… excited. Was it because of the fires she created?

Speaking of- holy shit, that was a huge generation of fire she just threw at his attack. He’d underestimated his own power with the Reiatsu waves his sword released with each thrust, capable of slicing the fires into multiple directions and even causing a few small cuts on Veralia’s form… but he only barely saw that through the thick sheets of green fires.

Therefore, her teleportation caught him entirely off guard – all he remembered was that his hips jolted at the sharp, deep sound of some… speaker breaking or something, before he felt the blunt weight of a truck on his side from her hilt. Now, listen – he didn’t have any regenerative prowess, and as far as he remembered, humans weren’t the most durable creatures on Earth. That attack hurt like hell.

So when he managed to plant his feet on another tree log that was about to crack off the roots and fall, it was no easy endeavor. It did give him an idea, though…

Reiryoku bubbled inside of him, and Reiatsu began rising in tension around his legs as if the spiritual energy all began gathering right at his foothold. With the swift wind rising around them, Mura launched more than leapt from the tree, leaving his footprints on the bark – rapidly, his form began bouncing between different trees and boulders raised from their exchanges, like a ping pong bouncing around a room. His rapid launch speed increased with each jump, until he could barely make her form out with his eyes-

To which he immediate went straight towards her front with a knee aimed at her center.