Soup For The Soul

"Masochist?"

That soft questing murmur had Yuri's head canting to the side as Hono grit through the pain and attempted to counter Yuri's own point and place a jab towards her once-superior. A slow smile creeping across Yuri's lips as she watched Hono pointing towards the woman and beginning that incantation. But frankly, Yuri wasn't paying attention in the slightest, as a slow, burning intensity bled into that smile of hers, as well indeed her spiritual pressure began to swell up around her. Slowly boring down on the ground beneath her as coiled plumes reiryoku coursed up the length of her frame like moonlight flames.

"Perhaps you're just too stupid~ You've always been such a simple woman Hono. As your Superior, It's always been my job to inspire and guide you. But that's not quite the case anymore is it?" She noted with a gentle chuckle. Eyes drifting to a close once the name of that spell was called and those black clouds spewed out to fill the inside of the arena, the smell just a hint of something like charcoal. All the same, the arena was filled entirely with that darkness, and so Hono got the chance she wanted in order to take a breath. But Yuri would not remain silent.

"You simply don't understand. Or perhaps, you simply didn't quite catch my Zanpaku'to's name." She promptly tossed her weapon up and into the air, that pale blade slamming up into the ceiling of that barrier, sinking a fraction into the barrier before the stronger outer layers halted it. Leaving her more or less 'unarmed'. And so when Hono suddenly sped in with that shunpo, Yuri reacted immediately. Yuri spun about and aimed to plunge her hand towards Hono's throat.

IT was true, she couldn't see Hono in the slightest. But Hono's body was riddled with Yuri's zanpaku'to. An ark diagonally, and a line straight across her chest. She would not mistake the spiritual pressure of her own seeds, and with that clean line across Hono's shoulders, aiming just above that line meant a fair shot at grabbing Hono by the throat. Intent on catching Hono completely off guard with that fairly accurate chokeslam into the ground.

"Victory can only be grasped by continuing to strive and grow, and growing is painful! Every means of training is testing yourself, honing yourself, but more than that, its STEPPING on the shell of what you once were! Breaking, cracking, snapping everything that you are, so that it can mend itself into something stronger." That smoke suddenly was twisting as the air around Yuri began to gust, that thick black blanket now shifting with brief glimmers of shaded light as reiryoku collected at the tip of Yuri's finger.

"I inflict pain because it is nothing to me. "

That light swelled into the shape of a four pointed star, welling up so that shreds of it's growing light bled through the thick smoke.

"I will suffer any agony. I will weather any injury. I will gladly dash myself against stone, steel, and even the rules governing the world if it means becoming what I'm destined to be."

The flowers on her body burned with that shining light, peeling away as the energy that had been built up inside of them from absorbing energy from the death of her own cells was fueled into the spell. The roots and thorns that had protected her body and stopped her bleeding crumbling into light.

Hadō Number Fifty Seven, Sanzaimyōjō 散在 _{(Scattered Morning Star)}

That bright light shattered, breaking into countless fragments which zigzagged outward into branching paths throughout the inside of the barrier, spreading outward in a shimmering display, until the dark insides were filled with those brilliant burning lights, and once the space had been all but completely filled, those scattered stars burst, exploding violently in a series of deafening bursts, burning the inside of the barrier indiscriminately. An attack that would even cover Yuri herself with scorches and scores from that burning Kido, but it would also mean Hono had nowhere to escape that scattered carpet bombing of the training space.

But of course, even littering herself with burns and wounds, those mars on her flesh didn't last. As new roots began spreading along her frame, stemming the bleeding as her Zanpaku'to fed off of the pain and death of her body's cells to begin trying to recover and repatch the woman's injuries. Though it would take a bit of time, and until then she would be bleeding quite a bit.

Yuri couldn't help but smirk at Hono's token resistance. That struggle beneath her grip caused her to tense up, and Hono WAS slowly peeling out of her grip, but not fast enough to avoid eating the brunt of that spell, blasting the area they were training in, so that when Hono spat out those soft hissing words, Yuri simply smiled a bit wider. "Ho?~" She grinned as her hand was slowly peeled from the woman's throat. Her other hand raised up as promptly there was a loud SHINK, her Zanpaku'to wrenching itself from the top of the dome and slicing downward, aiming to slice across hono's cheek before burying into the ground a few inches from her head. Not many people noticed that thin root connecting Yuri to her zanpakuto even when it wasn't in her hand. Much less would imagine that she could still control it.

All the same, if she managed to land that hit, Hono would rapidly feel those roots begin growing into her cheek. But not with thorns. Rather, she'd feel a rush of roots spreading through her body as Yuri's hand pulled from her throat and rested over Hono's sternum, a soft warmth spreading through the woman's body as promptly, the injuries began to close up. Between her use of Kaido, and her zanpaku'to patching her back together, Hono would soon feel almost good as new.

"I'm not interested in your surrender. This fight is over. I've reached the point where my next move would be to injure you past my own ability to heal you. Which isn't quite my style when it comes to sparring with allies." She gave the woman a smug little smile. She was very aware that hono would be displeased. There was, after all, no clear winner. But as she herself told her students many times. Training wasn't about winning. It was about improving. And she felt that she'd pushed Hono sufficiently to not just see her growth, but further push and cement her point about using all the tools available to her.

Sure, hono would probably continue ignoring them. But if nothing else, she got a pretty good workout herself. Her eyes drifted to her own slashed wrist. Her zanpaku'to having managed the wound well enough, but only because she'd instinctively gotten some of those shards out of her.

"Might I reccommend. Not using your shikai in spars until you can control that ability of yours. It would have been rather annoying to have to lose a hand and become a partial cripple over your desire to impress me." She noted firmly.