Clovers Under Shade [J. Saionji]

Although he should've been training in his own barracks at this hour, Patel found himself pacing outside the 6th division barracks, walking up and down the promenade that divided the enforcement division's commons and training area. He had an unfurled scroll in front of him that had begun to discolor from handling and weathering. Upon it was a list of names, with ranks and locations, as well as a brief paragraph of notes for each. Patel was fixated with one particular entry on the scroll:

"J. Saionji
Noble, 6th Squad, Head of Men's Association
Difficult?"

Patel sought a skilled expert in Kido to learn from, but despite pursuing a master for years, he had little more than his notes from Shin'o academy and what little he gleaned from the occasional exhibition. He had even tried to access the records of the old Kido Corps---but with his very lowly rank, Patel doubted he would receive an answer to his document requests for at least a decade. He needed to learn from a live person... -but, masters of Kido comprised a lofty elite, all of which probably had no time for an unseated commoner.

Instead, Patel had a new idea: appeal to a noble expert's status by challenging them in public. He doubted he could be ignored then. At worst, he might be exploited---he'd certainly lose---but as long as he lost while witnessing spellcraft, Patel didn't mind crawling to the medics and going on crutches for a while.

Patel rolled his scroll shut and then set forward, entering the 6th Division's barracks during regular training hours. He tried to carry his scroll of personal notes like it was an important document, perhaps hoping the other Shinigami would assume it was a message for someone and thus let Patel slip by, but he soon encountered another problem: there were at least a few dozen Shinigami out in the open air and within the open doors of a dojo, populating the 6th division training grounds with plenty of unfamiliar faces. He hadn't even seen J. Saionji in person yet, how could he pick him out from a crowd-?

He decided on approaching a large group, holding his scroll in the crook of his arm. Patel cleared his throat and did his best to sound formal: "Is J. Saionji present?" Patel inquired aloud, as if he were here on orders.

Patel turned-around, but soon double-took before a 6'4" giant of a man. Patel was at least two heads shorter than him! -and not a physical equal in the slightest; a comparison of their bodies would've been like holding sticks beside trunks. Truthfully, Patel was not sure what he had expected, but it certainly wasn't a goliath.

More than towering bulk---at least when compared to Patel---J was different: he looked clean and dignified. He wasn't the first 'giant' Patel had seen, but he was one of the first noblemen Patel had ever met in-person, and the physical disparity between them played into Patel's biases about the upper class. Albeit, this time- Patel just felt inferior rather than jealous or angry.

No time to gawk, though. Patel tried to wipe the fear and awe off his face before doing his best to stare-down a man that was an order of magnitude greater than him in stature, status and rank. "I've come to challenge you to a duel: my Kido against yours." Patel declares matter-of-factly, mostly keeping a composed and serious look about him as though he had some deep-seated reason to come after J. Saionji specifically. Though, in spite of his best efforts, it's a little hard taking Patel seriously if only for the angle he has to tilt his head up at just to hold eye contact with the 6th Division officer.

Hearing that little warning in J's tone---a polite, dispassionate reminder of what was at stake---reminded Patel of the risks he faced here. Unlike J, Patel did not have any pride on the line, but he was a thin reed putting itself against the strong winds of a large storm; humiliation would be nothing, but it was very likely that he would soon be in great pain.

Patel felt a natural instinct to nervously laugh it off and just hand-over the scroll as expected, like it was all a joke. In the brief milliseconds after J's warning, and Patel's processing thereof, Patel already lusted after that option. Several thoughts buzzed through his brain like bubbles in a pot of boiling stew: "We'll find someone else", "This is too improper to be correct", "We're too outmatched..."

But Patel also knew the dread of not progressing, of getting nowhere. He may have become Shinigami but he was still a lowly wretch with no connections that could bring him the knowledge he needed: he would have to take it, somehow, even at hardship. "I am Patel Kuzunoha." He introduces- pausing only because he wasn't sure what else he could say that might make his challenge authentic. But then, he remembers Sasori...

Tucking his scroll away, he does his best to feign a cold and intense stare up at the taller man's head. "If my Kido can defeat yours, it will be the same as layering the Kuzunoha name atop your house's." Patel says... uncomfortably, if only because it felt like something a different person would say, but he was sure that'd get the rise out of J that he needed.

Like a first-time cook who uses far too much heat and salt, Patel reeled internally for the intense sharpness in J's glare: it sliced through all the pretenses, all his preparation---there was nothing left to clothe the impudent upstart from his mistake.

But he still had his prize. It would only cost him more in the end. Patel backed-away towards a growing ring of 6th division members who cast a variety of expressions toward him. Entertainment- apprehension- anxiety- Patel could see a lot of emotions in the crowd, but they all pointed towards his defeat. Rather than feel discouraged, though, Patel felt refreshed that not a single onlooker showed any confidence in him.

It meant that J was the real deal. Everything move he made, he'd be at a disadvantage, so he decided on opening with the best move he could make quickly.
"Disintegrate, you black dog of Rondanini-" Patel spoke in a frenetic tone. His right index finger draws glyphs and mantras in crimson light through the air, before finally pointing in accusation toward J himself. "-Look upon yourself with horror and then claw out your own throat! Bakudo #9: Geki!" Patel shouts, planning to first catch J in Bakudo before attempting a Hadō follow-up... though he expected not to catch him on the first try, not even with Geki.

Patel was making an effort, but paid too much attention to what J was doing when he should've been paying more attention to his own spell. It looked like J was going to perform the same spell as him, only... “Geki.” ... no, it couldn't be!

A brilliant red light enveloped Patel's dark skin in a cloak of oppressive power, weighed against the lesser Shinigami. Patel clearly tried to resist: his head lurches up and back, showing a bobbing adam's apple that battles for breath. His entire body shakes, trying to push himself just a little more to cast the spell- ... but J. Saionji was of such a superior level of both power and mastery, even Patel's diaphragm had been paralyzed, and could no longer rise-and-fall to make him breathe. The blood slowed in his body and his heart stuttered; even without incantation, J's Geki had cast a penetrating paralysis that ran systemic throughout Patel's body.

The only thing he could do was think: 'how was that possible?!', but before Patel could manage any meaningful analysis J had propelled his own Hadō in sequence upon Patel, using the very same strategy Patel himself had in mind. It was only Shō, the most basic Hadō, so Patel's spirit wasn't quite broken yet and he willed himself to stay calm so that after this spell he could retali- ... *shrr-iip!*

Patel's spiritual pressure was so miniscule against the weight of J's own power, it couldn't resist the superior Shinigami's Shō in the slightest: the chest of Patel's gi tore immediately upon impact, blown-outwards with so much force it ripped before it could stretch. The young Shinigami himself flew backwards directly into the chest of another Shinigami, a tall well-built sort like J. Saionji himself, who seemed not to budge in the slightest as Patel bounced off him into a face-down heap against the ground.

Patel did not have much experience, but immediately reflected on what combat he had been in previously: that Hadō #1 had felt exactly like being punched or swiped by a large Hollow. Patel looked up with wide and desperate eyes like a cornered animal. He hadn't seen any tricks, did not even have a clue as to how J skipped incantation yet retained such power, and worst of all feared he was about to soon lose without learning anything. "-sorry, but I need your help again, just a little longer!" Patel spoke while drawing his Zanpakuto without grace: he felt just just a bit disoriented from the sheer physical shock of J's Hadō #1.

Some Shinigami watching the 'duel' groaned or clamored at the low-ranking Shinigami daring to draw his sword against an unarmed opponent. Others, however, looked more interested as Patel flicked his wrist to rotate the katana and point its rusted edge at himself. "Persecute him, Yomi!" Patel recited, while pressing his thumbnail into the Zanpakuto's edge as if to divide the pages of a book. His own blood is drawn from a cut underneath the nail, but then- the sword actually begins to open like a book.

Yomi's rusted blade loses integrity, slowly liquefying while a foul black-red cloud of gore both liquid and particulate billows-up from where Patel had 'opened' it. The remains of the Zanpakuto collapse inward, seeming to decay and rot into a mass of skin that grotesquely reshapes itself into a book. A devilish face protrudes through the skin of its front-cover, opening two bloodshot eyes to behold the world in complete malice. "Ye lord! Mask of blood and flesh, all creation..." Patel began in incantation---at which the book of Yomi began to stir, its skin-pages undulating with a foul life of their own.

But in spite of it all, Patel had probably run out of time- for in the time it took him to release his Shikai, he would likely find himself on the receiving end of J's own attack. The only way he would finish Shakkaho's incantation would be if J let him do it.