The Torchlight Hunt, Sunset Showdown [Ignacio, Tsubine, J.]

Again!? This was starting to really piss J off. A a man who preferred one-on-one close combat, his enemy a strong combination of close, mid, and long range combat was frustrating! Whether it was instinct or experience, J felt something wrong in that last step he took. His focus had been on his swing, but the hairs on the back of his neck alerted him to something more sinister, more explosive.

Eyes widening, his swing stopped before it really started and a desperate shunpo shot J backwards right as a moderately formed Danku created a shield between him and Ignacio. The shield, as expected, immediately cracked and then shattered, but it allowed for enough time for J to create a decent distance.

Still, that wasn’t enough. The explosion caught up with him and he was once again enveloped by this Arrancar’s attack. With eighty percent of his clothes burned away and second and third degree burns covering his arms, chest, and back, it was difficult to move. He did not stand again, but got to one knee and pointed his index finger toward Ignacio. There was no way he could stop, not until he got to Mayumi.

‘Unless our bodies break, we will get back to her,’ J said and pointed two fingers toward Ignacio. “B-Bakudo Sixty-one… Rikujōkōrō,” J said. He couldn’t get out the entire incantation, but he could try to pin Ignacio down. Six sheets of light flew inward at Ignacio, aiming at his waist and prepared to lock him in place.

Unmitigated against and uninhibited, the sheer destruction that poured out of the Arrancar was of a scale enough to compare to many of the other tragedies that Soul Society had already endured today. The courtyard in which they had once fought was simply no more, the centre of a crater with Ignacio at its core. But the destruction had stretched even further still, an entire city block-sized region of the Seireitei had been bathed in a heat that was as unyielding as it was all-consuming. Shinigami, Hollows, and other Arrancar were not safe from the blast. Those who had thought them free for a moment of respite were denied it, the weak turned to ash and those of some resilience left burned and blistered.

Ignacio wore no manic smile, his teeth gritted in a determined snarl. It certainly did not seem that he took any enjoyment from the devastation he had caused, but perhaps it was frustration that it had not served its purpose. The two warriors that had come to fight him were still as plucky as ever, singed but not yet torches. So they would blaze on together until one side burned out.

His sword was heavy enough for him to think twice about taking Tsubine on in another clash of steel, the complaints of his body from the strain of having released Desintegrarse prodded at his nerve ends, so he was left with little choice but to fight with the tools still at his disposal. He braced his body, his flaming sword turning into a makeshift shield as the flaming tiger atop his back hunched over him to act as a shield.

When his body was pinned in place by a Rikujōkōrō, his decision was only further vindicated. Between his efforts to guard himself and naturally tough Hierro, he could endure a round of sword swings without breaking. Unpredictable strikes did creep past that protection, cuts at his extremities drew blood and carved into him but Ignacio was no stranger to pain. He would endure it and remain standing, straining to break out of the spell at the earliest chance to continue to defend himself.

Exhausted, in immense pain, and focusing on leveled breathing, J stared at the Arrancar with his expected level of calmness, even if there was a rage boiling within the man’s gut. He sealed his bankai as he looked to Tsubine and gave the man a curt nod, ready to move find Mayumi, but something kept him there. He looked to the Arrancar, and Tsubine must have sensed it too. This one wasn’t just… evil.

Once Tsubine left, J walked up to the Arrancar. Taking a deep breath before speaking, he looked the man in the eyes. “We’re just men,” J said and then shunpo’d off to follow Tsubine. With each step he took, the pain that flooded through his body was a constant reminder of his need to get stronger. That fight should not have taken two of them, but it did, and J could barely call such a fight a “victory.”

In sensing what was going on around him, the number of reitatsu that were rapidly being destroyed and released was overwhelming. The number of men and women that were going to die today was unacceptable. And as he shunpo'd toward home, he only became more and more worried as he saw smoke billowing through the air.

Burning golden eyes watched the pair say their pieces and depart, pinned in place by the increasing weight of his sword and the slabs of light embedded into his waist. If they had stuck around then it was almost certain that all of them were not walking away and, though he might have wished to show some more confidence, he would not know if it would have been his time. A bitter stalemate then, igniting the sparks of future conflict. He would have liked to avoid such inconclusiveness but there was little else that could be done short of blindly chasing after them.

As J ended his Bankai and his blade returned to its original weight, Ignacio wasted no time in shattering the spell that bound him. He was not yet spent, nor was he able to face more strong opponents like them though. Others might have contented themselves by wading into the masses of lesser souls and drinking their fill, but that was not Ignacio's style. Those who crossed his path and chose not to flee from the flames might well realise their faux bravery was misplaced, but he was not here simply to slaughter.

The Torchlight Hunt would continue to stalk the Seireitei.