An Empty Street After the Parade Has Gone [Vicente/Sabriel] [Open to 2]

Though her mind felt clouded as she clung on to consciousness, Mika could still feel her sword swing harmlessly through empty air. Whatever happened, her target was gone; though, not for long. A CRACK filled the air, immediately preceding a sharp pain along Mika's back causing her to stumble forward. It was this stumbling that saved her from having that whip wrap around her body, though it didn't stop her Shihakushō from being torn, revealing a bloodied laceration along her diminutive back.

Pain from her fresh back wound filled Mika's mind, but even more than that she realized something else was wrong, something potentially much worse. Despite a short time passing since crashing into that wall, the small Shinigami woman was still finding it impossible to catch her breath. On top of that, her chest felt like it was on fire, with a terrible sharp pain where she believed her left lung to be. Mika, though still feeling faint and having trouble organizing her thoughts, recognized these as symptoms of a collapsed lung.

Every attempt at a breath was pain. Standing was pain. Turning around was pain. Raising her mangled left hand was pain. But Mika still managed to do all these things, and with her finger pointed at Sabriel she managed to mumble out "Ha..dō...4....Bya..kurai" As wisps of azure energy gathered at her finger tip, Mika realized her vision seemed to suddenly tilt, and by the time the bolt of lightning shot at Sabriel she had crashed into the ground, the side of her skull bouncing off the road's concrete causing consciousness to finally leave her.

The temperature changed. He could feel the sudden chill that took over, as if all the heat in the area that had been present before suddenly vanished. That wasn't right. It had to be something relating to that creature's power. Given that it had spread the heat upon its unveiling, it wasn't too hard to figure out that the reverse was likely being done to provide some kind of boon.

'It's just a desperate final gambit.'

Six eyes narrowed as one sword isolated itself from the other five as it came to rest in front of him, a bone-white handle with vein-like protrusions, eyes laden along the handle and blade. A grumble mixed in with his words as he called to the depths of power within the weapon that was the nuclei for all Arrancar's strength.

"Crawl with enmity, Tocotl."

The quiet was broken with the sudden twisting, cracking, and snapping of bone, the tearing of hair and flesh, the eruption of spiritual power, and a horrible noise that tore from Vicente's throat, one that could be heard by all in the vicinity, mixing in with the blazing cry of his opponent as the two lunged forward at each other, the now half-spider letting out another hideous screech.

His Hierro threads had rearranged and wound themselves around his new form, granting him greater protection as he saw the proud glow of its sword. Thousands of eyes having taken the space of where a normal head was had locked onto Alastor, a wide, slack-jawed mouth dripping with venom. With a hand reaching backward in preparation to seize Alastor's shoulder, the Shinigami's sword had found purchase in the lower two sets of limbs on its left side.

Despite the protection it had, Vicente could still feel the searing heat as it sizzled and slowly began to work its way through his Hierro threads, as well as the protective base Hierro below it. His entire body felt like it was boiling from the inside out, and the pain only made him angrier, causing even louder, more horrid screeches to come from its throat.

But, as those countless eyes widened, its head suddenly let out a sickening crack as it turned slightly, its slack jaw quickly biting down on Alastor's right wrist, intending on biting clean through and taking an arm with him. And, just as the weapon was cleaving through the middle arm, his skin shimmered with a silver glow, before erupting forward into a violet burst of energy akin to shrapnel.

Regardless of whether his jaw had taken its intended target, Vicente suddenly lurched backward, two clawed arms on his left side now laying useless on the ground in front of him, both the limbs and their origins charred and smoking. With how hot the heat had become, the wound quickly cauterized itself, preventing blood loss, but, Vicente still seethed with hate and rage as he continued to back away, a small handful of his thousands of eyes looking at his severed limbs.

Not a word was spoken in response. All he could hope was that the creature had been dissuaded and, better yet, defeated. At this point, he didn't even care if the thing was dead or not.

That last spell caught Sabriel flush, pushing back the Arrancar a fair distance as she felt a gnawing pain bite through her body. Honestly, it was a rather frustrating turn of events but her anger swiftly changed to something quite different as the Shinigami collapsed to the ground. It appeared that she was well and truly done at that point and as Sabriel came to land beside the girl and kneeled down beside her, that was most definitely the case. The young woman had fought bravely but it appeared that she had just gotten in over her head.

It did leave her with the question as to what she should do now. The two male Shinigami above seemed to have completely forgotten about her for the time being, focusing entirely on their own battle. A part of Sabriel mused that she should probably get involved but having been somewhat of an afterthought earlier on in the fight…perhaps that was a waste of time. They could beat each other's brains in for all the dark haired woman cared and with that thought in mind, she would move into a sitting position, pulling the defeated Shinigami gently into her arms as though she was a doll.

He did not register the immediate loss of his hand, repelling the freak had been his goal. There was a greater reason for being here. It was to save lives as the number one priority and beating these two was only meant to accomplish that. If he couldn't beat them then he had to deny them, and so he used his boiling blood to help launch him away. That girl risked everything to help him, he didn't know her name, she was just one of the good people that did their job up here.

"Get away from her!"

The shout signaled his fiery rage faster than he could make the distance. It was a warning at the woman that wanted to get her filthy claws onto the little girl. He couldn't do anything right now except charge blindly at her while she had the hostage. To throw himself at the two of them with everything he had to make her think twice.

His teeth slowly dug into the attained limb as he watched his opponent start moving toward where his companion and her opponent were. Eyes narrowed as a loud buzz carried his forward in a series of steps, following him out of curiosity. But, as it cried out, all it earned was a few thousand eye-rolls. Vicente lifted a hand, pointing a finger toward Alastor, before adjusting for movement.

A black-colored Cero fired from one of his fingers, intending on making contact with Alastor mid-air, and upon contact, it would disperse into a thick, dark mist that would scramble the senses, physically and spiritually. Normally, it would also release a chilling effect, but, he was not stupid enough to think that a creature whose blood quite literally boiled that hot would be affected. Nevertheless, the colossal half-spider's body flickered as he burst forward in another series of steps, holding the now severed hand in his own.

Eventually, he came to rest next to Sabriel, an annoyed mix of a crackling and hiss coming from his throat as he saw her cradling the smaller, defeated one. Were he to bare any compliment toward them, he had interest, and, to some extent, respect, for this one's sheer force of will and ability to stand tall in such a scenario. The other one earned his praise and ire through its strength, but, it was this one that was especially peculiar.

He did not understand what would drive it to fight in the face of overwhelming odds. The logical answer would be to retreat, to use them as a frame of reference on where one wanted to be, and garner strength to ensure victory. A series of eye-twitches across the myriad caused him to turn away from the creature.

"Unless that one is more definitively out of the way, I suggest you leave it, and that we head to the rendezvous. It's barely worthwhile as a trophy."

With that, Vicente unleashed a quick, triple follow-up of those mist-shrouding, sense-scrambling Ceros to cover their exit, before he would begin his retreat.

Sabriel was rather thankful for her fellow Arrancar’s quick thinking as she was uncertain as to whether she could have actually fought the redheaded Shinigami directly. He was a powerful combatant, one who had seemed to shrug off her techniques and the dark haired woman was not arrogant enough to believe that she could have fought him at close quarters, she knew her limits. If the fight had shown anything, it was that the Arrancar of Desire needed further training for when her tricks failed to function.

“I suppose you are right.” She replied with a sigh, somewhat reluctant to leave the female Shinigami behind, curious about the sweet little mite. The more devious part of her mind did dearly wish to take the girl with her in order to see what made her tick but that would no doubt simply cause more problems in the long run and so the Arrancar lay the woman down and stood up.

Without another word, she would follow Vicente towards the rendezvous point, her debt to Akira now well and truly paid.