A Date With a Handsome Ghost [Klein, Open]

It had been fun enough to try and pick up a pretty lady, but Klein did have a reason for being here, and he couldn't quite afford to keep up any pretenses now. He hovered atop the wall that surrounded the Seireitei and watched his nibelungen continue to spread far and wide, within both the Seireitei and the Rukongai both. He didn't need to keep too much of an eye on them, thankfully; when they'd found a corpse that seemed of suitable value, they would simply activate a built in Emergency Kumon Capsule and return to the laboratory with their haul. From there, the girls back home could handle the processing.

Ah, what a wonderful little operation he'd put together. If he were a more stupid sort, he might have taken this time to really bask in the achievement, but Klein was anything but. His attention was on all of his surroundings, ready to raise countless layers of externalized hierro at a moment's notice. Every muscle in his body was tensed, his thoughts racing with everything going on in his surroundings.

Like a bird of prey watching for a meal.

"Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen..."

Lyza's voice was about as tired of this shit as she was, and it had all just begun. She counted each kill mentally in order to keep herself occupied despite how dull this situation was. Even in her atrophy, she was still capable. Lifting a hand, pointing a finger, and a single pale Byakurai caught one more body. Again and again she slew these lesser creatures who, surprisingly, seemed to be focused on something else. It was as if they were looking for something. Whatever it was, she didn't particularly care. As long as she did enough of her job, she figured that no one would get mad at her. No one that mattered, anyways.

And what was that in the distance atop the wall? Her senses were dulled from years of disuse, yet her body remembered just enough from her prime to function at a somewhat higher level. The lazy shinigami saw an Arrancar atop the closest wall that was merely watching. Well, if killing them saved her more work, then she'd happily meet them.

The only issue was that she wasn't fast, nor strong, so even when she used her reiryoku to help propel herself upwards into the sky, it wasn't at any particularly remarkable speed. Actually, it was remarkable. In that she was still somehow slow as shit. Her legs weren't what they used to be.

It would take her about a minute and a half from where she had been to get close enough to Klein to call out to him.

"Politely leave so as to spare me the work and I'll just let you walk away."

But even after saying that, she muttered under her breath an inaudible incantation for a barrier Kido. An Arrancar was an Arrancar still, and in her old age she'd still need to be careful.

"Hmm?"

The woman's slow approach had given Klein time to see her coming, but he was in a good mood, enough so that he didn't simply blast her on sight. Well, it wasn't just a matter of mood; she was cute. If she felt like turning sides, it'd be a real shame for him to blast her into dust.

"Sorry, pretty lady, but I've got a few things I need to pick up first before I can leave. Don't worry, though, I'll be out of your hair before too long."

Klein doubted that this woman was just going to stand there and let him do what he wanted, though. That was why he'd already begun turning several of the coins he kept on his person into soul-synthesized gold, the waste energy of the transmutation at the ready for when he needed to properly attack her.

After all, he wanted to waste as much time as possible. Every corpse his nibelungen brought home was one more treasure to work with.

Pick up a few things... So she had seen those less than average Hollows picking up corpses. And since this guy was the closest of the Arrancar, Lyza didn't have a hard time putting two and two together. As jaded as she was for the establishment, she wouldn't wish that kind of fate on most of her coworkers.

Finishing the quiet incantation for her barrier, a translucent, reddish-orange box formed around her suddenly. It was big enough for her to move around in it and didn't stop her next words from being heard, though they were a little warbly from the reishi interference.

"Well then, consider this a formal act. No hard feelings."

And then raising one hand to her chest, slightly clasped, she began to chant. "Ye lord. Mask of flesh and bone, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man. Inferno and pandemonium, the sea barrier surges, march on to the south."

Lyza then casually, without any immediacy to any of her actions, splayed her hand out and pushed it just barely outside of her barrier. "Hadō #31. Shakkahō."

But it wasn't just a Shakkahō from any ordinary Shinigami. Using an incantation would cause the spell to be used at 100% efficacy. The moment that her reiryoku gathered in her palm, it was like an explosion of pale red flames so voluminous that it obscured Lyza's figure in a single second, twisted around into the shape of a ball, and then was fired with enough force and velocity to put any typical Kido practitioner to shame.

Klein's smile fell quite suddenly as he felt the spell rocketing toward him. That wasn't normal. That wasn't normal at all, and it was only his own skill with sonido, as well as no small amount of hierro shells, that kept him from being totally incinerated by the spell. Even with that, he could feel a bit of a singe on his skin, his expression growing a little sour.

"No hard feelings, huh? Alright. You better keep that in mind when I'm done with you."

Pulling one of the coins in his pocket out, he flipped it toward the woman with a malicious grin. The coin itself glowed brightly as it was converted to soul-synthesized gold, but the energy of such a transmutation had already been spent, as a ball of flame grew in Klein's other hand. A miniature sun, comprised of the waste energy of such a tremendous feat. With a wink, he threw the ball at Lyza's shield, curious if the destructive orb would be enough, or if he would need to try harder.

Lyza's trained eyes weren't as fast as they used to be, so she didn't quite get to see Klein's movements until he had already moved away from her attack. That was to be expected when she was so out of shape. Already she was beginning to mutter another incantation under her breath, something hopefully much more usefu-

BOOM

That miniature sun violently burst against Lyza's barrier, dismantling part of it and no doubt hitting the frail Shinigami behind it. Billowing smoke filled the air, obscuring the results of the explosion for a few moments until it was washed away by a gentle breeze to reveal...

...the witch was still standing.

Only the front top-left corner had been broken through, the rest of the still hardened barrier dissolving into shreds of reddish-orange energy that dissipated into the atmosphere. Most of the damage had been absorbed by her barrier, but not all of it. The left half of her face was singed particularly harshly and her shihakusho, especially around her left arm, was literally on fire.

"That hurt." The old lady stated as if it wasn't painfully obvious. With a swipe of her arm she flicked away the burning remains that covered her left arm to reveal the charred mess that was beneath. It wasn't hard to damage her by any means, she was a fragile little thing, but only when it came to denying damage. From the singed skin that had been burned came little globs of that same reddish energy that, wherever it formed, would begin to heal Lyza's body and then slowly float away in the breeze like some kind of wisp. It was Kaido, and it took focus, but she was using a moment of down time to recover while she still could. Even though it had only been a moment, her face was already starting to look better, and the eye she had closed to protect herself reopened to glare at Klein.

"Hadō #4: Byakurai."

The word came so casually and abruptly that the only actual tell that Klein would get was Lyza lifting her unwounded arm to point a finger at him, and from that point came a flash of white lightning. It wasn't quite as strong as her Shakkaho, given that she used no incantation, but one flash was followed by another as Lyza began to fire bolt after bolt of white lightning with only a one, maybe one and a half delay between each shot at the arrancar's body.

Oh, oh, oh. Now this was really the kind of thing that caught Klein's attention. It was one thing for her to be a pretty, fragile thing; he had plenty of those in his circles. But a barrier of that strength, and her ability to heal herself so quickly even as she reformulated an attack, changed the tone of Klein's smile from chipper innocence to something much more sly. Even the assault of byakurai that flew toward him couldn't shake that glee, as he did his best to evade, and to create more than sufficient distraction by way of hierro shells alongside his own movements. Even so, he could feel more than a few glancing shots buzz past him, cutting into his flesh or even cutting his flowing hair away.

"Wow! You're no joke, pretty lady. You and I should trade notes some time!"

Pulling a handful of coins from his pocket now, Klein simply threw them into the air with no regard, hand tightening into a fist as each coin began to synthesize itself. The alchemical reaction of a dozen golden coins naturally created far more waste energy, a much larger burning sphere in his hand. Yet, far more pressing was the five other fireballs that formed in an array around Lyza's defenses.

The density of the reishi here in Soul Society was far too beneficial to Klein's tactics for him to just ignore it. He'd read reports about how a Quincy had once performed in Hueco Mundo; this, he understood, was simply the same principle. With a smirk, he threw the massive sphere toward his opponent, the others closing in on her from all sides.

It was deadly to most, certainly. But Klein wanted to see her defend. He wanted her to continue fighting. This was much, much, much too interesting to end so soon.

Lyza remembered this sensation. The searing pain, the death wails ringing in her ears, the adrenaline pumping through her every fiber. Yes, this was indeed a war.

"Spare me the chatter. I'm too old to find this fun." The witch stated firmly as Klein prepared his next attack. It was fast, sudden, and dense. The suns surrounding her along with the much larger final one left her very little in the way of options, but she managed to grit her teeth and pull off the only retaliation she could think of.

Lyza was slow, to the point of appearing geriatric next to most of her peers, but her awareness was still honed *enough* to leap upwards with a flip to turn herself upside down so that she could look upon the suns surrounding her and cross her palms to conjure another defense.

"Dankū." Was all she muttered, a translucent barrier forming in front of her to eat the five other suns' explosions before they could reach her. As for the other, she pointed a hand towards it and, subsequently, towards Klein as well. Her breath came in quick but heavy bursts. This was taking a toll on her as evident by the sweat dripping down her brow. Between casting all these spells she healing herself, she was starting to become winded.

Because she was already moving way more than she was used to.

"Kido #88: Hiryū Gekizoku Shinten Raihō."

With only a massive spark of blue lightning as a warning, a large chunk of Lyza's spiritual power concentrated in her palm before being unleashed in a bright eruption of cerulean energy. It was a beam that put most cero to shame, screeching through the larger sun that Klein had thrown at her. If it broke through, it would continue towards him, but otherwise would at least neutralize the threat hurdling towards her just then.

"That's okay, I like older girls."

Even so, Klein had been ill-prepared for that sort of power being lobbed toward him. The waste energy from Rheingold hadn't been nearly enough to try and compete with this sort of spiritual output, and he understood he had to react immediately within those few precious moments he had. Collapse Grenade? No, that couldn't be enough for this. There was only one answer, then, even as it displeased him enough to draw a scowl.


"Break, Lämmergeier!"

Six wings burst from his back, reishi drawing into him at a far greater pace than before, but he scarcely had time to act further. He raised his hand upward, layering countless shells of hierro in front of himself, confident, at the very least, that releasing his resurreccion would be enough to let him stave off what would have undoubtedly been a profoundly catastrophic attack. His gaze settled still on Lyza, undoubtedly looking down on her now.

"There's no chance I can convince you to come work with me, is there?"

Klein flapped his wings only once, an array of feathers shooting out across the battlefield and littering the ground below with them. Stone, corpses, empty land; he had no time to aim for ideal targets. He wasn't even targeting Lyza just yet, simply waiting to watch her next move.

Was she... going to die?

No, of course not. Lyza was sure her mind was just overexaggerating as a sort of knee jerk reaction. As it always did, of course. She was tired of it all, especially the feeling of war. Yet here she was. No matter how long she ran or how long she hid, war always found its way to her.

"I'm tired of working." Was her only response to Klein's question. Her typically listless expression replaced with the slightest of scowls. Her emotions breaking through her overpowering disinterest for but a moment, Lyza raised an outstretched arm to match Klein's release. She had to finish this now even if she'd rather take the easier route by running away. Today, Lyza simply didn't have that luxury. It was only a matter of time before the world caught back up with her, and now was that time.

"Take as you please..." Said the witch with clear disdain in her voice, eyes trained on her outstretched arm and grimacing as lacerations cut through her clothes and ripped open her arm from shoulder to wrist. "...Taiyo-shin no Utage."

From the wounds on her arm came no blood, not a single drop. It all evaporated into ash and embers that flowed from her arm, then swirled into a pillar of flames in front of her hand, singing her skin and burning her one remaining good hand. But it wouldn't stop over time. No, Taiyo-shin wanted Lyza to be proactive or some dumb bullshit, and so that left the first division member to grasp at the pillar of flames. Upon closing her hand, the fire dispersed to reveal a shining silver zweihander in her grasp.

"Kill me or leave. I don't care which." Lyza called out to Klein in a tone so casual that it would be hard for anyone to tell which of those two options she actually preferred. With the release of her shikai and the anger slowly growing in her chest, Lyza's limitations were removed. In her true power, she simply cast two spells. The first involved her raising her burnt hand which, upon inspecting it, it would be clear that some of the burnt-black flesh was returning to its normal coloration. Barely any at all, but some of it regardless. Enough for her to trace a symbol in the air while speaking a two-fold incantation. Potentially her last move of the fight if those feathers beneath her were anything to go by.

"Bakudō #8. Geki."

It was a paralysis spell intended to stop Klein so that Lyza could spend time incanting a proper attack spell. With no incantation, it wouldn't be particularly powerful. However...

"Ye lord, mask of flesh and bone, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man. Truth and temperance, look upon yourself with horror and then claw out your own throat."

It was a mixture of two-fold incantation and spoken-after incantation, empowering the paralysis of Geki while moving forwards to incant what was potentially her final spell, if those feathers beneath her were anything to go by.

"Hadō #33: Sōkatsui." She spoke, finalizing her second spell, with incantation, to hopefully, reasonably, end this fight before she burnt out. Blue fire erupted from her still outstretched hand, roaring towards Klein with a level of power that would make the many Kido practitioners concede their craft entirely.