Cast Away That Flesh Under Your Mask [Safira, Shishiyuki]

What a bothersome lot. She had not expected them make her spend so many resources of hers but they had. Safira simply put it down to an inefficient use of the newfound power, if she had been more tactful then she could've saved herself the trouble. Regardless, the outcome had been the same as if they had not stood in her way. She had killed many shinigami and enacted a scene of devastation by which the shinigami or the Soul Society wouldn't be quick to recover from.

That was her only goal in coming here, not to defeat powerful foes but to clean the board of pawns. The balance of the universe couldn't be maintained by the few that were strong. It was the weak and plentiful that did the dirty work of maintaining balance and she was only here to tip it out of balance.

The opportunity to catch her breath only left her ready to continue this slaughter but on a more subtle scale. The layer of skin that had been turned to camouflage obscured her presence and the weaker shinigami seemed to not be as capable at noticing the distortion of air that gave her away,.

It made it easy for her to walk through the street as the shinigami she afflicted with her Mark were ordered by her second head, Ahab, to slaughter their comrades that spread out into further chaos away from her position and she retreated to a peaceful area. If she had to guess it was a private estate by its layout.

So she thought she might knock on some doors, these ones were more pathetic than she had imagined. So few opted to use those prized swords that made it all the more easier, the most interesting was proving to be the one that used a strange fire style but she was tired of games and her opponent was treating the whole situation like one and so when the woman immolated her and stated the flames could not be extinguished, she evoked Mashchith - sacrificing the burning skin and her last layer of it to return the attack.

"You mongrels."

She spat at the group of shinigami on the group, some were emblazoned with the symbol of some family she didn't care to learn the name of, others appeared to be actual members of the Gotei United. There were some she couldn't place but the strong stood out to her the most. The woman who was scarred from head to toe burning by her own technique in agony and the ghostly white-haired woman with eyes of blood lying unconscious in a pool of her own.

"Is this the best you can do?"


Heads: [Jeroboam | Ahab | Manasseh | Doeg | Ahitophel | Balaam | Gehazi.]

The state of the Seireitei could only ever be called apocalyptic. Their defenses had proven insufficient for Arrancar of this scope; the realm's defenders simply did not have the strength in such numbers as to fend off these attackers. As Vice Captain, Shishiyuki had not hesitated to leap into action, still dressed only in the hakama and sarashi of her training hours. Hollows were everywhere, it seemed, and the strongest of them were treating the Seireitei like little more than a sandbox.

Yet horror only arose in her heart when she felt the energy of one of the strongest vanish from its bout against two of Soul Society's strongest, and reappear in a place she knew all too well. Her foot slammed into the stonework below with such force as to shatter it, shunpo carrying her toward the Koizumi Estate at extreme speed as the wings of her shunko turned to little more than mist. She had no time to waste, not only for her own family, but for the sake of everyone her duty demanded that she fight for-

It was much too late. Her family lay strewn around the grounds, blood running in such numbers as to make it seem like rainfall. There was agony before her; the sight of those she held most dear, in states she might have only wished on her worst enemies. And the hollow, which had inflicted them, standing as if she was lord of this place.


Shishiyuki's body moved on its own.

She stepped toward the creature with only hate in every fiber of her being. She had suppressed her murderous intent for her whole life; it would not, in this circumstance, be contained any longer. The momentum of her step was carried into a Raitonsui as her knee shot toward the Arrancar with speed akin to a bullet. Yet even as her reiryoku spiralled into a drill of destructive force, she whispered an incantation, her voice making the chant sound for all the world like a vile curse.

"Souren Soukatsui."

The explosion of blue flame-like reiryoku cascaded from Shishiyuki's knee at the moment of intended impact. It was not simply meant to supplement the strike; the piercing nature of her hakuda was fully intended to force the spell into this creature's very being. To burn her from the inside out.

Hmm? What was this coming towards her with such intensity, even lacking when it came to sensing how a soul felt due to her preference for the environment. The malice was palpable, no matter. It meant to attack her but she wasn't slow by any means and a green sigil appeared at her back and the jaws of a draconic head began to appear with sickly green fire ready to spew out.

Or so it should've been before she felt it connect with her conjured head and it writhed in agony before the blue flames burned it from the inside out and the sigil disappeared. The recoil itself gave her a headache that caused her to snarl while dashing forward with her sonido to escape. It hadn't stopped her, that attack was not content with defying her. It meant to kill her.

"You seem very upset with me, a lot more than the other two were."

Safira taunted but recognised the threat that a wild beast could pose and the recoil had made one of the snake heads of her hair lame. Had she killed it or simply rendered it unconscious with that attack? It didn't matter, that head wouldn't be doing anything for her now.

No matter, she could take measures as she reached out for Kizuna among those afflicted with her Mark and she gave her Balaam's blessing. This could be a fun test of her abilities, before she was inefficient but this woman gave her an opportunity to understand herself better. It should be savoured as an opportunity her own maturation. Then let's begin with finding the extent of her Peri as she began to conjure it.

This woman may be able to obliterate pieces of her with strikes but Safira could be very difficult to pin down.


Heads: [Jeroboam | Ahab | Manasseh | Doeg | Ahitophel | Balaam | Gehazi.]

There was still no room for words in Shishiyuki's mind. There was hardly even conscious thought. There was only a thousand years of training, which had been all for a single purpose; to kill another. Her senses immediately noted the energy being formed into something, but it was reckless to simply attack something dangled before oneself. Instead, her step shot her toward the creature once more, the momentum effortlessly transitioning into an Ikkotsu which carried the strength of every muscle in Shishyuki's body.

"Touzanshou."

Her fist had been one of sheer malice, one intended to obliterate whatever defense was put before it. There was nothing more and nothing less than a millennium of murderous intent behind it. Even as she struck, however, Shishiyuki's eyes remained sharp. Her awareness of her surroundings was well-honed, and though she had not been so foolish as to simply let this foe leave her range easily. The 5-walled barrier began to form around them rapidly; success would mean that the Arrancar was, at least temporarily, locked in place with her.

Better for them both to be in the cage.

She had a lot to think about but they passed quickly. The state of the limp head was something different. They had been harmed before, this had been tested, but damage had not translated onto her - that meant that the attack had hit her despite not touching her. She would have to be more tactful then for this opponent's style was nothing to scoff at like the speed of the previous opponent.

As her opponent approached, Safira thought to demonstrate a bit of her speed once again but the idea had to change when their arena manifested. No, she didn't agree to this and so her approaching opponent was going to regret limiting her own options. Her hand reached up to the limp, useless, part of her that had resigned to its fate and she tore it off so that blood gushed out of the decapitated head.

"EinSoph Ohr."

It was no beam, it was an explosion from her body. She fully intended to blow this little box to pieces and the woman that thought it was smart to erect it. Well, at least her attack might deflect it somewhat. She hoped there were more miracles to be observed in this woman's body but Safira did not want them to touch her.

If she did happen to touch her though, the fruit that now orbited her would make sure that that touch better be lethal or she'd make her suffer the consequences for it.

Even if her cage was destroyed, the effort necessary to destroy it still served Shishiyuki's purposes perfectly fine. As the wave of destruction came toward her, Shishiyuki turned her body, her foot slamming into the ground as her back and shoulder rocketed toward the Arrancar, a flawless tetsuzanko which was further reinforced by another furiously whispered bakudo.

"Danku."

The barrier did not erect itself in the form of a massive wall; it simply layered itself atop Shishiyuki's own body, reinforcing her body even further as the full weight of her body, and all the strength she could muster, barrelled toward the Arrancar like a tsunami. The water-like wings of reiryoku which spilled from her back, violently rotating like a whirlpool, only further enhanced the technique. She was not afraid of the attack it had unleashed; she was not afraid of anything in this moment other than the notion that she might fail the countless Koizumi who had lost their lives.

Sorrow, fury, hate, all of these things flowed through Shishiyuki without end, and after her tetsuzanko had been completed, after she had simply burst through the unleashed attack without any fear of injury to herself, she whispered another spell, intent on ensuring that this creature regretted every moment it had spent here.

"Haien."

It was a cruel spell, undoubtedly. But cruelty, at this moment, was all Shishiyuki wished to inflict.

It did not stop her it seemed which was its own bother. Her opponent was fighting with reckless abandon and as long as she remained in this state, Safira had to concede that anything she did might have no affect in slowing her advances. Limbs could be erased and muscles could be unfurled without snapping her from this state.

Perhaps this might help, she used sonido to jump. Evoking Assiah to grab onto the corpses around them. Her foul presence manhandling them to converge on the where she had been and towards Shishiyuki like they were supposed to distract her. Just tools to be used.

Her jump was not one but a few different jumps with her sonido to leave sigils with each stop above the woman and the bodies of her kin that fired rays of green light onto them.

"Your anger at me is so amusing. It is only because of your own kind's feebleness that I was able to continue my destruction, your wings of hatred are certainly a sight to behold. However, if you want to curse someone for this disaster then curse the ones who couldn't stop me from enacting my will!"

Corpses were just that; corpses. Shishiyuki would not allow the bodies of her family to stand in the way of her avenging their deaths. She would have expected that very same approach of anyone in the Koizumi, and she simply bolted up toward Safira without hesitation, pushing through every obstacle in her path with that same burning hatred. She did not stop until she was faintly above the Arrancar, her foot raised high to prepare for an axe kick without any restraint. A modified houtou, her reiryoku spiraling out from her heel like a saw as it came down on the arrancar fast enough to crack through the sound barrier.

"Gochutekkan."

The motion of her downward kick served as the physical motion necessary for that bakudo's formation, five pillars forming in the air above them both and suddenly firing downward as if fired from a cannon. Every action Shishiyuki took was one with only singular intent; to kill this creature before one more person was made its victim.

The words it spoke did not enrage her, simply because she had already known them to be true. Her hate for those two was not capable of lessening the hate she felt here and now.

How many wounds did she need to inflict on wild animal? She was sent careening towards the ground when a her foe flew through the light and struck her. It made her smile on the way down despite the crater that formed with her impact.

"Doeg!"

It was both commanding the serpent to inflict its curse on the one that now bared her Mark for touching her and that the sigil appearing in front of her summoned the serpentine dragon to fire a ray of light towards the oncoming attack and Shishiyuki above.

Now this was just unsightly, skin torn from her body left muscles and bones exposed down the front of her torso with blood running down her body. This rabid dog had gored her.

"Enough of this trife. Shabbath!"

Joining the draconic head, five more grew next to it and joined in on firing their own attacks that ranged from a wide breath of green fire or rays of light. There should've been one more if not for the stump on her head. All seven heads work together to incinerate everything above her while she stood up, much like its namesake it required rest by the amount of stamina it used.

Shishiyuki would not relent. She would not fail like the rest had. Perhaps this defense was all simply an opportunity for glory to them, a chance to prove one's capabilities. It didn't matter right now. The bakudo she had cast had been allowed to complete, the five pillars now forming their chain and, ideally, locking her foe in place, even if temporarily.

She could discern immediately, from the flow of energy within her body, that the energy put upon her was something she could not allow to remain. Why was an enigma; its effects were hardly the sort of thing she could intuit in such a brief span of time. But any influence on her by this filthy creature needed to be treated as an immediate concern. Her reiatsu flared outward, the wings of her shunko shooting outward and growing larger as Shishiyuki fully pushed herself to her limits, intent on not only forcing the foreign energy out of herself, but on empowering this next technique to the utmost.

Kousei.

The Koizumi head simply launched herself downward, all her focus on this technique. Gravity assisted her natural abilities, speed and power all brought to their utmost as her single outstretched hand cut downward like a blade, a downward chop that could have cut through whole villages like an oar through water. She would cut through these attacks; she would cut through the Arrancar that had taken so much from her.

No matter what it cost. No matter how gravely she was wounded.