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

Should she allow a second one? It made her grimace to have to acknowledge this dog of a shinigami but her patience was coming to an end like the missing flesh down the front of her. All of her defences had been thrown away, wasted, and that left one more trump card to be spent for the adversary that was crashing down through light and fire.

This hellhound would not touch her. Of that she was going to make clear as her wings stretched and she forcefully made her ten horns glow all at once. It was an exertion to do and the pressure on her body told her that this wasn't sustainable like how she normally used it. Then she'd make a point to demonstrate the disparity between them in one fell go.

To accomplish that, Chochmah glowed in response with her transient spurt of power and added a further amount of resistance onto the aggressor.

"Bare your fangs all you wish, it is futile in the end."

Her only defence left became her offence while reaching up to meet the attack and give it some resistance to slow her down. Just enough that she could fire a barrage of green lights and send the wild dog on its back. She was as certain as the sunrise.

The gulf between Shishiyuki and her opponent was immediately apparent as the creature made its second release. Despite all of her skill, her strength, her fury, Shishiyuki could not match such raw power.

But that did not mean she would not try. If she fell here in battle, then it would mean the death of the Koizumi. It would be the end of everyone that she loved and held dear. No, she could not abide such a failure while she still drew breath, while she was still standing and able to fight. Falling back?

Never.

Hangetsu Taishou. The flow of her reiryoku focused solely in on her legs; she needed only those to succeed here and now. With a final burst of speed forward, Shishiyuki reinforced her body to the best of her ability, muttering the chant for Danku under her breath to give some faint mitigation. It was only for the sake of getting close, however, for one final effort.

With the momentum of her step, Shishiyuki's leg scythed toward the arrancar in front of her. Her kick carried no simple hakuda technique; within it was the imperceptably small rotation of the Mugen. A rotation at such speed, and condensed into such a small area, that the point of impact was unable to even bleed. It simply created a total vacuum at the point of impact, all flesh and bone drawn into itself.

Her body could not tolerate any further battle. She had weathered grievous wounds simply by throwing herself toward this arrancar in such a way. But if she was to die, then she would die in this way.

"Ahahahaha, the little whelp rushes to her demise. How amusing but allow me give you some repose from your anguish."

She cackled and admonished her assailant. It had been a remarkable demonstration for such an insignificant creature, she had not expected this outcome. Alas, it mattered not. In her next attack she'd erase this unsightly woman in one blast or let her corpse be feasted on by her kin if there was anything left.

"Take your final words, shinigami. I'll simply step away and destroy you, it's hopeless to try and reach me."

Safira reached out looking for the Mark on her foe but it was not there, no matter she'd just have to do this in a more plainly. She was still faster and her spiritual power was greater, so it shouldn't matter. Just a single blast of her EinSoph Ohr like this would suffice and the ominous light forming behind her was the beacon.

Or so it should be if she didn't invest her attention so closely onto the target, she was ill-prepared for the hands of a wretched creature clasping at her ankle that couldn't hold her in place but did make her stumble in her place. Just enough to recognise that the burning garbage she had sentenced earlier gave an opening to her stomach.

There was her opening. The Mugen had kept any immediate retaliation at bay, and now her single opportunity had made itself apparent.

No. That wasn't true.

Her family had made it for her.

Every fiber of Shishiyuki's being put itself into this final technique. There would be no second strike. There would be no followup, there could be no followup. Her fist tightened, and she shot her fist toward the Arrancar's stomach with every possible ounce of strength she could manage.

Shokkotsu.

The refinement of Ikkotsu into something which could only have been mastered by Shishiyuki herself, a spiral of reiyroku which barreled forward with such intensity that it would rip the opponent apart from the inside. It cleaved a gaping wound in the earth beneath and behind the creature, such was the intensity of the blow, and that, in itself, was one more thing Shishiyuki had intended.

She knew that there was no saving this woman who had been her friend. Who had been one of the few to ever earn her respect. To that end, she would never dare to let her death be to some filthy creature like this. She would die in the way one of her stature deserved; with the greatest technique Shishiyuki could bring to bear.

"Impossible... That you... a disgusting, vile, creature..."

She looked at none of them but addressed them all. Resentful, spiteful, malicious. Even as her stomach turned and was torn apart into a gaping hole that threatened to separate her into two pieces.

This would not end here. This saga did not end here because she decided it, she wrote it at the very beginning of this encounter. The story did not end how she envisioned but the final words would be told by her.


The last air of her destroyed lungs spat out the word of her final emanation. The most vile and disgusting of curses for those that opposed her. This would be a fitting punishment and from her destroyed body spewed a foul black ichor that flew out in all directions and became a caustic puddle of toxicity. For those that didn't die, they would become hollow, her opposition would either die or became the very thing that they had tried to destroy.

Still, like a signal of impending doom, her wings blackened and wilted away. The elegant white of her divine visage returned to the form of a wicked beast. The form of her Olam Ha'zeh didn't hold for long as parts of her began to break apart into ash that disappeared in the wind.

She had driven away this creature.

In that, Shishiyuki had to accept her success, no matter waht the cost, no matter what it demanded of her. The vile blackness that washed over her was something that she could not fight back against, no matter how hard that she wished it. But if she took it into herself, then surely, that would keep it away from anyone else in her house.

So be it.

She would become so vile as she must, would take in this evil, without restraint. As her body collapsed to the ground, white forming over her face, Shishiyuki brought her hand upward, fingers gripping the mask with such intensity that both it and her bones cracked.

No matter how long it took, no matter how agonizing. She would make this curse her own strength. It would simply be one more scar that she would bear from battle.

Sink into a pit of despair... Your wings carried you and you touched me, and this day will haunt you for the rest of your wretched life.

Final words that were not spoken for there were was no air in her body to make them but the sang from the back of that vile woman's mind like a creature that had made itself at home in the furthest recesses of it. Borrowing deep so that it wasn't going to be purged like the Mark had been. Her figure finally dispersed into the wind, the foundation of her soul was already seeded in another, leaving the blemished shinigami to her dead and dying.

A miracle is what she would show to them all and with it there would be no question or doubt for those that cast scepticism on her. It left her with a peaceful smile, it was better this way. Power could only go so far but to defy reason itself was the symbol of transcendence - and they would recognise it. Shinigami, hollows, there was not a soul that could question her now.

Her last thoughts as all traces of her spiritual pressure vanished from the Soul Society.

The sound of pulling the mask from her face was not half as wretched as the feeling which accompanied it. Shishiyuki hated that feeling, but she had overcome it. Forced herself to do so, for the future of those she loved. And, when it came to that matter...

She picked herself up, wincing in pain from the injuries that crossed her body. No, better to hold back any sign of pain here, in this place. Her family had suffered much worse, and among them-

"Kasha."

Shishiyuki knew that this woman had no chance to survive with such grievous wounds. The two of them would share no more words after this, and so she knew she needed to use this opportunity to its best. She thought to say something eloquent, refined, the sort of thing that the head of a family might say.

But, that would not have been true to their bond. She felt the sting of tears in her eyes, something she had not known since she was practically a child. That grief had been pushed aside in her fury, but now, the sorrow weighed upon her like a mountain. Her voice, in spite of everything, was weaker than ever typical for her, a tremble undoubtedly present in the voice of the Koizumi family head.

"I'll never again hide the scars you've given me. What should I say to your successor?"

Regrets. In the instant the technique that had changed the course of my life had been returned, I was dead. Even if by some miracle had I survived, the person I had become was burned away. Centuries of memories came to mind in a clarity for someone like myself who spent so much of my time trying to forget them with the thrill of combat or with drops of alcohol. The cold feeling in my burning body was a funny thing. It's the finality of my life that makes me want to say the most, to leave behind all my feelings and experiences with another person so that they could at least know who I was.

I don't have the luxury of time or the strength to say them all though. Maybe if I was not a hypocrite I would've said them sooner and lived honestly.

"Mi... ko... to..."

I hate that name. Regardless of the pain, I must say my name. I didn't choose how I lived but I wanted to choose what was on my gravestone. That name is like a curse and I understood why Miki insisted on retaining her identity rather than the title of Suisha. The traditions of their family, the Koizumi, the five elemental families of it, all of them were things I rejected but allowed to define me anyway.

From the moment my teacher burned my face, I had let myself die and become a twisted person. He robbed me when my life became a single-minded pursuit of revenge since then and once I had finally killed him I had become Kasha. Identity, pride, friends, I had given them all for an empty feeling at the end when I had lost all purpose for my being here. Blazing wings I created for my envy of the birds and their freedom were turned into tools of murder.

I wonder then what I should say to her. Knowing I have too little time to say much, I've wasted so much time that being told I now have so little is as painful as this burning body. I could not tell her to apologise to Miki for me nor could I thank her for being here right now.

So my thoughts remain on the one that will succeed me once I pass away, I wonder what he'd think of this situation if he were here. Maybe he'd say something callous or break into tears, or would that just be the mask I had taught him to wear when I went there that day and demanded the Koizumi orphan that possessed the fiery spiritual power.

I had raised that child as a baby but I had failed from the very start, I had never given him a name, but deep down I didn't trust the person I had become to be much of a stand-in mother either. It wasn't right and so I didn't. Of course I already knew what I would've called my child if I had one, I knew from a time before I even became "Kasha" like any young person might dream of their future. They'd want the same endless expanse of possibilities and potential for their children, no?

"Sora... Do you think he'd like it, Shishi?"

Shishiyuki might have wept, if she were not so exhausted as it was. But her body did not have that sort of energy left in it, and so tears simply fell without sound, streaming down her bloody face as she answered the question posed to her.

"Yes. He would love it."

Her fist tightened in grief. Even as empty as she now felt, as desperately as she still wished to tend to everyone in her house who remained, how could she abandon this dear friend of hers, who had given her life for their sake? She would not dream of denying her these final moments. It would stain her dignity unlike anything else ever could.

"Rest well, Mikoto. I will make certain that Sora lives a good life. Your dreams, your ambitions, your memory-"

Ah. It seemed Shishiyuki did still have energy left to cry, as she found herself unable to utter yet one more word. How she wished there was so much more time to speak. But perhaps it was for the best that her own sorrow had cut her short, for she did not wish to let this woman pass without hearing one thing above all else.

"I love you very much, my dear friend."

She could not keep her voice strong. What a failure she was, even now.