A Meeting Of Blonde And Blue (Leona/Armina)

"Yes, I want power." Leona calmly confirmed, mentally going back in time to her very first meeting with Reppūmaru because Armina's question had sounded a lot like what the Zankaputo spirit had asked her. There was no point in denying it or trying to hide it behind lofty-sounding rhetoric about wanting to protect others that was not entirely true. Leona did want to protect others and to do her duty as a member of the Fourth Division, but she wanted personal power too. She wanted to become strong enough to attain Bankai and she wanted to become strong enough to never again be at someone's mercy like she had been a lifetime ago when the gang of young men had tied her up and fondled her before her older siblings Leonidas and Lucia had come to her rescue.

"I want to achieve Bankai because I'm not content with having just Shikai. I want to go further than that." Leona laid out a current goal of hers. That might sound redundant considering what she had just said about wanting power, but she was not going to lie about what she wanted. The blonde truly wanted to take her skill in Zanjutsu to the next level. She wanted to do that with all of her skills, not just the one she currently favored the most.

Leona did not have to try very hard to learn how to acquire the level of release above Shikai. The knowledge had been given freely from one Shinigami to another. However, despite being told what to do blonde had no idea how to actually draw Reppūmaru's spirit out of the eponymous Zankaputo and into the real world, but that would not stop her. Taking advantage of the line of communication she had established with the blue-haired Shinigami, Leona decided to ask the latter for a little advice while the mood was still somewhat pleasant.

"Do you need to meditate in order to summon a Zankaputo spirit into this world or is there another method?" Leona inquired. She wanted to learn something from the Fourth Seat if the latter was feeling like giving advice. If Armina was not willing to do so the blonde would just have to find another source of knowledge... if she could.

To Leona's surprise Armina gave her a step-by-step guide on how to go about bringing out the Zankaputo spirit. The blonde could not immediately wrap her mind around the finer points, but she understood the general idea behind the process. From what she understood Reppūmaru had to be defeated not in a contest of physical might but a contest of wills. Armina had stated that a lot of physical and mental preparation was needed before attempting to assert dominance over the spirit. Leona would have to keep that in mind for the future, but right now she needed to focus on the present and the question about the purpose of her quest for power.

Leona considered citing a noble cause such as wanting to pull her weight in the division or to be able to carry out her duties as a Shinigami, but in the end she chose to go with the truthful response.

"I want to become strong enough to one day try and earn a seat." Leona answered truthfully. She had another reason, but that one was of a personal nature and she did not want to waste the Fourth Seat's time on that. The blonde was much more interested in the finer points of attaining Bankai, but if Armina was wanting to talk about something other than the business of being a Shinigami Leona would be inclined to talk about it.

Leona figured that she would have to get the green light from the Fourth Division's captain to be granted a seat, but she was not aware that there were multiple seats to strive for. That news did not affect the blonde for long, though. Her ambition was still intact... she just needed to change it a bit from "getting a seat" to "getting a seat that's within my ability to keep." Leona only had conjecture to go on, but she hypothesized that the higher the seat she earned the more that the Captain and the other seated members would expect from her. In the meantime she had another question concerning the subject.

"Do you mean that there are tiers of seats?" Leona asked the blue-haired Shinigami the burning question of the moment. After asking that the blonde focused on what the seated member had asked of her, which was a question about what Shinigami arts Leona favored. There was no hesitation because she already knew the answer she was going to give.

"In addition to Zanjutsu I'm also reasonably skilled at Hakuda. I find that it makes a good fallback for when an opponent gets too close to effectively wield my Zankaputo, but that's just my opinion." Leona stated that Zanjutsu was not the only art she was capable of using with proficiency. She had gotten a lot of practice in mundane hand-to-hand combat by fending off creeps in the neighborhood trying to get handsy with her during her young adulthood and some of those principles were applicable to Hakuda, particularly the importance of footwork in offense and defense. For example, even the most powerful Hakuda strike would not be worth much if one was not able to quickly close in on the opponent to deliver the strike before the target could dodge or make an attack of their own.

Leona would have to train harder than she already was doing if she wanted a prayer of attaining one of the seats with a higher number, but knowing that there were twenty in all assured her that her ambition was attainable. She could earn a lower seat, give it some time to see how being a seated member worked, and if she wanted to advance any further she could challenge the holder of a higher number for their place. For the time being she would focus on training her skills enough to get a foot in the door and worry about further advancement later.

"I get the most mileage out of Zanjutsu and Hakuda, but I try to train all of my skills so that I'm able to take on any enemy. Speaking of skills, I'm OK at Hoho... my shunpo doesn't have anything that makes it stand out, but it gets the job done. Kido... Kido's another story. I can't tell you how many hours at the Academy I spent trying to improve it only to not get anywhere." Leona voiced her belief in the benefits of not committing too much to any one particular art. It definitely clashed with the beliefs of older Fourth Division members like Armina, but maybe the blonde's explanation that having a decent knowledge of all the arts would allow her to be flexible enough to fight any opponent might help make her point more palatable to the Fourth Seat. That was a big maybe, though. In the meantime the subject of her past came up... Leona would answer the question truthfully with nothing held back.

"I grew up in the Rukongai too. The 58th District of Northern Rukongai, to be precise. And I had to fight a lot to fend off creeps who tried to get handsy with me. They wouldn't take no for an answer, so I had to make my point in another way." Leona revealed that she too hailed from the Rukongai and hinted at a reason why she wanted power besides advancing her career as a Shinigami.