Getting back into Action

[Faiz Sugiura]



A cool breeze was slowly moving in between the trees. The forest around these parts was dangerous, not to say, deadly for any human or regular Shinigami. Hollows reigned these parts of the human world, like so many others... Only a few daring souls entered these parts, and even fewer came back. Even the trees seemed twisted, the plants having an ominous aura around them.
In the midst of this area, a single figure was sitting on a large boulder, one of the remainders of a big fight in the past, most likely. This figure was seemingly unaffected by the cold winds blowing tonight - the sun had disappeared some hours ago. It could also steem from the heavy, dark brown and black clothing wrapped around the whole body of this being, combined with a fox mask on the face. The wolf-like ears on the head twitched a bit. Soon, it would be time. No Hollow dared to even crawl near - they all could feel the aura around this warrior of the Sugiura clan. This being was like the silence before a huge, deadly storm.
"Summon, Susano'o." the voice dulled by the mask, it was impossible to tell the gender of the warrior by this alone. Slowly, wind began to circle around itself, forming the figure of a tall samurai-like warrior with wide shoulders and two swords tied behind him, together with long, black hair. This was Susano'o, her Guardian Beast - one of the 'ancient' japanese gods. Wasn't it ironic how he was called ancient now, when his time as a god was so short compared to the time as a warrior spirit? Time was always moving, never stopping. It was cruel, unforgiving and greedy - taking away memories and feelings from the past alike. Nothing could stop the flow of time, not even the strongest storm.
"He will be here soon... the partner we requested. Are you ready, Susano'o?" The dull voice behind the mask asked.
"I am always ready. This will be a good training to get back into it... and we need that, especially with what we felt this time. The wars of the past are nothing compared to this." The voice of the god was deep and full, like the thunder after a huge lightning arc striked down. Since Sugiura and the Gotei 13 were allies, it had been easy to request a training partner from them. The only hard part had been to convince them that someone under Captain level wouldn't be able to train more than five minutes with 'Faiz' before falling on the ground face first.

The setting sun gave a luminescent glow to the forest, thick though it was. It's light tinted the woods with a bright amber. Within the forest, this almost heavenly glow seemed ironic to the dangers that lay within the forest, however to the two that were to reside two tonight, it was mere entertainment. A shadowy figure began to waver in the distance of the trees, seemingly to give off the impression of a approaching human, or at least a human-like figure. It was defiantly not a hollow, however it gave not the slightest drop of reaitsu. Silent as the night, the man walked from the edges of the trees and into the ravaged clearing of debris.

He seemed almost human in this rather deceiving setting. It was obvious that he was the opponent of the two, however it seemed more or less a joke. Someone with absolutely no reaitsu being sent to fight these two? Even when one was a god? Simply nonsense. Could it be the opposite, someone so skilled that they had to need to use their reiatsu? It was surely a mystery unless you knew the man.

"I'm taking it you two were with the Suigara? Or whatever the hell they call it." Sonomori seemed almost annoyed at the sight of the two figures. "If I didnt know better I'd feel like I was getting tricked, seeing two people like that. A bit of an unfair advantage, having two bodies in which to use your power." A deep sigh slowly escaped from his lips, the annoying expression quickly fading. His eyes wandered to look up at the setting sun, watching it as it passed below the horizon.

Darkness began to fall over the forest, both the destroyed and the preserved. Light faded from the sight of the two, replaced with the new coming light of the moon. Dim though it may be, a reiatsu began to flow outwards from the previously reiatsuless man. It was as if reiatsu was returning to his body after a long sleep. His body began to glow, letting out a suffocating amount of pure reiatsu and almost instantly vaporizing the rock beneath and around his feet. His eyes moved back over to the two, "Sorry about the release of massive reiatsu, I nearly forgot to control it." The glow began to fade and his reiatsu began to stabilize, the man taking a deep breath after his statement.


Previous flowing particles began to swirl around his right hand, materializing into metal. However, it was not metal, but a condensed form of power that had come straight from within the man's body. This metal began to take the form of a weapon, a scythe with flowing chains from the bottom that seemed to move like the bodies of snakes. It's mass seemed large, the blade of the scythe being twisted and ravaged, giving it a Gothic design that seemed to put a single thought within your head. 'Death'. "Well, I suppose we should get this started eh?" He spoke as he moved the massive blade to his shoulder, preparing to fight with them.

[Faiz Sugiura]



"You still have a lot to learn, boy." Susano'o said with a chuckle. The sudden shock of Reiatsu seemingly exploding out of the body of this Shinigami would've been able to knock out quite some people cold, but not a millenia old Sugiura. Slowly, Faiz stood up from her position, revealing his enormous height. No movement of the face was even slightly visible behind this mask, not even the wolf ears on the head moved. This weapon looked a bit intimidating, but both had seen worse. For Susano'o, that 'worse' had been the eight-headed serpent.
"I am the Guardian Beast of Faiz - what you would call a 'Zanpakuto Spirit' is what comes my existance nearest. Though we don't need a master to fight every time." Slowly, Susano'os appearance faded away, disappearing into a strong gust of wind blowing away the dry leaves on the ground around the boulder.
"I am Faiz, Warrior of the Sugiura Clan. May your blade never break." With one swift motion, the tall figure jumped down from the boulder, the monotone, dulled out voice made it once more impossible to find out anything about what was behind this mask. Raising her right hand, Faiz spoke once more. "Come."
This was as much of a mocking as you could het out of this warrior, as the being flicked the fingers of the raised right hand - out of the sudden, a strong, devastating storm gale broke loose, aimed directly at Sonomori. Would he try to just run against it, then the wind would hurt his eyes, make it harder for him to see, and slow him down quite a bit. Head-on attacking Faiz would be one of the worst ideas ever, especially since with the left hand, the being slowly drew out the sword on her side. The blade looked like a normal katana, but a chain was wrapped around the upper part of the handle, the crossguard and the undermost part of the blade. This was the blade of Susano'o - even without releasing any of her forms, this Sacred raised concentration and Reiatsu up, and enabled the use of the sacred Sugiura magic no other race could even hope to learn.
"Hoi!" If Sonomori had heard even a tiny bit about this barrier-based magic, then he should know that Faiz just designated him as the target of the next spell - or maybe even herself, you never knew unless you could read body language and eye movement. Seeing as the eyes where hidden in the darkness of the mask, that was out of question, though - and much body language wasn't there, seeing as the right hand was still raised, releasing the strong gust of wind.
"Zekkai!" Suddenly also thrusting forward the left that held the sword, it was clear who was the target of this spell, as a single blade made out of energy was send out of Susano'o, aimed at Sonomoris chest. Should he dodge, he had to be careful not to still get taken in by the homing ability the attack had thanks to the 'Hoi' spell, or else it would simply stab him in the back. He had to either dodge twice, so that the energy of the blade ran out, or block it off and desintegrate it - and that all while either going up or sideways to get out of a wind-blast that made moving harder. Or maybe he would still try to dash forward? If so, then he would need to be extremely quick in order to block off the blade.

Sonomori's eye's seemed to dull at his opponents attacks. "Wind eh?" He seemed to say this with a bit of a intrigued voice as his body began to break down into a black mush. This mush was weightless, and completely hollow. It was a living shadow. The shadow quickly seeped into the ground before the wind was even near him, throwing off the homing ability of his opponent. His opponent's attacks sped past where he had once stood, the blade of energy pounding into the ground where he had dissipated at, and thrusting all it's energy into it, thus depleting it all.

A lump of black began to arise on the rock that they had once stood, taking form and detail in the instant that it made contact with the air. "Not bad, though Im a bit faster than you originally anticipated." His voice echoed out from behind the masked figure, seemingly teasing the person that it was directed at. "I shall warn you now, simple attacks wont even come close to damaging me." As his words came from his mouth, the chains on the other end of his scythe began to rattle, giving off an extremely eerie sound. It was as if they were weeping in despair. They quickly formed small cones at the end, sharpening them with the emotion of hatred.

Like snakes, they split up and shot outwards at the back of the masked figure, aiming for general areas such as the back, legs, arms, and head. There were 5 chains in total. Two chains went for the legs, one for the back, one for the right arm, and another for the back of the head. However, this was not all. The man pointed up with the tip of his finger, aiming it plainly in the direction of his opponent. "Shakkahou, Byakurai, Seki" These were the words of kidou. But three at once? Fire began to form at the tip of his hand, being a white lightning beginning to circle around it as the Seki held the form of them all in the shape of a ball.

The ball of flames and white lightning quickly launched off the man's finger, holding about the size of a normal shakkahou, but it seemed almost as if it were compressed greatly. The chains saw that their master was using another attack, moving to allow it to strike at the opponent, but now locking on the target they were giving and coming from surrounding directions. The kidou suddenly began to expand, growing to the size of a large car as the seki began to crack. It was clear now that he had compressed the figure using the seki. However, this was not all. If the rapid release of this energy were to come off near his opponent, the white lightning would jolt out at an uncontrollable speed and attack anything that was near. It was the simple rule of conduction. Not to mention the flames of the shakkahou would burn anything that they touched, and inevitably make a large explosion. How would his opponent face this surprise attack from behind?

[Faiz Sugiura]



So he escaped by using shadows as his way... not bad. He has some magical powers running through him, that was for sure after only a few moments of battle. However, he still had to learn not to praise the opponent and not stand around doing nothing while doing that. These few words where he didn't act where enough to antacipate exactly where he stood, Faiz was a master of the storms, after all. Not being able to tell from where a sound was carried by the wind? Never.
Judging from the sound, about five objects where aimed at her backside, anticipating where exactly would be dangerous and hard to block off - especially since there also was a rise of Reishi behind her back. The black cloth was actually pretty damn decieving... most likely, one or two of thse objects would only leave small cuts, even if they did hit. But this was not the time for lucky play. The beings luck was that this brat had no idea about what the Sugiura magic could do.
"Joso!" After the word was spoken, a circle of strange signs appeared under the feet of Faiz, in a circular manner. "Ketsu!" No, it was not the name of a rather famous Iramasha this time - but the name of the sacred barrier technique of the Sugiura. As the golden, circular barrier appeared out of nowhere, the ball of Kido crashed into it, together with the chains. After a huge explosion, giant amounts of dust where now clouding the battlefield under the boulder where Sonomori was standing, making seeing impossible there.
However, if his senses were sharp enough, the Shinigami should quickly notice something above where his chains had been aimed at - noone other than Faiz, of course. Standing in the air, her clothing only flickered slightly in the wind, no visible sign of damage. But the being wasn't just standing there, but instead, swinging that Sacred of hers in a wide arc. "Boy, I am disappointed. Your spell is weak." As the sword slashed through the air, it released a huge, invisible storm gale out of it - no constant stream like the last attack of Faiz, but only one huge blow, that felt like an eternity once you where cought in it, since it pretty much disorted both hearing, balance and the eyes. While it was only for a short amount of time, it was a very nice distraction tactic. But of course, a distraction alone was not enough to deal with the likes of Sonomori.
Instead of using a flash step or similliar, Faiz literally threw herself upwards with a flick of the left wrist, shooting a storm gale downwards. Even if the chains where homing and now coming back, after breaking free from the barrier they had half pierced and was now dying down, they would simply be pounded into the ground by this - no matter the material, a wind this strong could even lead Kido astray. Being nearly above Sonomori now, at a slight angle, the Sugiura condensed Stom Reiatsu in the left hand and blade, before releasing both of them. Being a bit above the trees now, said trees got literally blown to the sides, as the extreme force of this wind was making it's way to the boulder. Should Sonomori dodge, then the boulder would be pushed into the ground quite a bit, with the upper part shattering. All in all, this wind burst attack had about the power of a car ramming a person at 70 km/h. Death for humans, damage for Shinigami.

Sonomori's eyes winched at the large amount of dust and smoke flying outwards from where his opponent once stood. A faint image appeared in his mind as his hand came over his right eye, it was the image of a circle appearing on the ground. "Blocked it eh?" He quickly moved from the position, anticipating an attack from his opponent and taking a chance to move while he was in cover. His head turned to look back in the air, noticing the rise in reiatsu that was there at the time. "Hmm, an arial attack? Interesting." The form of his body began to shift, flashing off into the tree's. However, his previous attack was crawling upwards to his opponent. The lightning jumped off from what appeared to be the ground, attracted to the mask on his opponent's face. It impacted with her face as the wind jetted downwards at him. "Shit" Sonomori quickly turned around, pulling on the end of the scythe and manipulating it to retract the chains.

As they whipped backwards at him, he began to rotate the scythe in the form of a windmill. It started to manipulate the wind currents around his body, drawing them into a circular figure. The chain whipped around in the air, suddenly beginning to heat up massively from the reiatsu that was starting to flow unto it. The man's body ignited into a brilliant flame, another of his dark kidou. It's mass jolted outwards from his right arm, catching unto the scythe and creating a massive whirlpool of fire around a 20 meter radius. It was facing right at the incoming wind, catching it like a ball into a glove. The rocks that were in the wind's way began to vaporize, breaking down upon the force that was pressing on them. As for the chains, they were slowly being pressed back and the energy propelling them to move was distorted to the point where they nearly stopped moving. However, it was already enough. The fire had eaten on the air current and weakened it to the point where it was just a strong breeze.

At this point Sonomori himself had a problem, this fire was extremely dangerous to him and putting all over his body was nothing less than a reckless move. He began to press reiatsu out his body, pushing the fire off the surface of his skin for just a split second, and taking that chance to flash step outwards from the engulfing flames that dropped unto the ground. He let go of the bottom end of his scythe, causing the link between him and the metal to cease and drop the fire off to the side of where he stood. Sonomori looked up at his opponent, snickering a bit. "Whats this? A doggie?" It was obvious now that the lightning had stuck the metal on the mask the woman was wearing, breaking it off and burning the fur around her body where it had moved. Though it was nothing but a slight bit of scorching.

Surprisingly enough, his fire that was behind him was still raging. It was not the normal fire, and he knew that it would escalate. The flames consumed his reiatsu and grew into a blazing inferno behind him. They had even began to burn on the tree's and expanding back into the forest. He let out a large exhale of air, knowing that he had just barely escaped his own attack. However, he had just used up a good bit of his reiatsu. "Well damn, I just used about a forth of my reiatsu getting that shit off, and Im fighting a fucking dog. This is one weird ass night." Sonomori put a firm grip on his zanpaktou, pulling to forth from it's sheath. The metal glimmered in the blazing inferno behind him, seeming to glow crimson in the fire. "Well, I didnt tell you before, but the name's Sonomori. Im the fifth division captain." He grasped the blade with his other hand, throwing his reiatsu unto the blade like it was an infinite source of water.

The man took the blade, moving it behind his head in the stance of an angled slash. "I suppose I should stop playing around with you." The reaitsu began to blow off his sword, molding into a purple energy with immense strength. It was as if he was doubling or even tripling the power of this next kidou with his reaitsu. "HAIEN!" Sonomori swung down the sword at a massive speed, almost bringing the mass of fire behind it up into the air. Suddenly, a simply enormous amount of purple light began to rage from the path of his blade. The reiatsu that was given off from the kidou was at the point where the pressure around it completely vaporized the rocks around him when it was released, and even pulled the mass of fire behind it up into the air. The fire, acting like a living being jumped off the blast of reiatsu, not only was this kidou extremely dangerous, but it was now being chased by a massive flame that was pulled by the reiatsu. It was a double attack, but at a cost. It used a damn good bit of his reiatsu, nearly an entire half in one blast. But here was the worst part of all, the kidou was twice the size of normal, it pulled in air currents as it moved and made it hundreds of times harder to manipulate the air. Not to mention the fire behind it would cause the wind to move around the kidou and not directly at it. And if the two were to actually meet the kidou would feed the fire so far that it would engulf a 30 story building almost instantaneously.

After all this, Sonomori took a deep breath, flashing off to the side and taking a lock on his opponent. "Not just yet~" From this he used the light manipulating kidou to take the light from the horizon to move at the back of his opponent. This was mizuyugi, trying to put the light into the water particles that were in the woman's body. If the slowly refracting light where to move into her body, it would instantly vaporize it and the flesh around it. "Shikai!" In the breath of all of this, Sonomori knew that he would need the replenishing power of his shikai. He quickly went into stage two, moving his sword outwards into dark particles and absorbing the free reaitsu that was around him to help replenish the lost. Of course, this was only in the range of the black particles in which he kept floating around his body.


(*Note, this is a double powered level 54 kidou, if you get hit it will FUCK YOU UP. and a quick explanation on the fire. It is a living parasite flame that eats reaitsu. It is a dark kidou that grows by eating and will follow massive forms unless bound to one part of your body. So if you get it on you it will drain and burn away all of your reaitsu.)

[Takuri Sugiura]

Slowly, things where heating up. Quite literally, considering the flaming wheel this Shinigami used... wait a minute, flaming wheel? As the thunder was bursting away the mask from Takuris face, she remembered WHAT he used there. A forbidden art, something she had only seen very few times, even though she was a master of all arts of magic a Sugiura could perform - she was the creator of many spells, after all.
The pieces of the mask where falling down, revealing the face of her - something she detested. This Shinigami just moved onto her own personal shitlist, and quite high on that. He should pray to never become a renegade hunted by both the Gotei and the Sugiura clan, or else this 'doggy' would fuck his shit up for real. But now, she had to deal with something different - a gigantic Haien. Who pumped a spell that could burn anything after touch to ashes so full of Reishi? What a waste of energy. Especially against a Sugiura. The fire behind it seemed to follow either Reiatsu or movements, the former was more likely.
"Well, child... You really don't know what you are up against." Raising her right hand, a single word was spoken, only seconds before the gigantic Haien hit. A word, that didn't sound that important. But it was indeed a word of power, power that you could feel simply by hearing that word - a power so great that it could reflect ANY other spell in existance. This was the ultimate Sugiura magic... at least, to common peoples knowledge. Only Misaiko and some few other old Sugiura - REALLY old ones - knew the stronger version of this spell, but Takuri didn't need it here.
"Shinkai." Without any emotion in the voice, Takuri spoke this one word - now it was clearly noticeable it was a female voice, and that under these heavy clothes, there was a woman. As the word was spoken, out of nowhere, a shield appeared - it looked like a gigantic square, hovering infront of the Sugiura. It was actually only a fraction of the Haien in size, but the energy was EXTREMELY condensed - if something living would touch it, the repelling effect would be enough to throw you multiple miles away in the flash of a second. As the gigantic violet fire hit against it, the air itself seemed to tremble and crash, but it suddenly stopped - before being propelled backwards. In fact, this little magic trick didn't even take half of the normal Reiatsu Takuri had - since this skill was made to reflect, using it for that purpose needed less energy than the attack it was used against to work. As the Haien hit the demonic fire behind it, Takuri was already gone, also evading the strange light attack Sonomori tried to use, with the special flash step technique her older sister created - it was faster and more agile than the regular Shunpo. As the Haien was being swallowed by the demonic fire, this fire evolved into an extreme inferno of hell flames, falling to the ground and flying through the sky as clusters of burning hell. Casually, Takuri dodged one of those clusters without moving much and blew it away with a storm gale before it could track her Reiatsu and leech onto her body.
The brown-yellow eyes fixated Sonomori... as a portal appeared behind the Sugiura. "Sorry, kid. But I don't fight those that dare to spit on the magic arts by sacrificing their body for power." A small, knowing smile was seen. "I know you are using Dark Kido. Mark my words... one day, it will destroy you. You and everyone you ever cared about." Flying backwards, Takuri disappeared into nothingness - using a special barrier that teleported the using Sugiura back into their own world. There, the first step was putting on another mask before someone saw her... but the rest of this is not important.
Sonomori was basicially left alone now, not knowing the real name of Faiz, and not seeing what the name truely meant, either. However, the gigantic flame tower that was now reaching out to him with giant, arm like tentacles was indeed real, and he would be strongly advised to put this fire out before he burned himself to a crisp.

[Takuri Exit Thread]