A Short Ballad for the Vertically Challenged[Luda/Open]

Giriko was a rather stubborn creature but honestly, at this point, he was being stubborn because he was just too damn stubborn about being so stubborn. As he sat rather calmly in as meditative a state as he was capable of, Giriko once more tried to interface with his Zanpakutō’s spirit. Jinzen itself had never been difficult for him, putting himself inside his own heart and soul was never what had generated so many problems for the young Shinigami. What was difficult was accomplishing what needed to be done once he had entered his own heart and soul it would seem. Including this coming attempt, Giriko had spoken to his Zanpakutō spirit thirty five times, all with increasingly demoralizing results. The first time had been the most promising; it actually felt like he was going to learn that overgrown chicken’s name but the attempt was ultimately a failure as the bird brain reminded him that he was a little on the short side and…well…Giriko just was not going to stand for that. From that point on, the boy and his pet bird did not get along especially well and each attempt after that point has resulting in argument after argument and spat after spat and Giriko quite frankly was trying to consider ways to advance without having to deal with the aforementioned overgrown chicken.

Unfortunately still, Giriko had not discovered a quicker way to jump up in power and acknowledgement, short of head hunting a captain and he had some serious moral qualms with such an approach, so for the time being he was stuck with try to awaken his Shikai by actually talking to his less than friendly Zanpakutō. He would not be given an actual chance to commune with the spirit of his sword today however (darn) as something broke his concentration before he could even hope to muster it. The boy had always been somewhat easily distracted, misdirected, antagonized, and whatever other word that one could possibly use to describe an overactive child, but this was the first time he had actually welcomed the sense of detachment from the task at hand. Actually needing to talk to his spirit felt more like he was punishing himself than training himself and self-flagellation was not really his idea of an exciting afternoon. Giriko steadily pushed himself to his feet as his head turned toward the greater Shin'o training ground complex, hoping to watch the students sparring to get his mind off of his shortcomings. The stress of failure was starting to really eat at him and he needed to watch some good, old fashioned, physical violence to ease his wayward soul.

He was left somewhat disappointed. There were indeed sparring matches going on around him, but nothing interesting. Perhaps it was nostalgia talking and nostalgia would forever be the greatest opponent to quality, but when Giriko was going through the motions at the academy he remembered his quality of bouts being much higher than what he was witnessing here. These children swung their weapons around with such reckless abandon or such obnoxious caution that they simply were never going to cut anything. There was no way he and his classmates were this incompetent at this level and he had only recently graduated, nostalgia barely even had time to run its course. The vertically challenged youth gently hopped up on to a guard rail, precariously yet eerily serenely standing crouched on the small rail as he watched the scuffles take place below him as students loudly and clumsily flung limbs, metal, and magic at one another. Good lord it was boring.

Yoma was visiting the Academy, its been some time since he had graduated from here. Yoma wasn't the best student in the academy, mostly due to the other personality taking over and ignoring the classes. Yoma remembered the matches he had with Nexas here. Yoma was glad he had graduated, even if in reality he had barely passed. Yoma had spent most of the day here training his skills here to no avail, his hands were singed slightly from practicing his Heatwave Strike. No matter how much he practiced this move he couldn't reduce the time it took to perform it. Apparently this fact seemed to piss off Yoma. Yoma was covered in sweat and seemed exhausted from his training.

Yoma had mentality exhausted himself which allowed his other personality to take over. Yoma felt how tired his body was but this fact bothered him very little. He had finally obtain use of the body something which he would have to constantly fight over with his other half. Bored from the unsuccessful results of his other half's training, Yoma decided to investigate the academy and fight someone to give him a good fight. Yoma traveled inside the building watching as the students cared out their dull studies, the building was full of the noise of chanting, yelling, and complaints. The unpleasing feeling of this building forced yoma to escape to the training grounds on the academy. Yoma watched some of these pathetic sparring matches and it just annoyed him. " these useless weaklings are probably nothing". Yoma was glad his other half wasn't able to respond because he know he would make some sort of remark based on their own weaknesses.

Yoma had spotted a short male not too far from his current location, this male was quite short compared to himself this fact made yoma laugh." another person trying to become stronger to also no avail i guess." yoma walked up to this person and looked right at them. this person had a stern look on him and he appeared to be angry. yoma places his hand on the person's head and looks at him trying to make their heights noticeable. " why is a short little person like yourself here in rags, and sitting by yourself here at a distance from the other students training? shouldn't you also be trying to beat the living hell out of them and show them who has strength?" yoma laughs and just rubs the other person on his head.

Giriko's little spat with the gargantuan cock that was his Zanpakutō would have to wait for the teensiest tiny bit. Something new had come along, something Giriko already hated as much if not more than his aforementioned bloated poultry. Giriko had heard the man's first exclamation, about the power of these students and it pained the boy to actually agree with the sentiment to an extent, these guys were weak and they were not particularly impressive. What Giriko did not, at all, agree with was the notion that they were notion. Judging anyone's worth as anything based on what couldn't be more than a two minute window was not something Giriko would ever support and only barely tolerated, the only proper response was to extend the same kindness to them. Passing the source of the words as a moron without affording him even the courteousy of looking at him before writing him off a gigantic prick and substantially more deserving of the "nothing" title than these children here. Giriko had dealt with people like that for the entirety of his life and he really was not in the mood to deal with one today, but he doubted he was going to be afforded such a golden gift from the powers that be and it would turn out that he was quite right about that. He wasn't going to be able to just ignore this man and let him pass by.

At first, the man had simply accelerated to a minor annoyance to a rather bulbous one. The lack of proper punctuation that somehow managed to carry through to speech was rather grating, almost as much as the words themselves being more accurate than Giriko wished to admit to, but as soon as the hand made contact with the boy's head, he had to fight the severe urge to remove it for his aggressor. But still, at the point he was still capable of being ignored, he was not really worth the effort to address, he was a waste of space and oxygen and Giriko had better things to do, like watching the "nothing" children or picking his toe nails or beating his head off a nearby cement wall. But then the man did something completely unforgivable that sent a very noticeable shiver of rage down the boy's body. The man insulted Giriko's height and for that, Giriko really did not wish to let him live. Soul Society tended to look down on homicide though, regardless of provocation and for the first time in a long time, Giriko found himself loathing the laws of Seireitei. There should be times were murder is permissible. Like if you wait in line for thirty minutes and the person in front of you has not decided what she would like for breakfast in the twenty nine minutes it took for her to get to the front of the line, Giriko felt he should be allowed, nay, obligated to kill her. The same thing applied here, you did not insult Giriko's stature and expect to survive unscathed. It was then that a rather twisted and maniacal thought crossed through the boy's rather rage riddled brain.

Giriko slowly turned and purposefully turned around, ignoring the man's hand rubbing the top of his head as the small boy looked up at the ridiculous looking figure in front of him. What was he even supposed to be? At best, this was an incredibly lame parody of a sixteenth century English knight from the Human World, it was sad is what it was. Giriko needed all the self-control in his possession not to burst out laughing at the sight of the man who dared to mock his clothes of all things. Giriko couldn't look more ridiculous if he tried. A sharp smirk, one that did little to hide how aggravated he was, crept across his face as his small and equally sharp eyes glared up(damnit) at the man's face as his hand rather gently wrapped around the hilt of his Zanpakutō. He fully intended to beat this man senseless and how better to do it than with an audience.

"Why don't we find out the answer to your question, go step in the ring and we'll see which one of us has strength and which one of us is dressed as a flaming sixteenth century clown."

Yoma looked at the other male and began to laugh. He could feel the energy in the other male, which excited Yoma. He would finally get to use the body without any restraints or any annoyance from his other half. The thought of beating the brat over and over excited Yoma to no end he wanted to use all his current strength.

"I'm not the one to choose they style of my appearance you could say i'm only a second thought, but someone like you would never understand. That's funny though, the brat making fun of what i'm wearing when the brat himself is in nothing but shags and rags. you want a fight i accept the challenge but you better now cry when i beat you into the dust."

He followed the other male to where the ring was and prepared himself to take him down. There was a small distance between them so if they wanted to strike the other one they would have to move. He took out his Zanpakto, held it firmly in his right hand, with the blade pointed toward his opponent.

"Before we begin this fight tell me your name, i wanna know who is the brat who i defeated without any issues. Just remember the name of the one who beat you Yoma Yazaki."

Yoma stood there waiting for responses and waited for his opponent to move first since he wanted to attack like crazy he wanted his opponent to be in a good angle for him to charge in. yoma was ready to move forward at anytime. he didn't care about the other students nearby in the area, he just wanted to beat the short brat to a pulp. based on yoma's postioning of his legs the only ways he could possibly move if he wanted to dodge an attack would be directly forward or to his left.

As Giriko walked his way down to an empty sparring ground in a rather fuming silence, the boy silently studied his opponent out of the corner of his eye. He was arrogant, rather impressively so which really just reassured the boy of his chances. There were a lot of things you could tell by how a person simply walks to combat. Someone with confidence will walk with his shoulders and head held high, yet he will still take every precaution necessary to guarantee that he understands his opponent and to verify the chances for success. Someone blinded by the deficiency called arrogance however does not care what his opponent is or what they might do, they have already deemed themselves the victor and the possibility of failure has not once crossed their pea brained little minds. The confident man believes he will win, the arrogant man believes he already has. Giriko was confident, his opponent was arrogant. The man had already decided that Giriko was small, nonthreatening, and containing significantly more bark than bite and he had examined nothing but his clothes. It was, for lack of better terminology, embarrassing for Giriko to have to deal with being associated to this man in any way, shape, or form. It was nauseating.

He couldn't let his disgust with his opponent and apparent compatriot distract him from the task at hand however. As the pair crossed in to the ring and his opponent decided to waste precious seconds by speaking, Giriko took the chance to fully examine his opponent's stance and weapon. The way his legs were positioned was mostly irrelevant, even by human standards it was not at all difficult or time consuming to change the directions in which you are capable of moving. A simple shift of weight and you had completely new opportunities for movement, especially with such a non-descript stance such as that, no, focusing on that would be irrelevant for someone of human speeds and even less irrelevant for analyzing a Shinigami. What was of specific interest to Giriko was how the man decided to hold his sword. It was outstretched in his right hand and pointed toward Giriko. There were two possible explanations for this. The first was that he was as stupidly arrogant as Giriko originally assumed and he was "calling out his shot" as it were, or, the more intelligent yet still slightly faulty explanation, that he was using it as a measuring device, a Zanpakutō ruler. That had merit, the slightest bit of investigation would yield the information that Giriko wielded a Zanpakutō that took the form of a tanto, range was going to be his weakness against a weapon like the one his opponent was wielding, so trying to gauge just how quickly he was capable of moving was not unintelligent, but it was also somewhat pointless. Shinigami were capable of obnoxious feats of speed, Giriko's small stature giving him even more deceptive agility. Giriko did not need to attack him head on, and he wasn't planning to.

As soon as the word Yazaki left the man's mouth, Giriko's body suddenly faded out of sight, initiating a flash step and drawing his Zanpakutō simultaneously. With a speed his opponent might not be even able to follow, Giriko shunpo'd to his opponent's right side, bringing himself parallel to his opponent's weapon. In a situation like this, it was rarely a good idea to try to directly attack your opponent. He had the range advantage on Giriko and no amount of potentially startling speed was going to change that. If Giriko tried to attack his opponent's body right away, that was just enough area for his opponent to cover to use that superior range and punish him for it. Instead, Giriko was going to attack the very problem that presented itself, Giriko was just going to overpower his opponent's Zanpakutō. Also, by attacking his side, he was going to force the opponent to push with his strikes instead of going to the inside of his body, diminishing the strength of his sword arm even more while still affording him time to close that distance and hit a vital spot if the man tried to haphazardly switch hands. Now parallel to his opponent's right arm, Giriko planted his left foot and, gripping his Zanpakutō upside down in his left hand, used the force of the ground to strengthen a horizontal slash toward his opponent's right bicep while the boy kept his right arm against his side, cocked and ready. His opponent had few ways to react to this maneuver and Giriko was prepared for adjustments and the consecutive strikes that would follow.

Yoma was in awe, the little brat had disappeared. From the corner of his eye he spotted Giriko, He couldn't react quickly enough to avoid the blow all he could was move his arm out of the way so it wouldn't be harmed. Yoma felt the cold metal sword strike his side and saw the blood pouring out. This blow held a strong force it sent a strong shock through out his entire body. Yoma gathered himself and repositioned his legs into a more common stance so he could move around more freely and once Giriko sword had finished it's swing, Yoma quickly turned his body in a flash and held his blade at an angle to block a swing if Giriko tried to swing, Yoma got a fist ready and began to try to initiate hand to hand combat Giriko. At that same time Yoma gathered energy to his feet to propel him forward and in order to start creating his pressurized area.

It didn't take long for Yoma to create his pressurized area but this area is quite small up to 3 feet. the heat and pressure had no effect on yoma but others in the area would feel the sudden weight added to their bodies and feeling of heat that now existed in the area. Yoma grew sure this would help him in the fight but it will only last him 5 minutes at most. knowing this he wanted to make sure he would create an advantage for himself in the fight.

Yoma braced for any counter attacks from Giriko as he tried to lay in a few punches. This time if Giriko would escape from his sight he would able to have more time to react and be able to counter.

That went…far better than expected and taking a flesh wound to the arm would have been preferable to allowing a small weapon like a Tanto to go straight to your ribs and worm their way past them in to the juicy organs beneath, if Giriko was aiming to kill the man he’d be dead right now. If he simply took the attack to his arm, which would at least force Giriko to recoil before attacking again or he could even use the arm to create leverage on the boy’s weapon and use it to create an opening. Now, Giriko had a sharp weapon embedded in his side, his opponent’s sword arm thrown in to an awkward position to avoid the attack and he was given full inside reign to pummel his opponent’s body in whatever way he saw fit and fighting inside was Giriko’s specialty. It was like the man was trying to hand Giriko the fight on a silver platter. It was a confusing decision that Giriko did not understand, perhaps it was panic, but it was a decision that Giriko was going to use and abuse to his full advantage.

As the boy felt his blade sink in to his opponent’s midsection, Giriko pushed his momentum forward, seeking to slide the blade even further in to his opponent’s body with his weight and this was only further aided by the man moving himself, him shifting to get in to a better position simply made it easier for Giriko to keep pushing his sharp edge through his flesh and deepening the cut, his opponent twisting his body to try square up to and and throw a punch at Giriko caused him more harm than good, allowing Giriko to tear and rend his opponent’s flesh without actually putting in the movement himself as the twisting movement along the edge of the blade widened and deepened the cut. As the man disentangled himself from Giriko’s blade, incidentally most likely causing a substantial amount of blood to come rushing out of his side, Giriko gently shifted his weight to his back foot as his open hand rose and struck the inside of his opponent’s wrist as the fist was coming toward him and applied just enough pressure to deflect the incoming attack off course. Usually when applying Hakuda techniques, one does not need to match the force of a punch in order to dissolve it. In fact, blocking as a whole is typically a last resort as ideally, your objective should always be to redirect energy rather than absorb it. Giriko did not put half as much force in his parry that his opponent put in his strike, but proper placement of that force was all that was necessary to send his opponent’s fist careening harmlessly off course. Giriko started shifting his weight forward again to drive his fist in to his opponent’s chest, but something wasn’t right. Pushing hard on his front foot before pushing off the ground hard and hopping away from his opponent and putting a good meter or two between them, with his opponent’s wound he should have been able to really keep up, especially considering he didn't look like he could keep up while healthy.

Giriko, assuming his opponent didn’t give chase in some capacity, quickly flicked the blood off his sword, staining the ground as he stared hard at the man. That wasn’t natural, that pressure Giriko felt right before he was about to strike back, Giriko had felt overpowering reiatsu before and what he felt wasn’t anything of the sort, so the man somehow holding some hitherto untapped spiritual powers were not the issue. It was a warm pressure, no warm was undervaluing it; the sensation was hot. Uncomfortably hot, akin to what he assumed a desert in the human world felt like. It was harder for him to move out of the heat and if his opponent wasn’t injured, he probably would not have been able to disengage safely at all. What the hell was that? It wasn’t Reiatsu, at least not pure Reiatsu but Giriko didn’t know of any shinigami technique that allowed you to just generate heat pressure around you. Not knowing was frustrating. It made him cautious, despite still being considerably faster than his opponent by what had been exhibited so far even with the additional heat he was generating slowing him down. The fact that he had landed a deep cut on his opponent already further iterated that point. His guard not dropping, Giriko’s voice echoed out with the same snarky ego that it had carried previously, this time trying to stop the fight he had started.

“You’re going to bleed out if you keep going.”

Yoma was losing blood quickly, it was pouring out of him like a water bottle with a hole in it. He wanted to rush toward the little brat but he felt a sharp pain in his body from the wound. Yoma began to worry about his well being he had never been in a fight on his own like this usually his other personality would take control of the fight so he wouldn't have to deal with it. He grew agitated at whats going on in the fight. He was losing and he knew it,he couldn't allow this brat to beat him, and knowing that caused yoma to get even more agitated. he heard what giriko had told him and there was no way he would listen to that little brat it didnt matter if the information was true or not.

" I don't care if i'm going to bleed out keep your own damn nose to yourself you damn dog. There is no way im going to lose to a brat like you, do you hear me damn it i'm not going to lose to you."

Yoma angrily yelled this at his opponent, ignore the pain he felt. Yoma rushed forward, making a strange noise while performing this task, blood dripped to the floor as he moved in every direction he moved was now moist with the crimson colored blood now on it's surface. Yoma attacked with a vertical strike upwards but completely missed Giriko, the attacked failed to hit not because Giriko had made any movements but because yoma's mind became distracted for an instant it had appeared that his other half was now awake.

"Oh god i was tired so whats going on, so looks like you go into a fight while i was out well im just going to sit on the side lines and watch you make a fool of yourself since even i know your weak as me."

The current personality that was in control was yoma's arrogant personality he grew pissed at the other's personailty's words but ignored them and continued fighting he was now going to get annoying comments. Yoma attacked once again but put more pressure into this next vertical strike with both his hands and once the blade had reach the top of its swing yoma let go with his left hand. the pressurized area was still in effect but it seemed as it wouldn't hold out for much long based on the feeling his body gave him. Yoma after the vertical strike got prepared to heat up some rocks with his left from the pouch he carried on his waist and throw them at the little brat. He was running out of options and was beginning to panic.

Giriko watched quietly as the wheels turned in his opponent's head and he couldn't help but derive a small sense of satisfaction from the incident. His opponent was making no effort to hide his distress and anger and his face was riddled with it. There was no way a wound like that didn't hurt and it was even less likely that his opponent was even capable of hoping to hurt Giriko at this point and the arrogant one was now rather aware that he bit off way more than he could chew. The rather obnoxious, violent, and loud retort he received for his comment further enforced this fact as Yoma seemed intent to cover his hands over his ears and defiantly act like a child and pretend that if he didn't acknowledge that he was losing, then he simply wasn't losing. It was akin to Earthly politicians saying the same thing repeatedly and hoping that with persistence, the lie would become truth. He couldn't help but smirk at his opponent's response, he did like a little pluck every now and then, but it was going to become a problem. That wound was deep and if it wasn't treated quickly, it was going to cause a lot of problems. Continuing to fight with it was the last thing Yoma should be doing. Then again, if the roles were reversed, Giriko wouldn't want the fight to be over from a single cut either, but that single cut was deep and if Giriko didn't end the fight now, Yoma really was going to die.

The man came at him, leaving a trail of blood in his wake as he stumbled toward him and threw a clumsily aimed upward slash with his sword. It wasn't going to hit, but there was something that severely bothered Giriko. As soon as he closed the distance further, Giriko felt that pressure again. It wasn't painful or even apparently dangerous, it was just uncomfortable...irritating. As soon as he felt it wash over him, he jumped back and while the sword wasn't going to hit anyway, Giriko had successfully backpedaled away from the arcing metal and retreated further away, measuring the distance in which he was and was not affected by the heat while figuring out just what it was doing. It didn't hinder Giriko much at all, his movements were marginally slower but not enough to the point where he was ever legitimately crippled and it seemed to be limited to the area around the man. He would just need to make slight adjustments to the timing of his movements to compensate, like he would if he were wearing weighted clothing. Giriko's eyes quickly darted down to the crimson trail and knew he couldn't draw this out any longer. He was going to need to put him down.

As the man stumbled and had a moment of introspection before continuing his rather sloppy assault, Giriko sheathed his Zanpakutō and gently straightened up in to a rested position as he softly spoke, a look of almost solemn determination on his face. "Hadō Number One." Exhaling gently as the man charged at him, Giriko tried rather hard to fight in a calculating manner, which was again the polar opposite of his Zanpakutō. As the man raised his arms above his head and angrily swung his blade down toward Giriko's head, apparently attempting to cleave him like a log, Giriko sprung in to action. Giriko shifted his right foot back and put his weight on it as his right arm simultaneously swung upward across his body in an arc, his forearm striking his opponent's as he smoothly twisted his body and guided his opponent's blade harmlessly away from him and down in to the ground. With but a few millisecond separating the actions, Giriko's left leg shot forward and toward his opponent's right shin, attempting to use his momentum against him and trip him while his left hand, every finger balled in to a fist but the index, shot toward his opponent's face, aimed for the underside of his jaw.

"Sho!"

As the word was uttered, a concussive blast would shoot from the boy's hand and, if his earlier moves were successful, striking the falling man right in the jaw. It was not a powerful enough strike to dislocate or deal any permanent damage to the man's jaw, but given the lack of oxygen his brain was already getting with all the blood he was losing, it should be suitable to render him unconscious.

Yoma tried to hit Giriko with his vertical strike but all his attempts to try to injure Giriko failed. Giriko had blocked his vertical strike and redirected it. Yoma grew dizzy and confused his eyes could no longer keep up with Giriko's movements. The pressurized heat area had no fade yoma could no longer maintain the area with his remaining strength. The wound he had kept pour out more blood. he needed to get this treated but he wanted to try to beat Giriko.

" looks like its time to call it quits so let me gain control of my body so i can end this squabble and we can get some required treatment"

" I'm not quiting this fight i still have some strength left their is no way i'm going down now."

"well go ahead keep trying but your at your limit."

Yoma held an argument with his other half in his head. while this happened Giriko was striking his shin with his leg, yoma felt himself almost fall back then unexpectedly felt a blast hit him in the jaw, the blow sent a strange sensation throughout his entire head, his mind couldn't hand this and blanked out. once yoma could realize what was going on it appeared he had switched with his other personality because of the power being strong enough to knock him out. yoma could hardly move but he was in awe at what he saw he had not seen anything like this barely able to move he wanted to try to clear up the misunderstanding created by his other half.

" Excuse me angry little shinigami what was that move you just used? It looked amazing. i also want to apologize for anything that has happened with in the time period of me coming into contact with you i don't know what has gotten over me i don't really seem to remember i guess that blow you gave me really messed up my mind. What your name by the way? i would love to know what your name is other then calling you a short or a angry little shinigami."

yoma struggled to speak and even make small movements but yoma held a upbeat and positive attitude. yoma laughed and smiled at giriko, His body was like a tossed rag doll. students watching nearby were afraid to come close to yoma and seems to be a little fearful of giriko too.

" Hey anyone mind helping me get taken to get treatment. i'm in a lot of pain, the guy over their is really strong."