[Event] Gotei Games, First Round Duel [Kyura Shigaisen vs Sanjiro]

Today was finally the day, something Sanjiro had been waiting for since he left the academy: A chance to show the rest of the posers who the real top Shinigami is. Sure he was fresh out of the academy, lacked a ton of experience and overall wasn't actually the strongest but none of that mattered because in Sanjiro's head there was no one better.

Using Shunpo to enter the arena he waved and winked at would-be fans, granted to no real response. He rationalized it as they were simply too shy, something fully understandable. But no matter after they saw his display of skill and he became famous in the Gotei, there wouldn't be any need for such reservations and his praises could be sung aloud as they should always have been from the start.

Crossing his arms and tapping his foot impatiently he waited, curious to who he was fighting having not even memorized the man's name. "I know you're intimidated, who wouldn't be when confronted with the strongest Shinigami alive? But still, that's no reason to hold things up so lets get this fight started, shall we?" Sanjiro taunted towards Shigaisen, his voice not in the least bit ironic or hinting at any trace of self awareness. To call him arrogant might in fact be an insult to the arrogant.

Within half a minute following Sanjiro's arrival, the hushed woosh of a Shunpo preludes the arrival of a second Shinigami upon the arena. She takes a few steps forward without missing a beat, her stride unwavering and her mind focused. Placing her dominant hand upon the bottom of her Zanpakuto's hilt, she orients herself to the Shinigami before her, taking in his energy output.

Almost immediately, Kyura is...bewildered?

'I get dragged into this competition and the first person's this weak? I couldn't even pass this off as worthwhile pract--'

In just two sentences, what can only be called a paradigm shift not only halts her initial impressions, but flips them on their heads. Kyura's grip upon the hilt gradually tightens; combined with the growing ferocity on her face, she looks about ready to cleave Sanjiro into two.

"I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you're a recent recruit." The smooth, clean sound of metal sliding away from sanded wood facilitates a break between her words as she pulls out her Zanpakuto. "So listen up, brat! The Seireitei is no home to someone so disgustingly far up their own ass as you. You should've been sorted out by the Academy, but it seems they couldn't be bothered. By the time I'm finished here, you'll be wishing you'd only been walloped by your instructors!"

She minds little the reaction from the gathered crowd. Though she'd immediately been set off by the kid, she could agree with his words in one respect: they should indeed get the show on the road.

Thus, without another word or precursory movement, she vanishes with Shunpo and rushes in towards Sanjiro's flank.

Sanjiro grins at the aggressive approach, turning on the heel to face the charging Kyura, unsheathing his Zanpakuto with both hands. "Alright then that's what I'm talking about! Slice 'em to pieces, Kappa!" As he spoke those words he pulled his hands into different directions as his Zanpakuto shimmered and split into a pair of twin scimitars and would immediately use his right scimitar to catch and parry the rather simple attack. She seemed to be holding back and Sanjiro held no such interest.

Following up the deflection Sanjiro's left arm might appear to blur for a second as he brought the hilt of the second scimitar up towards Kyura's chin. Although Sanjiro wouldn't admit or show it, he could sense the girl had some strength in her so he wasn't planning to give her the breathing room. It was his time to shine after all and he couldn't risk being upstaged this early on.

"You talk a bit game sister, lets see if you're actually willing to back it up. But if you're going to come at me with this kinda weak shit, you're gonna get hurt."

Ability Used:

Shigaisen's eyes narrow within her Shunpo as she witnesses Sanjiro's Shikai. Perhaps if it had been in a different context, she'd have allowed herself a handful of surprise at the sight, given how fresh-faced the kid appears to be. Unfortunately for the recruit, Kyura could hardly be farther from that mindset.

'So he's not only incredibly showy, but brash too--and horrendously not self-aware.'

Upon re-appearing and striking, she hits not flesh and fabric, but the metallic sheen of the stylized scimitar. Yet she doesn't seem to give any different emotional reaction; even as the second scimitar's hilt begins to collapse upon her, the same irked contempt is smeared across her face.

Then, without any prompting or hesitation, Shiga Shunpos away. Her speed matches his swing, allowing her to just narrowly peel back to avoid the hit--yet, just as quickly, she decides to force a reversal. From the air behind him Kyura re-appears again, already beginning to swing down at his shoulder; an immediate step up in speed and lethal intent.

"Himatsu!"

The shout, like its imminent attack, is brief yet piercing. With the momentum powered by her swing pushing her down towards Sanjiro, she lifts her free hand and swipes it down and diagonally through the air. From her very fingertips, a bucket's worth of near-boiling water materializes and splashes towards his back, shoulder, neck and the rear of his head. If the water manages to make contact, then assuming her Zanpakuto continues unimpeded, she attempts to bring the blade down upon the targeted shoulder.

"Same old trick huh?" Sanjiro thought to himself as Kyura used shunpo to back away from his hilt strike missing by what seemed mere centimeters. Between her first attack and this retreat a pretty obvious pattern was starting to arrive and sure enough she'd shunpo again. The second she vanished from his sight, Sanjiro turned on his right heel, shifting himself to the side and turning him around just in time to see her incoming strike. If it was simply a sword strike his anticipation might have been fully rewarded, what he wasn't prepared for was the water splashing towards him.

Even if he started moving now he probably wouldn't be able to avoid it, so he went with the only viable choice he saw. "Fuck it" he thought as he continued with his original plan bringing his left scimitar up through the water towards her oncoming sword: However his swing wasn't a normal sword strike. Along the edges of the blade his swing would produce a crescent strike of water as well. Unlike Kyura's however which was boiling hot, this would be extremely pressurized water, fired point blank at Kyura's incoming sword strike.

At the same time however the striking arm, shoulder and lower part of his left side got covered in the near boiling water causing a notable wince of pain as the skin instantly turned rosy with first degree burns. He might not be escaping this unscathed but he sure as hell wasn't going to let her off easily.

---

Ability Used:

For a split second, Kyura's self-assuredness slams into a brick wall as she finds her attack again beginning to be parried, though her spurt of water seems about ready to hit its mark. Her eyes narrow, attempting to see her attack through to the end.

'He's--'

Her eyes widen as she notices a streak of water generating from the scimitar's blade, arcing in accordance to the curvature of Sanjiro's swing. Though she can't feel any meaningful heat from the imminent attack, the speed at which it shoots forward immediately reveals to her its highly-pressurized state. Moving out of the way simply isn't an option--so she takes a much more drastic measure. Just before the crescent of water makes contact, she raises her sword-arm's elbow and sets her Zanpakuto to be perpendicular with the height of the attack.

"Scald, Shakunetsu!"

In a raging torrent, the blade in Kyura's grip is suddenly engulfed in boiling water that surges around and around her Zanpakuto. As the water crescent makes contact, the dual vortexes extend out until the entire mass is over seven feet in length; the strength of the release is nowhere near the force of the strike as it plows into her, but the surge in her ocean-blue Reiatsu combined with the torrents and their lengths keeps it from completely overwhelming her. Instead, she's pushed back, feet sliding against the dirt ground--towards the edge of the ring.

'Nngh, this stupid punk!'

As she shouts in her own head, she heaves off the ground and pulls herself away from the attack, landing back down and sliding a bit further to the side. The vortexes around her weapon have dispersed, showering the arena in twinkling water particles. At her side, however, rests perhaps a much more impressive sight: at 7 and a half feet in length, with a skeleton-style frame and colored a black-to-bronze gradient, Kyura holds a double-bladed polearm. The opposite-facing blades themselves appear substantial; if the weapon is to be separated into thirds based on its length, two thirds would be dedicated solely to the weapon's curved edges, leaving only the middle third for Shiga to even wield.

With her Shikai in hand, she rushes towards Sanjiro...until, after crossing about ten feet, she vanishes into yet another Shunpo. However, the move feels surprisingly unfamiliar to the recent recruit; it's remarkably faster, denser. Stronger.

A mere two or three seconds pass before Kyura appears again. Though, what Sanjiro sees may produce a chink in his thousand-foot ego: there, several feet in the air and about ten feet from the kid's northeast, a ball of water begins rapidly developing from a finger on her free hand. It swells until it reaches about half of Sanjiro's size before launching off with the speed of a Bala straight for him.

Before the water even gets close, Kyura has already disappeared. Yet, not a second later, she appears again--this time to the boy's direct south, again several feet in the air, and again with another orb of boiling water at her fingertip. It grows to the size of a cannonball when Shiga releases it, launching it at him with the same Bala velocity as the first.

She doesn't seem to let up quite yet, however. For a third time she disappears, only to re-appear another second later...directly over Sanjiro's head and with a third, basketball-sized orb that flings itself down upon him. Yet, regardless of if anything hits, Shiga doesn't stick around; she vanishes once more, but reappears after a couple more seconds on the ground several feet away.

She exhales slowly, observing.

---

Ability:
Wakihou ("Boiling Bubble") - Kyura points a finger at the target. Three boiling water bubbles of varying sizes are launched at the opponent with the speed of a Bala, inflicting 2nd-degree burns. Two-post cooldown.

Sanjiro raised a confused eyebrow as the woman somehow tanked that entire attack without so much as a scratch, you'd think such a large and focused attack would have caused at least minor damage but it seemed his opponent was truly on another level entirely to which the common expectations do not apply. Putting that aside at the very least she was forced to release so the fight might actually begin to get interesting.

"Honestly about time you started taking this se- and she is gone again, of course.." Sanjiro was starting to get rather frustrated at the same old trick, especially since he had already established his proficiency at tracking her, honestly the consistent speed made this entire prediction thing much easier: A shunpo was still a shunpo after all. Even if he wasn't fast enough to track her with his eyes, she wasn't exactly hiding so pinpointing her by feel alone was not all that difficult, especially when she kept going for the predictable attack vectors such as directly behind or above him.

Despite knowing the incoming attacks were coming clearly her swing and reaction speed had become sharper with her release, putting her back into the clear lead on that front, resulting in him tanking the first bala speed attack and suffering yet more rather minor burns on his chest. To her dismay perhaps the other two were well within his reaction speed as he moved his twin swords cleanly through them, causing them to split apart and impact the ground behind him. Assuming she was observant she might spot that his blades were now covered in rapidly shifting water, giving the blades a chainsaw like effect almost.

Not only did this technique vastly improve his cutting power to far above his normal punching class but it allowed him to slice and shred many cero based attacks as if they were nothing. Rolling his neck caused a few audible cracks to sound out against the otherwise silent arena, his skin aching as the burns caused it feel thin and stretched, painful but hardly debilitating yet. Turning to face the observing girl he'd have his eyes narrowed into daggers. It seemed his showboating ass was finally done fucking around with this fight.

"So, you done jumping around like a rabbit yet? You got speed, I'll give you that but your power is lacking and your attacks are completely predictable. Take it from me senpai: You have as much to learn as I do." Sanjiro had some sense knocked into him with those last two attacks and was finally taking the fight seriously and his tone reflected that. Slowly Sanjiro began to pace a circle around her location and as he did she might notice that every once and awhile there was a flash of something shifting behind him like a blue after image.

Out of the blue he would toss one of his scimitars towards her face. It would be traveling at the speed of a bala and although the damage it would inflict would be equal to that of a Zanstrike, the fact the weapon had it's cutting power further boosted could make the injury potentially devastating. The real trick to the attack however would be the second water blade that was mirroring it perfectly from behind. Anything short of full avoidance might prove troublesome for his senpai.

---

Abilities used:

Cooldowns:

"You're still running your mouth, kid? What's making you assume I've gone anywhere near my limit?" Kyura lowers herself into a fighting pose that compliments her agility, her Zanpakuto poised to move at a split-second notice. "Don't talk as if you understand our circumstances, or my own abilities. Those words don't fit an inexperienced punk like you."

Following her rebuke, however, she falls quiet. If nothing else, she can agree with him on one thing: the opponent is not to be trifled with. The boy may be flagrantly over-confident, but he clearly possesses some bite to back up his haughty barks. Kyura expects as much to arrive upon noticing him beginning to circle her; she focuses with the sight of a hawk upon him, watching every limb and extremity for any sign of attack.

Such focus isn't without its potential boons. As she's fixated upon his form, the outer regions of her eyes pick up on what appears to be a blue haze flashing just behind Sanjiro as he moves. Her brows furrow, suspicion and wariness trickling in.

'That wasn't there before...he might have something cookin' up in his sleeve. He might try and get in close, or at the very least use those big scimitars of his again. He's decent at seeing through ranged attacks, I'll give him that much--so I'll try getting in close and adding some force before he can pull anything off. Alright...once he makes a move...'

She doesn't have to wait for long. A mere two or three seconds after she cements her plan, it happens: he flings a scimitar aimed right at her face, quick but initially unassuming. The moment it hurtles towards her, Shiga springs her plan into action; she Shunpos once again, blitzing past the weapon and rapidly approaching her combatant's left flank. A flash of blue catches her peripheral; without physically glancing towards it, her intuition plugs the after-image and the flash of blue together as one in the same ability. No longer does she have to even think about such a detail when she reaches Sanjiro; she re-appears immediately, Zanpakuto raised and ready to strike.

Spinning the weapon in her hand a few times, she twirls around once and brings one blade of her weapon towards Sanjiro's upper arm and shoulder.

Although Sanjiro could, once again for the twentieth time, track the repeated, constant shunpos, unfortunately his body couldn't keep up with his senses. Having used many abilities already, his body was rapidly draining stamina on top of the injuries he had already sustained, as minor as they are in the grand scheme of things. As such, when he attempted to respond to the incoming attack, he was notably slower than his normal, failing in catching the attack and resulting in perhaps a far more serious injury than Kyura intended to inflict as his half completed attempt to block and counter would result in a rather large and serious cut down his chest.

Her aim was good, his movements simply and unfortunately threw her aim off to almost lethal intent. Sanjiro would hit the floor and re-seal almost instantly as he lost consciousness. Medics would have been on stand by just in case something like this happened and hauled his body off, doing their best to stabilize him on the way.

Despite the accidental turn of events however, the crowd began to roar in excitement, cheering for Kyura's victory. No one thought she was trying to seriously injure him, it was a tournament after all and things happen, especially in a rather fierce battle. The crowd began chanting Kyura's name as claps, shouts and other sounds overflowed the previously still arena.

Winner: Kyura

Indeed, what had intended to be a milder slash meant to set Kyura up for later success finds a much more devastating mark. Her eyes widen as Sanjiro reacts much slower than anticipated, a river of crimson blood painting itself and gushing down the left side of his torso. Silent, she lowers her weapon and steps back, watching with her genuine surprise as her opponent collapses and the medics rush in. It takes only a couple seconds of thought for Shiga to understand this sudden and almost bewildering turn of events.

'He was using up his entire arsenal remarkably fast...was he leading me on?'

Her self-posit must wait, however; the cheering and clapping from the crowd around her effectively mutes any chance at introspection. Feeling the adrenaline slow down and beginning to exit her veins, she brushes her shock from her face until she's left with her signature serious expression. Just as it had a minute prior, her Zanpakuto is rapidly engulfed in a scalding vortex of water; once it disperses into shimmering vapor that twinkles in the air, she's left with her re-sealed sword. She slides the now-bloodless blade back into her stylized scabbard.

"He is still an arrogant kid, but it's clear that he has the drive to succeed as a Shinigami," Shiga proclaims to the crowd once they've largely silenced. "As much as I'm not fond of his inflated self-confidence, that drive and passion is still concrete. I can still note and respect that. Nevertheless, what I said about his time in the Academy still applies. He should've been whipped into shape back then...but it looks like, starting now, he'll have to learn what it means to become a Shinigami."

Once she reaches the end of her miniature speech--remaining impartial to whatever response she may receive from the crowd--she turns and exits the arena.