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Bitter was such a weak word for Kell's feeling about this particular situation. Astringent was closer to home, but the possibility that there was a word to describe his current state of mind was doubtful. From his position things usually progressed so fast that it either ended up in Mexico or in a court room where homicidal was a more common turn of phrase.

Kellindel took a moment to glare vindictively at his opponent as he pushed himself up. The b*****d didn't even have the good graces to fight back. He would enjoy nothing more than to tear such a self confident front apart. That last attack wasn't so much a tactical move as an attempt to cut his opponent down. Though he'd failed to knock the b*****d over, he'd at least hit what he perceived to be a c***k in his opponents technique. Sometime thats all it took, to remind someone of their own vulnerabilities so they could see what danger they're really in...

The elf grinned maliciously, looking his opponent straight in the eye as his free-hand fingers clawed through the dirt, pushing him upright. He maintained the expression as he approached. Slowly at first, almost casual if not for his fists balled tightly at sides. Then he pushed up the pace, dashing in for the attack.

If his opponent wanted to do nothing then that was fine. He could just sit back and watch as Kell began picking him apart.

He continued the hold his opponent's gaze as he ran forward. Partially because he wanted to see Ichigo's expression when he finally put the hurting on him and partially because people were want to respond to such unspoken challenges in kind. Psychology aside, he reached the area just outside sword range. A dangerous position for a combatant with a sword against someone with a polearm.

Get the ******** out of the way, staff. Working off of his lower peripheral vision, Kellindel judged the angle and distance of the staff as he closed the distance between them. He skipped a step, hopping once on his left foot as his right suddenly shot backward and caught a corner of his cloak around the toe of his boot. Then, with equal speed, it snapped back out, swinging the section of material around to whip the lower end of the staff. An attempt to grapple the weapon? Not quite. The -weighted- end of his cloak had sufficient mass to put a mean amount of kinetic energy into such a whipping action. It would strike with similar force to a two-handed swing with either of his sword. While not saying much in the great scheme of things, it certainly wasn't anything to scoff at, especially with his particular purpose in mind.

The shock need only shock the weapon, not even physically force it out of the way. He only needed a split second for the follow-up. That being a lightning-fast thrust of his sword aimed precisely at his opponents eye. An all-out offensive attack that took full advantage of his speed and precision. It only needed that split second. From the angle of his strike (coming from the outside inward) if he could just stop his opponent's parry for a mere moment it would already be long over and Ichigo would get to experience the rest of the fight without the benefit of his depth perception, assuming the tip of his sword didn't make it to his gray matter.

All to get this ******** goat.

While not an entirely inept counter against a frontal attack, Kellindel's earlier maneuver provided him with the right combination of tools and conditions to render the offensive almost harmless. It began with their distance. To have effectively begun to move his staff before Kellindel's cloak struck the weapon Ichigo would have had started the movement at a distance only inches nearer than the maximum range of the garment, which was easily double that of his staff assuming he was holding it in a two-handed grip to provide the lever advantage that would be intelligent in this kind of throw.

To put it simply Kellindel saw the attack long before he had moved within range and with easily enough time to compensate. Being that he was hopping on one foot, he torqued the muscles in his ankle as he landed, sending him to the right of the incoming staff and still well within his limit of extension to pull off the same attack.

But that wasn't enough anymore. As Kellindel stepped right, he pulled the center away from the rotation of the swing with his shoulder. This caused the cloak's rotation to become smaller as it was simultaneously tugged back toward the elf. Kellindel again caught the weighted end with his foot, whirling weight around his limb with an expert movement before redirecting its kinetic energy straight upward. At this point his left foot was on the opposite side of the staff as the rest of his body. As a result of all this, the weighted end would rise above the horizontal surface of the staff then, as a result of a minuscule twist in Kellindel's foot as he sent it up, it would fall on the other side of his opponent's weapon, where he'd make use of his raised limb and step on the weighted end, effectively trapping the weapon in a loop of surprisingly strong material held in place by both Kellindel's body weight and every muscle running from his leg up to the top of his back.

This was all while his sword continued toward his opponents eye.

Kellindel might have laughed at such an extreme overreaction to his attack if he wasn't so busy exploiting the majority of the inherent weaknesses in such a maneuver. Had this guy just Matrix-dodged his sword? He wondered as he stepped in, taking special care to duck under the swinging sword blade which he allowed to slap away attacking weapon. Not much point in fighting for positioning if his attack had missed already, especially if it had another purpose to serve. He let his arm go relatively loose and his wrist rotate as his blade was hit so his sword went to the side before his blade folded completely under it as it swung past.

It was about this time that his opponent began the sweeping attack. Good, that made his job easier. He had to fight to shake his head as he hopped right over the swinging limb and forward to land directly on his opponent's chest. Sure his opponent was obviously superhumanly strong, but that didn't allow him to defy the laws of physics. Ichigo's already precarious position leaning backward at an extreme angle (on one foot no less), the wet ground, and his top-heavy stature (thanks to his giant wings) would all come together and serve to royally bugger Kellindel's opponent.

Another one hundred plus pounds suddenly landing directly on his chest was an exceedingly large amount of force in this "straw breaking the camels back" sort of situation but in the extremely likely event that Kellindel served to shove Ichigo's bent backward frame over it would put the elf in an opportune position to show the winged fighter a more practical throw featured in a popular videogame.

Gambit from Marvel vs Capcom 2 might come to mind as Kellindel would ride the big lug straight to the ground and end up standing on his chest in a perfect position to take another stab at his opponent's eye, literally. No leaning back this time.

(Funny, I'm not using daggers.)

This kids, is where mind games start to come into play. So his opponent had just basically not fallen over when blind-sided by 100lbs on one foot. Kell could believe that, assuming his opponent had pulled some sort of s**t with his wings. That was fine, he could care less about his opponents eyes, but his opponent didn't know that. Persistence was the mark of a dedicated individual and Kellindel had dedicated himself to putting the hurting on this guy. Unfortunately for Ichigo, it wasn't quite in the way Kellindel made it appear.

He was gonna get hit now, that much was absolutely certain, but he'd be damned if he didn't make his opponent pay for it. Luckily a palm strike took precious few more fractions of a second than what he was planning. Kellindel's free hand, the one he'd sparsely used to this point but to maintain balance, finally came into play. His middle finger snapped over the pad of his thumb and the tight fist his hand had formed broke open. Accompanied by a flicker of his wrist and the fluttering of his four fingers, he half-snapped, half threw a big handful of muddy sand at the eyes of his opponent. The main body of the throw was composed of a single piece of gritty, water-logged sand mashed into a single form by Kellindel's hand, but it was accompanied by a wide spray of individual particles as the snapping motion of his hand served to flick the remaining debris off his skin. The shotgun effect would serve him well in maximizing his odds of ruining Ichigo's day (and hopefully a retina or two) especially with his opponent practically leaping into it.

Kellindel grinned menacingly.

The same movement of his hand, that flicked the irritant at his opponents primary sensory organs, also brought it down from its position over his opponents still unfolding arm. His grimy palm would collide with the fingers of his opponents hand as he went in for the palm strike so quickly after he'd tossed the muck that it might seem almost simultaneous. This served several purposes.

First, it would save him a lot of grief. Not nearly as much as he'd like, but a lot. This last movement was a sacrifice. He was fairly sure the collision would render his arm unusable for the rest of the fight at the least but it would further pad his vitals and those are what really counted. He had no doubt that he was gonna feel the collision, hard, but the elf was pretty confident he could escape with a pair of empty lungs and maybe a few minor breaks.

Second, it would prevent Ichigo from putting a limb between his eyes and the sand he'd just slung toward them. He had serious doubts his opponent could respond fast enough, especially considering one arm was out wide after he'd slapped away Kell's sword and the other was already devoted to an attack.

Finally, God willing, it would break Ichigo's fingers. Though Kellindel lacked brute force strength he was effectively using his opponents own super-strength against his most delicate appendages. This wasn't a matter of skin toughness. It was his opponent driving forward with enough force to damage himself in perfect conditions put into a very imperfect condition. Fingers didn't bend very far that way and unless his opponent had some way to magically fortify joints which quite frankly, no matter the amount of training put into them, could only be so strong. Super strength was a matter of muscle, joints aren't supported by anything but cartilage.

And as his ears were primed for that beautiful cracking noise, Kellindel sealed the proverbial deal. His right arm cocked back, sword level for his opponents eyes. It would be a full moment of full view of the incoming stab before the sludge would slap his opponent in the face.

Whether it hit eye or lid really didn't matter at all to Kellindel. Both he and his opponent knew closed eyes weren't much better protected than closed. Of course, this was his play. The stab motion was a bluff. He'd carried it through to the end, even pretending to begin the stab before his opponents vision would be obscured but that was all the substance there was to it.

The real attack came from the down low. Kell had serious doubts that his opponent would see this even if his eyes miraculously went unobscured just by pure dent of positioning but as Ichigo might have already realized, he didn't' ******** around. His opponent had made a sweep then attempted to reestablish balance before pushing off the ground, leaving his legs dangerously far apart. Any fool knew that a wide stance was a stable stance and if this guy expected him to believe that he'd kept from falling over on the equivalent of a single leg he was was in for a big surprise, but that was a forgone conclusion.

Kellindel torqued the entire right side of his body into the kick. There was no mid-air maneuvering after this, no snappy little tricks he could perform to further screw with his opponent. He was throwing his entire body weight into a full-blown c**k-knocker, nut-cracker, jewel-breaker, all-around devastating kick aimed right at his opponents groin. Toe-first, he was not ******** around, into the balls. Emphasis on into. This would be a fantastic time to remind the reader that his opponent was moving into this. This was a kick that would've shattered every toe-bone in Kell's foot if he'd used it earlier on his opponents chest or side and he was aiming it at the most vulnerable part of the male anatomy.

He'd watched his opponent carefully up until this point and had no doubt that this was going to hurt. Sure he was wearing adamantine. ******** adamantine. It was woven into a robe which means it most closely emulated chainmail, chainmail was weakest against bludgeoning strikes, like a kick. The eyes were the obvious target, any shitheaded tactician would realize that and he was pretty sure his opponent was expecting for him to aim at the eyes. ******** that. That was damn near impossible to hit, especially on an expectant foe. He'd purposefully zeroed down the possibilities to that just so he could drop his opponent straight on his a** with this attack. There were two ways to observe in a fight, actively and passively. Ichigo had obviously been going for passive, wonder if he had noticed Kell measuring him just as intently with all of the bravado.

Just as with the previous psuedo-strike, skin and armor didn't mean s**t. Kell's foot was about to become one-half of the jaws of a bear trap and crush Ichigo's testicles against his taint like a vice on fast forward. This was working the vulnerabilities anatomy just simply can't compensate for. If Ichigo's sack was really sturdy enough to pad this blow in any way then his skin wasn't at all fit for the movement of his body at all. Likewise they simply wouldn't function if his balls could take this punishment. If he turned out to be a she was immaterial, on his current course he'd punt her so hard in the privates he probably wouldn't have the leg strength to pull his foot back out.

Speaking of course, the lovely part about the leg is its mobility. Even if his opponent maneuvered out of even simple dent of panic about his blindness he could compensate faster than his opponent could move his entire torso, wings or no. Not that his opponent had any excuse to know this was coming. He'd worked specifically to draw his opponents attention away and the bastards own massive chest would prevent him from seeing a ******** thing. The torque of his upper body? Well that was also going to serve to pull Kellindel's body away so it would move with the attack and mitigate the damage.

Kell himself had to admit he wouldn't have any inkling of this attack coming before it was complete. And he would definitely be out after something like this. A ******** Rhino couldn't take a hit like this. We're talking paralyzing, good-chance-of-making-you-pass-out-instantly pain. Hallucinatory lights, knock the air out of you, drain your chi kinda pain.

Speaking of pain...

Crunch!!!

The sound was so loud in his ears that Kell wasn't sure just how many individual noises had come together to create such an inner-cacophony but he knew it couldn't be good. That thought occurred in the flash of existence it took for his brain to begin interpreting the pain.

It first came to him like what he might've interpreted the sensation of being set on fire to feel like with all the speed and suddenness of the crack of a whip then it was almost instantly overpowered by firecrackers of pain setting themselves off over his left side. As if the individual pains fought to differentiate themselves from each other but couldn't all fit simultaneously within the limited scope of his perception. His vision dimmed and the sound of the rain around them became disturbingly distant. Kellindel was dimly aware of his uncertainty as to whether the sensation was simply overpowering his other senses or if it was realistically simply just KOing him. The fact that he could suddenly taste and smell the hurt didn't bode well for the second option.

Then he got over it. It still hurt just as bad, but it was as if his perception finally caught up with everything that had just happened. He sucked in a breath, unable to determine if it was asphyxiation that was causing the burning in his lungs. The movement of his diaphragm forced him to notice a strange looseness in the left side of his chest. That was at least two ribs cracked. As he hissed the air back out of his lungs the falling of his shoulder caused him to become aware of another limp sensation in his right arm. Amazingly his wrist didn't feel broken, but something in his hand and forearm certainly did. He fought the urge to look at his wounds. The pain prevented him from perceiving the warm sensation common along with the rapid blood loss accompanying a compound fracture. Looking would only serve to raise his chances of suffering from shock and besides, there was a large chance that he was going to see something that would make all this worthwhile.

Wait, he was spinning. Kellindel's eyes snapped around in their sockets, attempting to interpret the whirling vortex that composed the reality around him. He fought a sudden sense of vertigo and searched for something material to lock onto. There! The ground. Approaching very rapidly.

He twisted his body around, attempting to put his feet under him. Instantly regretting the action as pain burned through his torso, and regretting it again as he landed. His feet slapped the wet sand underfoot, quickly followed by his a** as he overbalanced and fell back into a skewed sitting position.

No time to take that all in, if he sat around it might seal his fate assuming his opponent had somehow beaten the odds and avoided his sure hit. Shock was a danger, as was sitting around. Still, he was surprised by how little time must have passed since he was hit. Given that he'd turned away it could've only been mere moments.

His fist tightened around the handle of his sword that he'd somehow maintained a death grip on during his trip. The weight of his water-logged cloak made the garments presence known to him as he pushed himself up, gritting through the pain. A warm wash and the taste of copper in his mouth caused him to reflexively spit. His mouth was bleeding. He'd clenched his jaw too tightly. <******** the luck.

He looked upward at Ichigo, whatever condition he may be in, ready for whatever the guy had left, if anything. He was damned if he was gonna lose after coming this far. Not before he ruined Mooo's s**t.

(Hm... that came out a bit longer than I'd planned.)