Welcome to Gaia! ::

I'm sorry Kintaro-kun... It's just that you're always joking about everything and I thought you were being ironic back there... But indulge me please, stop calling me sir or Vice-Captain... It makes things awkward!...

Mock paused for a moment, he caught his breath while gazing at the setting sun...
What I've been doing?... he repeated Kintaro's question to himself... Not much... I think the Seretei has not yet fully recovered from these past events... I know this squad hasn't, since it's bent out of shape!...

Moto-dono has been very busy lately... Also I think probably something is troubling him!!!... Without his full leadership over 1st Division and all the Gotei 13, I fear that the order on Soul Society will shift... into something I'm even frightened to ponder...

A large responsibility has been put over my shoulders by Daven-san... I'll work hard in order to meet his expectations for me!... But, I don't know if I can do this without his guidance...

But enough of this!!!... Mock stood up and offered his hand in order to help Kintaro get up... ...About that "shock thingy"... Don't act stupid, my friend!... You know exactly what it is!!!... Or maybe, you're just afraid you'll jinx it if you said it out loud?!?!...

Mock smiled to his friend...

Come... Let us work on that!!!...

The answer to that question is pretty simple my friend... Mock answered with a grin...

What your experiencing is your zanpakutou's power reacting to your on power, sort of speaking...

That is the beginning of a shikai!!!

But it's too soon to tell yet!... You may still be far away from achieving shikai... But we can work on a way for you to use what's happening in a beneficial way, instead of it causing you unbalance!!!...

"How do we do that???" you asked... MockaDash unsheathed his blade as he spoke... I simply beat it out of you!!!!!

Now... On your guard!!!

Good for you, my friend!!!... Mock said with a smile on his face, as he sheathed his katana back onto its saya, and adopted a similar stance as Kintaro's... His smile turned into a grin... But don't expect me, a battoujutsu and Iaijutsu "master", to be astonished by your new found technique!!!...

This will be an old-school duel!!!... Your drawing skill versus my drawing skill!...

Let us see the extent of your proficiency!!!...

Both contenders stood still for several minutes, building up tension while judging each other...
MockaDash was paying close look to Kintaro's full body... His mindful gaze starting on his - Kintaro's - eyes and facial expression and finishing on his legs and arms, judging the tension of every single muscular group that were essential fur such an attack...

Without warning, he sprung into action! In a single leap, moving towards Kintaro with incredible speed!
He didn't, however, flash-stepped, since that would grant him a clear advantage over his friend... Instead, Mock simply moved as fast as a Soul Reaper could...
Actually, he moved faster than what an average Soul Reaper could!...

A strong metal clash was heard when, what seemed to be a glistening of blades, caused an intense but ephemeral blinding light to burst, and sparkles were cast into the air...
Nothing else could be perceived by an untrained eye...

MockaDash stopped a few meters after Kintaro, his sword already sheathed into the saya and his body in upright position...

They were now back to back...

Whose blood will taint red the grassy field?

A jumbled chorus of voices and sounds spiraled and spun ever on into darkness, resolving into a raspy voice speaking an alien tongue...

Razil opened his eyes with a start, leaping up from where he lay and dropping into a guarded stance. His eyes scanned the familiar blood-red horizon, and he relaxed slightly as he drank in the well-known site.
The Death-Realm panned out before him, with twisted trees and shattered bodies littering the broken plain, exotic weapons sticking into the air like some sort of morbid forest of war.

A dry, papery voice emanated from seemingly nowhere and yet everywhere at once.
And so the pupil returns...but why?
Razil looked around, and then down at the bloodied ground. He fell to his knees, and beat the earth in humiliation.
"Lost again! This cannot go on, I must become more powerful, or I wont be any use soon enough!" Razil's eyes filled with bitter tears that swam their way down his cheek, hitting the ground and being greedily eaten by the drunken soil

A moment of silence wrapped the broken plain, even the gentle breeze that usually fluttered through had stopped.
More powerful? I just taught you to harness the power of madness, and you wish for more? the voice grew ominous, as dark clouds drew together in the sky, casting everything in a steel-gray hue.
"I do! Even with the madness, I didn't win. This is unacceptable!"
An audible sneer hissed from the sky, making Razil wince.
...unacceptable? You aren't ready for what is next, go back to your world to lick your wounds and come back when you have an ounce of talent.

Razil howled in fury and stood up, brandishing his hands at the dark sky, daring and taunting.
"You think you are so great, and what are you teaching me? I could have figured out all these tricks on my own, you have been useless!"

Everything went quiet, nothing made a single noise...
You think you're such hot stuff? the voice rasped, angry enough that it shook the very earth upon which Razil stood. Winds started tearing through the plain, shrieking through the twisted trees and whispering through the diseased grass.
I will show you how uneducated... a black lightning bolt struck earth a few feet away from Razil, forming into a black robed specter with a tattered garment and cowl, flapping in the torrential wind.
...how uneducated you truly are.

The Spirit raised his right hand and snapped his fingers, and a black katana appeared in it. Razil grasped for the hilt at his side, but only felt air. It was then that he recognized the sword the Spirit clutched, ancient writing along the blade barely visible in the dim light.
He would do that to. Well no matter, I will not lose to him, he has always underestimated me! Razil grabbed two long daggers laying on the ground, flourishing them with silver spins before his body.
He had barely dropped into a stance when the Spirit shrieked and lunged at him, bringing the katana around in a flashing black arc.

Razil blocked by crossing the knives in front of him, taking the impact in his arms. He was flung straight back from the impact, his heels digging deep trenches in the dirt. Hellfire, he's strong! he thought grimly, noticing that the blades of the daggers had split off of their hilts. He dropped the useless weapons and, noticing a beam of wood extending from a nearby tree, grabbed the shaft and pulled out the curved blade of a Naginata. He spun the eastern lance in his hand and brought it around just in time to meet the oncoming spirit. Their blades clashed with a burst of tainted reiatsu, and Razil found himself gazing into the angry black-glowing eyes of his swords spirit. He glared right back and laughed defiantly, wanting to provoke the Spirit.

The being hissed, and let loose a barrage of reiatsu blades from his body, attacking with as many as he could muster. Razil responded in kind, loosing his own barrage to parry the attakcs. They stood their a mintue, battling back and forth like two socrpions with many tails, until one got through. Razil felt a stab of pain in is left shoulder, just as he felt his own sickle sink home in the Being's left flank. They jumped apart and regarded each other from a distance, eyes probing each other and their weaknesses. Razil saw the blood spreading through the dark fabric of the Spirit's robe and smiled.
"So you do bleed, that's reassuring." the spirit chuckled at the comment, and the blood began seeping back into the wound, eventually dissapearing all together.
This is my world, I control everything here...in other words, I am completely untouchable. Razil could feel the Spirit's evil smile, even as a tingling sense of dread began coursing down his own spine.

The Spirit vanished

Razil spun about, just to feel a tremendous strike slam into his side. He flew through the air, trailing blood and sweat, and struck a tree. His body crumpled around it as he slid down the trunk. Getting up drunkenly, he grasped the hilt of a broadsword and hefted it in front of him, his vision swimming before him. Feeling more than seeing the Spirit come at him, he parried a blow and rolled under the Spirit's blade, hearing the edge sing through the air as it whizzed past his head.

They continued for hours, performing a dance as ancient as life itself. A dance filled with flashing blade and sweated brow. As one attacked, the other would retreat, then counter with a ferocity unknown in magnitude. They matched each other stroke for stroke, parrying and attacking in a never ending symphony of blood and violence, the only difference being Razil's deterioration after every attack he let through, while the Spirit remained unharmed and untiring.

Finally, Razil stumbled back after his newest injury, blood spraying from a new wound grinning from his right hip to his left shoulder.
You're mine! the spirit exalted, lunging in with terrible speed, ready to deliver a death-blow.
As the spirit came at him, the whole world seemed to slow down. Razil could make out individual drops of rain as the came from the heavens, glistening and spraying when they were cut by the gleaming black edge that now flashed towards his own neck.
This is the end, I can't get out of this... even while thinking this, his mind raced with the options, trying to think of the way out of this situation.
The Spirit always said winning took sacrifice, if one was willing to sacrifice enough, there wasn't a battle that he couldn't win...what can I do?! his eyes flashed again on the looming blade as it inched nearer.
How ironic, killed with the very blade I swore to protect everyone with...have my own flesh cut by my partner... his mind raced, and a light grew inside. Sacrifice...! he thought, and it was suddenly clear.

Moving as if through water, Razil used the last of his strength to drop the quarterstaff he was holding and draw a knife from his sleeve. Still moving in slow-motion, he ran at the Spirit, kunai brandished in front of him. As time sped back up to normal, the sword in the Spirit's hand rammed home, driving between Razil's ribs and loosing a torrent of blood from the wound. Razil kept running, shoving his body up the blade that pierced his torso, and slammed the kunai into the throat cavity hidden behind the Spirit's cowl. They stood there unmoving, and Razil let a river of blood flow from his mouth, tainting his lips a dark ruby red. He regarded the Spirit with a fierce gaze, even as he felt the icy fire of death race through his body from where the sword impaled him.

Without speaking a word, the Spirit pulled himself off of the blade embedded in its throat, blood spilling loose and dissipating as the wound healed itself. He yanked the sword blade out of Razil's chest, letting the body crumple to the sodden floor. The Spirit stood over Razil, watching his blood leak into the ground. Razil stared right back up, coughing a little and blood bubbling from his lips. Finally, the Spirit spoke.
You give up your own life in an attempt to take mine...no...to show me that i would be dead, were I human.
He shook his cowled head slowly, almost sadly.
A warrior indeed, swordsman through and through.

The being began to slowly back away, dissipating into the dark air.
That which you searched for will be granted, you have shown me that you are devoted to your blade.
His robes vanished into darkness, and only his head was left, like a grim totem suspended in the air.
This was merely a sprinkling Razil Masamune, the storm has yet to come.
Here this now, for I only say it once...

~{*}~

Razil's eyes opened for the second time that day, and for the second time he didn't remember closing them. He raised his torso from the ground, looking about with wary eyes, and noticed Mocka and the other Shinigami sparring a few feet away. He got up, grasping his Zanpakuto's sheath as he rose, and watched the bout with detached interest.

Kintaro heard Mockadash speaking and was relieved that his friend wasn't harmed in any bad way... As Mockadash reffered to trying to force the feeling out, Kintaro only had time to look over his left shoulder and see the other shinigami approaching at high speed...
"No resting for anybody!" he thought. eek

Kintaros lowered zanpakutou could only, probably, deflect one or two strikes at that speed with Mockadashs strenght and mastery...
Kintaro quickly turned the grasping side of the hilt and changed the direction of the zanpakutou to his back. As he turned 180º to his left, his horizontal zanpakutou movement permited to add the strenght and speed he had on his zanpakutou to the incoming Mockadashs blade when they touched, thus changing its direction a bit... Just the enough to evade the first attack by one inch...
Mockadash had amazing precision in each movement... The deflection didn't, in any way, seem to matter in the complete set of mastered and almost automatic moves.
The second strike described an horizontal slash at the neck line, that Kintaro dodged by crouching. The pain of his bleeding right leg had kicked in with the sudden movement and, even though Kintaro was pumped with adrenalin, was excruciating.
As Kintaro noticed the downward diagonal slash he could only lift his zanpakutou in a reflex way and put the blade in the direction of the strike.

The constricting feeling was now an overwhelming sense of despair... The jitters where kicking in... As electric discharges that crossed Kintaros brain and demanded the extention of his grasping fingers.
"This must STOP!" Kintaro thought as he leaked reiatsu, suddenly, from his body...
Mockadashs strike had changed its direction when Kintaro came to his senses that were numb, perhaps due to the overflowing reiatsu that got out of his body as a surface of small blue flames in his skin.
Apparently, letting out an antagonist reiatsu to his arm would prevent the jitters... The leg pain was still there.

The now jumping Mockadash was approaching as in slow motion in Kintaros brain. "Looks like a powerful blow... This is dangerous" and then the numbness passed and Kintaro caught up with the actual speed. From his, still, kneeling position he quickly lifted his zanpakutou blade and held it above his head with his two hands, one at the tsuka and the other holding the blade in the palm.

The pressure from the impact, passed through Kintaros arms, torso, lower back and onto his legs to the ground, like a lightning strike.
The wounded leg gushed more blood after the ground breaking attack...
"AAAAaaaahhh!!!" Kintaro was obviously in pain... "I could've answered You sooner... But You didn't give me the chance..." Kintaro said while lifting his head and his eyes to his friend "I feel it! And I've found a way to reduce its effects on me! All thanks to You!" he smiled. The two shinigamis where standing still with the blades connecting when Kintaro lifted his right index finger, that was grasping the tsuka, and pointed at Mockadashs left shoulder.
"Think fast! Hadou #4 - Biakurai!"

(jezus this took time! smile hope you enjoyed as much as me... and speaking of Jesus... Thats right man! Nobody F*cks with Jesus! lol )

Why do that? He could have avoided it, and easily countered. Why give up an advantage like that? Razil thought, his mind calculating the intricacies of the battle before him. He had noticed that since waking he had grown more detached and reserved, seeing everything as if from some distant perspective.
Strange... he thought to himself, not really caring either way.

Looking at the sword he held, sheathed in his hand, he wondered if he would get the chance to use his new abilities that day.
I was hoping Mocka would be the first to see it. Oh well, his loss I guess... this last thought was accompanied by a wry grin, as Razil turned on his heels and began to head away from the gardens.

((stop me if you want to xD))

(Sorry to make You wait so much, Razil... I'll try and finish this off quickly xd You too Mockadash xp )

"Old times... Maybe they aren't so far away..." Cough "If You are saying that We are still eager to know what's in store for us, after all this time... We haven't changed one bit. Maybe it's just the nostalgic feeling taking over our emotions and desires, turning us into innocent souls that believe nothing is wrong with the world. It's a good feeling..." Cough "... but it's an illusion... nothing more... nothing less." Kintaro couldn't breathe because of the pain, and a few seconds after, he fell to the ground.

The blood gushing out of his body from his leg and the biakurais landing spot, at his left hip, to the grass.
"Mockadash... I seem to have just saved myself from losing a tremendous amount of blood... If that biakurai had hit me in my belly, my whole intestines would be deep fried..." He said in a slow and painful way... And lifting his head to his friend he asked "Are you alright enough to help me reach 4th Squads treatment facilities? Eheh... I don't think I can walk properly and I'm losing a bit of blood..." sweatdrop

Razil looked at Mocka over his shoulder, eyes calculating. Turning his body to face his Lieutenant, he regarded the prostrate form of the other Shinigami.
"Warm-up, huh? And I got you to go all the way to your Shikai's ultimate..."
His eyes narrowed, though his expression didn't change.
"Move the unranked one away first, I don't want him getting hurt."

He knew he was being a trifle disrespectful, but he was goading Mocka to see his reaction.
Lets see how he does against me this time...I am not the same person that fell before him a moment ago, maybe this time he will be defeated...
Not daring to hope, Razil purged the thought. He wanted to be as calm as possible and not let any stray emotions through the iron wall that was his face.