Capítulo 6: Burst Blade
The fight began explosively, with Ichigo immediately moving forward to strike with the flat edge of his zanpakuto, aiming for her arm. It was clear that he aimed to quickly overwhelm her with the blunt force of his strikes, but Chiaki wouldn't allow that to happen without a fight. Moving backward as soon as the match started, Chiaki backstepped just out of range of Ichigo's blade, matching his speed with her own to do her best to dance just out of reach. Chiaki knew that he had the advantage so long as he had the weapon, but the zanpakuto was nonetheless cumbersome to move and carry during combat. With her spiritual pressure and power close to his, their combat capabilities were relatively close, and so Chiaki was able to continually step back as Ichigo moved forward and pressed his advantage.
[Come on, come on!]
Chiaki continued to mentally egg on Ichigo, who, despite her dexterity, had her on the back foot with his blade. Shifting his footing and stance as he moved forward, he had moved into a stance that let him hold his blade close to his body and let him move it with tight and quick motions, and Chiaki was forced to up the intensity of her dodging, sidestepping a sword strike before leaning back to avoid a blow, just barely managing to keep up her footing. Then, from her blindspot, the sword came flying upwards, Ichigo timing his strike just right to redirect the giant slab of metal straight into her just as she tried to dodge. Chiaki just barely managed to put up her guard in time as the blunt force of the blade struck her head on, hitting her with an impact that rattled her skeleton even through her block, pain flaring up all across her body even in her spiritual form. Fighting through the pain, Chiaki pushed the sword away with the arm she blocked with, forcing it back to knock Ichigo off balance as she placed some distance between them, Ichigo catching his breath at the same time.
Chiaki and Ichigo stood at an impasse for a moment, each waiting for the other to make the first move as they watched each other for any mistakes and openings. It was only a moment, but in the heat of combat and at the speed of their exchange, even that moment of hesitation felt like an eternity. For a moment, everything was calm… Then, quick as lightning, the tension broke as Ichigo exploded forward, rushing forward with an incredible burst of speed; It was as just as Chiaki had been hoping.
[Sorry bro, you can't be so impulsive and expect to win!]
Chiaki was a strategic fighter at heart, always looking for ways to coax the enemy into revealing ether weaknesses. She had been betting on Ichigo's aggressiveness to lead him straight forward, and as he swung the blade downwards with full force, Chiaki sidestepped just enough to let Ichigo slam into the ground, and instead of moving back, now stepped forward to take the offensive, striking her brother in the chest with her fist and turning the momentum of his speed against him. Ichigo staggered for a moment, the wind clearly having been knocked out of his lungs, and Chiaki chose this moment to keep moving forward, grabbing hold of his sword arm to keep his biggest advantage out of the fight as she sent a right hook straight into his stomach. Ichigo raised an arm to block, but without the space or the freedom to swing his sword at that range, it was clear that it was him that was being put on the defensive now.
[This is checkmate!]
Chiaki lifted up her foot and, using her full force, moved to deliver a decisive blow with a knee to his gut. However, before she could finish her attack, she was caught off guard by a shoulder to the face! Chiaki was knocked back as Ichigo forced her back with a shoulder slam, before tripping her while she was off balance with a kick to the leg, knocking her straight to the ground. Crap. She had underestimated Ichigo's prowess in hand-to-hand; she'd been so focused on the sword, she'd forgotten Ichigo had been in a lot of street fights before he had awakened any powers at all, and he knew how to defend himself at the very least.
Ichigo now lifted up his blade, looking a little battered and bruised, but not nearly hurt enough to slow down yet. Looking down at the equally hurt Chiaki, Ichigo sighed.
"You sure you're not going to give up yet?"
Chiaki simply used the moment to pull herself to her feet, looking a little frustrated. Still, she forced herself to smile: she wasn't beaten yet. She had one last card to play, and she had to make it count.
"You know I won't go down that easy."
Ichigo shrugged, shifting the weight of his blade to get ready to strike again.
"Suit yourself"
Ichigo swung the blade again, stepping forward and swinging with a strike from the side. At this distance, it would be basically impossible for her to dodge a strike like that without ducking and leaving herself open, and Ichigo had adapted his style to take advantage of that. There was no way to avoid this strike as it barreled towards her; That's why Chiaki decided to meet it head-on.
"Burst Blade!
From Chiaki's wrist erupted the reiatsu blade she had formed earlier- except now, the energy being released held a distinctive blue glow. Indeed, Chiaki had had an epiphany about the nature of her racial powers: she could never defeat Ichigo's shinigami powers without matching them against her Quincy powers, but she also couldn't use anything but the powers of a High-Spec human without raising suspicion. But… there was a third option available to her. Chiaki knew mixing the powers of racial abilities together. Combining forms of High-Speed Movement, mixing Blut with Hierro abilities, or even mixing a Heilig Pfeil with another energy attack… all these things were possible and more.
And now, Chiaki had combined her reiatsu blade with the Quincy ability to form a spirit weapon, turning her reiatsu strike into a blade with powerful strength and enough force to match a Zanpakuto.
As Ichigo's blade met Chiaki's head on, sparks of reishi splashed off of the point of contact as the two blades grinded against each other, seemingly in a complete stalemate. Then, at the last moment, Chiaki revealed one last trick: twisting her wrist, Chiaki directed the point of her blade so that it was directed entirely at the side of Ichigo's sword. While her reishi blade might seem like a solid sword, in reality, it was a stream of cutting reishi pushed outwards by her energy, all of which now slammed into Ichigo's blade, and caught off guard by the sudden jerking motion, the blade was torn out of his hands. Chiaki wasted no time in capitalizing on the opening and rushed forwards, performing a leg sweep to now knock Ichigo to the ground, and without any hesitation, dropped to the ground to meet him, forcing Ichigo into a chokehold and holding him firmly to the ground.
"Alright! I have seen enough!"
Rukia, who had been watching from the sidelines, now finally used her authority as referee to call the match at that moment. She looked a little frustrated, but more than that, she seemed worried about the well-being of the two. As Rukia got up from her seat, Chiaki let Ichigo go, the two looking battered and sore from all the blows they'd received. Shaking her head, Rukia stretched both hands outward as a slight glow emitted, and Chiaki felt her wounds disappear. Looking around, she saw Ichigo was now also in a much better state, though Rukia looked a little more haggard as her energy depleted.
"I'm glad to see you two trust each other enough to spar at such a high intensity, but don't you think that was a little much for a first spar?"
Chiaki and Ichigo both shrugged, only causing Rukia's exasperation to increase. This time though, it seemed like Chiaki would be the one to bear the full brunt of her anger, as Rukia swiveled towards her with surprising speed and pointed towards her accusingly.
"And you! What kind of power is that? It's certainly not anything that humans can usually do, so how did you create that blade?"
Chiaki just smiled and scratched her head, trying to look a bit embarrassed about her impromptu technique, but she really just ended up looking smug.
"Well… I guess it's just something I can do with my spiritual pressure. I mean, humans with spiritual awareness usually can do some sort of ability that others don't, especially when they figure out they have power. I just sort of… figured it out too."
Rukia eyed her suspiciously for a moment, clearly taking the time to decide whether or not this explanation made sense to her. For a moment, it seemed like Rukia was going to question further… however, Rukia only frowned, before bowing slightly to the two, and Ichigo stepped back in shock.
"I never expected to see you bow to us shortie…"
"…I must apologize for my outburst. What you say is indeed completely reasonable Chiaki, and I was perhaps a bit too rude to you, both now and before. I suppose I was simply feeling frustrated by my current predicament, and to see you gain power when I have none… well, it's no matter."
Rukia waved away the issue, shaking her head at seemingly no one but herself, before she regained her composure, now looking as confident as she was at the beginning of the day.
"Still, it's very good to see you can hold your own Chiaki. Ichigo clearly needs to work on fighting smaller opponents, though I think between the two of you, Ichigo's hollow fighting abilities are still the higher of the two. I think the two of you do have potential, however, so keep up your training. Oh, and remember: no matter who you defeat, you still have much more to learn."
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