Make New Friends (Shin, Semi-open)

"Yeah, Captain Akarui is the fastest one around here. Though I'm not sure how long that willll hold up." Tatsuya teased both Captain Akarui and Shin. "But I'm sure there are others around here just as fast if not faster then you." He continued. "I'm with Captain. Let's see what the Squirt has to offer." Tatsuya got up from the chair and held out his hand for Sumiko before following Captain Akarui. "I'm grateful to be an innocent man again. I'm pretty sure you might have heard of some of my close calls with the Omnitsukido. Being able to call them allies again if a good feeling." Tatsuya quickly answered Captain Akarui's question. "As much as the living world had to offer, it just doesn't compete with the tranquility of Soul Society." He continued to add. "It was a lonely and dangerous experience over there. If Sumiko hadn't been with me, I doubt I would even be here." He stated with a truthful smile at both Captain Akarui and Sumiko. "Other then the Omnitsukido, I also dealt with some hollows that did a number on me." Tatsuya pointed out that even while he was away, that he still handled Gotei business.

Shin smiled faintly, he would have a chance to show off to Kuro what he had been practicing. He had been doing a lot of practicing of late, not only had be brushed up on his hand to hand combat he had also practiced knife fighting and had bought a large number of throwing knives, 10 of which he kept hidden on his person, he had had his clothes modified so that they were concealed and easily accessible. He also carried a small bag of caltrops with him, another courier had shown them to him as an escape tool and so shin normally carried some around with him for just that purpose.

Shin stretched a little bit as they went along, being sure not to expose any of his abilities quite yet, he pondered how he should go about the demonstration, and decided that he surprisingly wouldn't mind going at it with Kuro again, maybe he would be able to touch him this time. Shin looked over at Kuro and thought about their first "training session" he had been trying to put the fear into shin and it had worked, so well in fact that he had injured himself trying to shun-po away from him. Shin was sure he had improved but wasn't sure by how much, but maybe, just maybe he'd be able to do something this time, after all he had gotten the hang of the energy thing, at least empowering himself using it.

It didn't take long to get to where they were going and a little bit of idle chit-chat had been said on the way, but shin wasn't really paying attention to that. Once they got there he turned around to Kuro and waved him over and said, "Um, I want to practice with you, again. See how much I've improved since before. Is that okay with you?" Shin looked at Kuro expectantly.

Kuro stood by idly as Shin prepared. He was surprised by his request, though he thought to himself that he shouldn't have been. He'd been planning on pairing Shin against Mika so as to lower the gap between him and his sparring partner. But if Shin asked, Kuro wasn't one to refuse. He put Hana on the ground and told her to stay with Mika before removing his haori and tossing it to the ground to allow for easier movement. "If you're sure about this, come at me whenever you're ready." Kuro's style of watching the opponent's first move was heavily apparent as he invited Shin to make the opening attack. He wasn't sure if he'd take the bait, but either way it was sure to be interesting when things got started. The wind blew in a light breeze across the barren dirt land outside of the Seireitei's walls, almost breathing with a sound like the calm before a storm as if to signify the beginning of a great battle.

Shin started to do a few stretches as he realized what he had asked, he hadn't really changed much himself really, and so he knew right off the bat that he would be inferior in speed, the trait which he normally relied on himself to overpower his opponents or escape. He had a few tricks up his sleeve, he had taken the time to ask his normal instructor for a few tip and had practiced quite a few things, first of which, he had a new sword, the blade was about 18 inches long and the hilt about 6, the trick was the hilt was curved, and it usually threw off people's expectations of where the blade would be, just enough to perhaps avoid their blocks or counters. The second thing he had was a little trick he had drilled into him by his instructor, a technique to quickly switch speeds mid-attack, he wasn't great at this yet, it was extremely difficult for shin, but he managed to get it to a level where use it. The last tool in his new arsenal was throwing knives, he had practiced long and hard to be able to throw them fast, hard, and point first, ten of them were currently concealed about his person.

He looked up at kuro who was waiting there, he knew that he'd be watched closely, and that he had to keep his cool and not panic, though it all depended on how kuro played this. Shin thought about it long and hard, how should he begin? go slow and surprise later? or show everything now? He had his new blade which he wouldnt really be able to conceal or hide it until later. He wanted to go all out but knew it would be useless while kuro was in his watching phase, he decided to try to wait until kuro switched out of his watching stance to spring the other surprises. He looked up at Kuro and pulled out his new sword, not intending to use the tricks he knew with it to throw people off just yet, and charged, full speed at kuro, swinging a light swipe at him, waiting for the inevitable counter to come.

Kuro's hands moved like lightning. To the less observant, his zanpakuto would seem to have appeared in his hand from nowhere as they missed the movement when he reached in his robes to draw the short blade. With this in hand, he had no trouble bringing up his defense to block Shin's first attack. It was only an average attempt, Kuro knew that Shin had to have more than that in order to be so eager to spar with him again. But Kuro was always ready to offer support no matter what the situation. Rather than berate Shin's mediocre start, he found a positive spin on things. "Excellent initiative. Your speed is nice as always, and you haven't let down your guard by recklessly attacking me with everything you've got. But I'm sure you have more than this."

Kuro followed up by just pushing back hard against Shin's blade, using his superior height to his advantage to force Shin back. He would normally have moved in for an attack after stopping Shin's sword, but felt that he should set a good example and practice what he was praising. By calmly holding back and slowly gaining an advantage by using what he had, he would find a safe opening. He hoped that Shin would understand that and find a way to use the same method.

Shin's attack had been easily blocked, he had forgotten quite how quick Kuro was, and as Kuro pushed him back he lept back to gain some more room for himself and he realized that Kuro would not let down his guard, and that he wouldn't be able to take him by surprise, he was expectant and waiting for shin's next move. Shin briefly considered showing one of his new tactics off in order to try and get Kuro to lower his guard, but decided against it, if he had to use one he was going to use them all. Shin lept back further to get some more room.

He took a calm breath and dove forward, dashing at Kuro at a decent speed, did a little spin about 10 feet away, reaching into his clothes and throwing out four throwing knives towards Kuro's general direction, and started leaning side to side a bit, trying to throw Kuro's prediction off, once he reached Kuro, he would hopefully be distracted by the knives, shin made a quick slash before he reached Kuro, changing it into a angled thrust, trying to twist his wrist to change where the point was to better hit Kuro, all the while moving as fast as his body could handle, if he had to make a strike, it had to be now, for without the element of surprise there was no way he would ever be able to touch him.

As Kuro pressed against Shin to force him to try a new tactic, the others behind him watched the spar unfold. Hana smiled and laughed in enjoyment at Kuro's display, showing clear favoritism as to who she was rooting for. Mika on the other hand remained calm and focused as she observed.

Kuro took a step forward again to lessen Shin's space when he moved back, but found himself facing four knives which were unleashed simultaneously from within Shin's attire. Reacting quickly, he threw himself to the side, slashing at the projectiles as he went down and managed to swat one to the ground. The other three flew past his prior position and headed in the direction of the observers. Kuro turned to try and think of a way to stop them, but had to turn his attention back to Shin as he rolled into a kneeling position and brought his sword hand up to displace Shin's thrust so that it stabbed the empty air beside him. Kuro kept his sword up and didn't allow for Shin's blade to move back towards him. If he wanted to do so, he'd have to back off and get it out of Kuro's reach to escape the lock of their blades. From this position, Kuro was able to take his eyes off Shin temporarily to see how the others had fared with the stray knives.

"Hmm. Kid is fast." Tatsuya uttered as he watched Shin charge Captain Akarui. "He is. Even faster then me." Sumiko confirmed. "And me." Added Mika. "Too bad that's all he's got. Squirt needs more strength." Tatsuya quickly determined that there wasn't much behind Shin's attacks. "He's still young. Plenty of time to get stronger." Sumiko stated looking straight ahead with interest. "I agree. Besides strength isn't everything. If they can't touch you, an opponent's strength is worthless." Mika defended speed over strength. "Now where's the fun in that?" Tatsuya asked looked down a Mika. "What do you mean?" Mika asked with piqued interest. "I like speed every now and then, but its gets pretty boring when an opponent can't hit you." Tatsuya smirked. "Yeah. You would think like that. Guess someone as big as you would want a fight like that." Mika said with a shake of her head. "Harsh." Tatsuya bluntly replied and chuckled. Sumiko giggled at the two. Before Tatsuya could say more he watched as Shin threw knives at Captain Akarui. Captain Akarui dodged them all but was only able to deflect one of the four knives thrown. Tatsuya quickly pushed Sumiko out of the way of one knife and dropped down to a crotch, catching a knife that was headed straight at Hana's head. The third knife grazed Tatsuya's cheek, drawing a thin line of blood as it flew by. The knife he caught was only a inch away from hitting Hana. Her eyes were focused in shock on the tip of the knife in front of her. Drops of blood hit the ground from Tatsuya's hand as he stood back up. Tatsuya grabbed the knife with his other hand and quickly threw it to the ground, right in front of where Shin's next step would be. "You need to watch where you throw things, kid!" Tatsuya shouted out less then amused. "You alright, Sumiko?" He asked as Sumiko picked herself off the ground and dusted herself. "I'll be fine." She replied. "Captain. I think you need to have a little chat with him." Tatsuya urged in seriousness.

Shin was surprised that Kuro had deflected a knife, he must have thrown them faster than even he would have thought, even so he still didn't manage to land a hit on the captain, even in surprise, his lunge had failed, the captain locking his blade so he couldn't move forward. The Kuro did something odd, he looked away, shin instinctively grabbed one of his hidden throwing knives and went for the stab, he had to at least hit him, that was his goal, to hit the captain, the only goal on his mind. Suddenly there was a noise, and a dagger in the ground inbetween him and the captain, inbetween their feet. Shin lept back in surprise and heard a voice call out to watch where he threw the knives, shin took a quick glance over towards the bystandards and seeing nothing amiss from this distance thought nothing more of it and focused back on Kuro, who was moving, shin was about to throw the knife but remembered the warning, and instead leapt up into the air, completely focused on Kuro once more, totally missing the rest of the man's comments. Shin reached into his person and pulled out 4 of the remaining knives he had, throwing all 5 of the knives he had out towards Kuro's position, at this angle even if he missed, they would end up in the ground. Only then did he realize he had no way of dodging midair, and Kuro could, he was a sitting duck, so he curled up a bit defensively with sword in one hand and dagger in the other, intending to throw the last dagger as Kuro approached and allow him to safely land or counterattack if the opportunity arose.

Kuro saw Tatsuya throw the blade, thankful that none of the watchers had gotten hurt. But he missed Shin's movement as he moved in for a quick stab. Luckily, the thrown blade forced him to back off, but not before it had gashed his forearm slightly. Kuro was grateful that Tatsuya had distracted Shin in his time of negligence. He'd forgotten how focused Shin was on this and that a matter like a few misplaced knives wouldn't take his mind off this fight. Not wanting to put them or his self in such a situation again, Kuro leaped to his feet and circled around so that he was facing Shin with the audience to their side. By this time, Shin had leapt into the air to begin his next attack. Kuro felt that those knives were starting to be a nuisance. He felt a throb from the wound on his arm and suddenly got a new idea. Sliding his zanpakuto across his other arm, Kuro slit an identical gash in his opposite forearm. Folding his arms over each other, he placed each hand on the spots from where his blood was now flowing. "By my hands, taste my blood as if falls from my open wounds. Hado #22: Blood Daggers!"

A crimson glow shone from the wounds on Kuro's arms as the blood lit up with spirit power and began to gather in Kuro's hands. In an instant, the blood had solidified into two handfuls of short kunais. Kuro whipped both hands out together and sent the newly formed projectiles up at Shin's airborne figure. The blood weapons flew like a spray from Kuro and knocked Shin's thrown knives out of the sky. Two remained, flying up at Shin like arrows launched from a bow. This move was one of Kuro's oldest. Being part of the second squad, he had trained extensively in the skill of throwing small blades over the years and this kido was the way he did it. Not one to carry a bunch of extra weight with him, Kuro opted to surprise his foes with using this spell to make his own weapons on the spot. Now that he'd launched a successful counter from his position on the ground, Kuro readied himself with his zanpakuto in hand, preparing for when Shin touched down.

Shin did not expect Kuro to make knives with his blood, in fact, he didn't even know it was possible, there wasn't much he could do as his blades were all deflected aside and 2 came straight at him at extremely high speeds. Shin could tell that one would miss and that the other he would be unable to avoid, so he focused heavily on that blade and tried to time a swing to knock it out of the way. Unfortunately it was traveling a lot faster than he had anticipated and sunk into his shoulder, Shin let out an exclamation in pain, as the force knocked him back a little bit and he crashed into the ground and rolled onto his feet, his arm wasn't doing too well but he could still use it, luckily the blade wasn't too thick so it didn't do too much damage, it just penetrated well.

He charged Kuro once more, throwing the last blade towards him as he ran, then doing a flurry of attacks, trying to channel his reiatsu physically while incorporating physical strikes with his sword slashes.

Kuro didn't wait for Shin to reach him this time, stepping into the clash as he came upon him after swatting the thrown knife aside with his blade. What started when they met was nothing less than a loud chorus of blades ringing as they were brought together again and again. Sparks of reiatsu flew as both combatants brought out their reserves of energy to boost their bodies' performance and endurance. Kuro's feet moved constantly, changing his position as he circled around their point of combat and skillfully threw additional attacks in between Shin's strikes as he dodged and parried them. Neither one of them was willing to back down from this fight. Kuro decided to step it up a notch and took a closer step to shin as their blades came together again. He swung extra hard to knock Shin off balance and brought his free hand forward in the opening he'd made to throw a heavy punch at Shin's stomach.

Even though he was attacking as fast as he possibly could, Kuro was dodging or parrying every single blow, while easily managing to launch his own attacks in between shin's strikes. Shin at this point realized that Kuro had merely been humoring him this while time, he could tell, Kuro could have easily ended this contest with those attacks, but was purposefully aiming of skimming hits as to not hurt Shin that badly, it was insulting, depressing, devastating even, he realized that there was no improvement since last time, almost no difference in their comparative power since Kuro had last pummeled Shin into the ground. His morale and purpose started to waver, and his strikes became a little weaker and a little slower as he the realization started to hit him.

At this time, Kuro stepped in and swung harder. It all seemed to happen in slow motion... their blades collided... Shin's shattered under the blow... The blade bit into his flesh... then a tremendous blow to the gut sent him flying.... tumbling across the ground before rolling to a stop face down in the dirt. Shin was not only hurting physically but mentally as well, why couldn't he win? why couldn't he improve? He had trained so hard... but he hadn't improved at all... He slowly stood up, as blood seeped through his clothes a bit, and looked forward at Kuro, who hadn't moved, and thought, Why are you so far away from me? Why can't I catch up to you?

"Do you wish for power?" Shin blinked, he was back in the castle, in the throne room with the dark entity before him again. He look forward at the entity, battered and bloody. The entity looked at him and said, "No strings attatched, just take my power, use it as you will." The creature raised it's hand and a giant weapon formed out of shadow materialized before it. It appeared to be a large double ended serrated sword, except that it had four sides instead of 2 on each end, more like a spear. Shin reached forward to grasp the weapon but it turned into shadow and flowed into his body. "Call me forth to do battle, Akumu, Devourer of Dreams."

Shin opened his eyes and realized he was back in the real world, he looked at Kuro and said, "Devour, Akumu." Shadows reached out from shin's hand and wrapped around his body and started forming a elongated shadow in his hand, soon it fully enveloped Shin and as the weapon the creature had extended to him finished forming the shadow covering shin retracted, leaving him standing there with the weapon in full shinigami robes. Shin looked down at the weapon in his hand, he knew how it worked, he didn't know how he knew, but he knew the properties of the weapon, it could extended and retract and he knew how to use it. He could feel the power flooding his body... He took a deep breath and charged Kuro again, spinning around and extending the weapon before him in a an attack, before retracting it at the end of the swing before it hit him and repeating it over again and again, as fast as he could, back and forth, all over the place, trying to land a single blow on the evasive Kuro.

Kuro felt his swing break through Shin's weapon. His following attack seemed to completely devastate the poor boy. He sank into what seemed like a deep fit of depression, consumed by his own powerlessness. Kuro stood by and waited. This was a crucial moment. Shin's choice of action here would determine how far his potential could go. As he watched, something changed in Shin's body. A faint power could be felt building inside of him. Kuro took a step back as this power spiked in a wave of pressure over the area. Shin's reiatsu was different now. His attire had transformed into a genuine shihakusho. Kuro smiled with satisfaction. "Well done. Your determination to improve has transformed you..." he held up his blade, resuming his ready stance as a surge of shadows sprung forth to swallow him and retracted leaving him with his zanpakuto in hand, "...into a true shinigami."

Kuro was forced to take his evasion to a faster pace as Shin swung this new and dangerous looking weapon at him. It was a remarkable piece of equipment with the ability to extend its length by splitting the blade into sharp shards connected by a thick wire. This whip sword's movement's were erratic and hard to completely get away from. Kuro took a small swipe across his right cheek as he cut one dodge a little too close. Determined to get a breather, he released his own zanpakuto. "Concentrate, Seishou-Seijin!" Kuro's small blade flashed with a bright yellow light, instantly reforming its shape into a black and gold ninja gauntlet on his left hand. Kuro thrust this newly clad hand forward and fired a blast of spiritual energy out of his palm at Shin's feet, sending up a large explosion of dirt and dust.

Tatsuya and the others watched the two continue fighting. Well, Shin was fighting. Captain Akarui on the other hand was merely dodging and lightly countering. Those who knew Captain Akarui, knew that Shin had no real chance in striking the captain, even as fast as Shin was. That point was made more clear when Kuro stepped towards Shin and threw a heavy punch at him. "That should do it." Tatsuya said when Shin stopped sliding and lay face down on the dirt. "Let me go help him." Sumiko said in a low tone as she started to walk towards them; not surprised by what happened, but she didn't want to see Shin get hurt. "Give it a moment, Sumiko. Let us see what happens." Mika softly called out. "But..." Sumiko started but got interrupted by a reiatsu spike. All eyes turned to Shin, Sumiko's eyes went wide with surprise, Mika's eyes showed a piqued interest, and Tatsuya's eyes narrowed in uncertainty. Shin's reiatsu changed, and shadows began to envelope him. The shadows cleared and Shin stood before them dressed in a Shinigami's shihakusho. They were surprised when Shin charged Captain Akarui again. This time moving much faster then before and hitting harder. Tatsuya was debating whether or not to intercede when his mind was made up by Captain Akarui releasing his own zanpakuto. "Time to go!" Tatsuya hastily scooped up Hana and flash stepped back just before Captain Akarui hit the ground with the energy blast. Sumiko and Mika barely managed to escape the dusty explosion, just coming up behind Tatsuya. "A little more warning next time." Mika lightly snapped at Tatsuya. "Hey, don't blame me. I barely noticed just before he did it." Tatsuya replied with a chuckle as the girls dusted themselves off as best they could.

Shin was surprised at the amount of power that the weapon was giving him, but apparently it just wasn't enough to catch Kuro. Near miss followed by near miss, until one of the dodges was sloppy and he managed to score a slight gash across Kuro's face, it caught him slightly by surprise, he had finally managed to hit Kuro. However his extreme concentration was now broken and that slowed him down a little. In that moment Kuro yelled something and his blade turned into a gauntlet, and then he thrust it forward. It took shin a moment to realize that he had an energy blast headed towards him, thinking quick he tried to use his weapon to vault over it, however the blast was faster and more powerful than he would have thought. It collided with the part of his weapon that was connected to the earth, sending him and his weapon flying. Shin felt the blast send him flying though the air, dirt and rocks stinging his body and his wounds. He fell to the ground and bounced and rolled as the momentum from the blast expended itself. As he came to a rest he realized how badly hurt he was from the shock to his wounds, he tried to look around, but because of the dust cloud he couldn't see and he had no idea where his weapon was. He had managed to hit kuro though, that was his stated goal to himself, so he was satisfied with this as the end of the fight, and so he lay there waiting for the dust to settle.

Kuro smiled with a sense of pride at Shin's growth. He couldn't take full credit, but that he'd played a part in this small boy's improvement was clicking in his mind as an accomplishment. Reacting to Kuro's shot, Shin had done everything in his power to avoid it, not knowing that the blast wasn't aimed straight at him. When his weapon was hit and the explosion kicked up the dust, Kuro waited for a few moments to relax and prepare. He did not simply stand back however. His mind was focused on Shin's spiritual signature, confirming his location in the dust cloud. He took a deep breath to rejuvenate himself then shunpoed behind Shin in the midst of the dust. At this close of range, he could make out Shin on the ground.

"Checkmate."

Holding his gauntlet out with his open palm facing Shin, Kuro extended a blade of golden spiritual energy, stopping it with the point fractions of an inch from Shin's throat. Kuro stood there saying nothing further at the moment. He just stood by until the dust cloud finally settled, allowing the audience to see them again.

"Well I guess that settles that then." Tatsuya put Hana down as the dust settled to the ground and looked upon Shin flat on his back. "I think Captain Akarui went a little overboard." Sumiko worriedly stated as she took a few tentative steps forward. "You worry to much, Sumiko. It would have been overboard had Shin been seriously wounded." Mika replied. "Anyways, its over, so you can tend to him now." Tatsuya added as he walked over to the Captain. Hana quickly ran past him and straight towards the Captain. Sumiko made her way to Shin and knelt next to him, starting her evaluation of his body. "Not even a trained shinigami and he has already attained shikai. It would be a shame to let a talent like that go unrefined. Wouldn't you agree, Captain?" Tatsuya stepped next to Captain Akarui. "Well, aside from the scrapes and bruises, everything seems to be fine. A quick patch job and you'll be ready to go." Sumiko said to Shin with a light smile and quickly got to work.

Shin felt a sudden shift in the dunt and then Kuro was over him, blade at his throat. He was honestly surprised at the level of speed that Kuro now showed, it seemed nothing like the level of speed that he was using during the fight. It seemed that Kuro was still holding back a lot while fighting him, but right now he was more concerned with the blade at his throat, then Kuro said one word, "Checkmate" And with that single word Shin knew the battle was over, they waited in that position until the dust finally settled, then Kuro removed his blade and stood back.

The others came over and shin just stay lying there, Sumiko came over to him and began checking his injuries, he wasn't too terribly surprised, he must look really beat up, he felt really beat up. He was surprised however when she mentioned that he wasn't too badly hurt, he honestly thought he had sustained some bad injuries with how much they hurt. As Sumiko was tending to his wounds a man came running over at high speed and stopped in front of the captain and spoke to him for a moment, shin couldn't quite make out the words but both Tatsuya and Kuro both had a serious look about them from hearing the news. Whatever it was shin didn't know, for the man was speaking in a quiet voice so others wouldn't overhear. He was straining to hear when sumiko patted him on the shoulder and said that she was done, shin looked down in surprise that his injuries were gone, he still felt sore, but the cuts and such were gone. He glanced back over at Kuro and Tatsuya still engaged in conversation with the man, he decided that now would be a good time to leave as they would probably be busy with whatever that man and came to tell them about. He thanked Sumiko for healing his wounds and started to jog off, turning around to call out, "See you later", before heading back to the Rukongai.