The pressure of the battle between the two combatants continued to exert itself on the brutish woman. Omoni, a woman never known to truly show, know or express fear remains ever on edge and on constant alert. The shadow of death had touched the Lieutenant, as it had done so very often, seeking to overtake and consume her in its cold clutches.
Like she has done time and time again throughout her life, Omoni attempts to shelve that feeling, that sense of encroaching demise that choked the air like smoke, attempting to smother the maiden. Her senses elevated, focused, sensitive to whatever she could pick up, whatever hint or clue would give her hint to where the Captain would attack from, and
how he would attack. In this state of heightened awareness, fueled by the feeling of death gnashing at her heels, she perceives Kyomu striking out, the attack lethal evident from the feeling of the blade jutting towards her jugular. Reflexively she launches herself into the air, reishi platforms conjured beneath her feet elevating her higher and propelling herself further away.
Another platform is conjured, heavy steps launching her further away
-
Another reishi plate propels the berserker further away still.
She moved to draw distance between her and the Phantom who haunted her, attempting to launch herself beyond his line of sight — even if just for a moment. The air seemed to shimmer in her wake, the wind blowing past her from the strength of her steps driving her forward. In the midst of all this, in the chaos of most recent happenings a blue sphere of tightly compacted spiritual pressure lingers on the tip of her aggressive looking blade, Namakizu. The orb is pitched, rocketed towards ground zero, the very grounds Omoni had so quickly retreated from. What started off as a small softball sized orb, quickly swelled and expanded before consuming everything within ten feet of it in its brilliant birth. The speed in which it was launched and concurrently expanded should be enough to catch the slithering serpent that is the Captain should he have attempted to give chase to the fleeing warrior.
Her reflexes, sharp. Her stratagem, commendable. Her deduction regarding the Phantom’s previous actions potentially being a trap…
correct.
As Omoni’s form rockets through the air from reishi composed plate to plate, as the sphere of reiatsu fires and sets off behind her while she continues to presumably distance herself further from both man and area, as her Reikaku scours her surroundings while eyes scan her immediate vicinity in passing, her vision at the last fleeting second, no..even less than that appears merely a inch from her eyes. It appears without sound, without an inkling of reiatsu whispering its arrival. With the blade’s spontaneous manifestation, the rest of the blade slowly becomes visible to Hageshi. The handle attached to the blade, the hand which gripped it, the arm attached to the hand and so on until the entirety of Kyomu’s form was now perceivable.
Though the Captain places the woman on the same pedestal of a wild beast, he understands that a beast no matter how wild, still held fangs and claws, and when cornered could prove troublesome to deal with. Omoni had lived for centuries without having ever achieved bankai, succeeding in evolving her Zanpakuto into its final stage only a mere century ago. As such, Kyomu had yet to ascertain knowledge of its properties or inner workings. He is reminded of the woman’s Captain, their battle in these same lands — a battle that ended with the Seireitei’s fairy unleashing his own Bankai. Having no knowledge of its abilities Kyomu attacked out of curiosity, understanding quickly the dangers of the weakling’s zanpakuto. Had Kyomu had attacked with the intent to kill back then, the outcome would have been..unfortunate. The Phantom would remain more alert, more careful going forward.
With Omoni opening up with her mysterious Bankai, the Captain is forced to alter the way he fights, to restrategize his approach against the beast of a woman. The phantom is not one to rush in blindly, ignorantly after all.
In the beginning of the match, Kyomu exerts his reiatsu — it is believed that the sole purpose of this act was to combat Omoni’s own reiatsu that surrounded her in its haunting blue inferno, an assumption that is incorrect. While it served as a ward against the opposing tempest of spiritual pressure, it also served to expose the warrior to the Phantom’s reiatsu, like giving a scent to a hound, following a trail of his own design, and determine the woman’s level of spiritual sensitivity and perception. As Omoni was ignorant of Kyomu aside from his reputation and the discord between him and her own Captain, she is unaware that it remains impossible for one to track Kyomu by reiatsu alone as the man almost never allows it to leak out. This meant that, if she could sense and perceive his reiatsu, that the man was
intentionally allowing her to perceive it.
He attacks the woman, closing the distance enough to get a visual of the physical manifestation of her bankai — slow enough for her to perceive his attack, fast enough to maintain pressure on her. Omoni’s response to the attack was curious. Once recognizing Kyomu’s attack against her, she makes no motion to defend or protect herself, and chooses to counter-attack instead. Was the woman a simpleton incapable of thinking of anything other than attacking whatever lay before her, or was there something else hidden beneath such a reckless act?
Whatever the case, the brutish woman’s strength was nothing to dismiss, the sheer force from her swing holding enough power to damage the surrounding terrain, yet even still hardly fast enough to outpace or catch up to the feathery steps of the Phantom. Again, Omoni focuses her attention on tracking the spiritual pressure of her opponent, as daunting a task it was. She remains unaware that Kyomu is able to both, project his reiatsu elsewhere from his actual being, and use both it and his potent killing intent to project vivid images of himself attacking his opponent through one or multiple angles. This lack of knowledge causes Omoni to become overly reliant on what she perceives from Kyomu through her reikaku — chasing behind the ghost of his movements, following the breadcrumbs left by his spiritual pressure, and being sensitive and reactionary to any perceived bloodlust or killing intent directed her way.
Having lapped around the hapless woman, lost in ignorance chasing ghosts, Kyomu alters his cadence mid-stride to outpace his own image, shifting his trajectory mid stride while simultaneously feeding his reiatsu into the
Reiatsu Kakusu Cloth (霊圧隠す, “
Reiatsu Hiding Cloth”), his form becoming vaporous..visually imperceptible to the vigilant warrior. So focused on what she perceives she ignores the subtle casual movements within the dust screen around her, indicating something was moving elsewhere within the veil of dust and debris. Though he was invisible and imperceptible the man was not incorporeal, and so affected the surrounding dust even from his careful steps. Both focused and committed to the perceived challenge and danger before her, Omoni leaps into the air. Another curious act confirming the Captain’s suspicion, whatever her Bankai’s ability, it lay in her armor. While her opening attack may have seen brazen and foolish, if one considered the fact that the area initially targeted was her armor it made sense, further validated when Omoni moves her body when she perceived her head to be targeted in order to shift the trajectory of the phantom attack back towards her armor clad body.
’So that’s her game.’
Kyomu voices to himself within the confines of his own mind.
Committed to her retreat and assured in the success of her gambit, Omoni moves so quickly and so far that she fails to realize the attack she had perceived had vanished entirely, while being silently and inconspicuously pursued by the invisible Phantom, his unique Kidō infused garments continuously actively diverting her attention and perception from Kyomu himself. It is only when Kyomu had seen enough does he choose to outpace her and undo the veil camouflaging him from the woman starting with his shadowless blade.
”I've seen enough.”
His voice calls out to the woman while revealing himself. Though the position of his blade and it’s sudden appearance may be perceived as an attack, even if Omoni who at that point, was committed in hurtling herself forward was capable of perceiving the blade that had manifested merely an inch from her skull at the last possible instant bearing no warning or signs preceding its arrival, no harm would befall her while Genzōken remained in its shadowless state. This is also why Kyomu, who hardly ever speaks chose to announce to the woman that their match was to come to an end, lest she chooses to try and attack or rather counter-attack against the Captain. While he could outpace the woman, and though she seemed to have a weak point he could exploit, the energy he’d have to expend to successfully strike it while avoiding the entirety of her armor-covered form was hardly worth the effort. Should Omoni recognize the completion of her exam, Kyomu would in response step aside and sheathe his blade so they could finally depart from this empty world.
’While there’s no telling what would have happened had I attacked her armor or her armor-clad form, I can make a guess or two.’
Kyomu reflects once more on the final moments of his match with Captain Nakamoto. It seemed the two were rather similar indeed.
