Fox wars 1: A new kind of dodgeball (solo)

[Darkoda]

There was an ethereal wind blowing within Shin’s inner world, gently rippling the never-ending sea of his mind. Odd, considering that the weather was perpetually clear, allowing the light out of the full moon to shine down among the countless marble pillars scattered across the body of water.

“So, you want to learn how to use Hanki Shin-chan?’

During one of his trips through the library, Shin dug up a book full of kido techniques. Most looked dull, but a few of them were quite intriguing. The one that currently held the most interest to him was the Reverse Demon, or Hanki. The theory behind it was simple enough; cancel out your opponent’s kido by using a perfectly opposite amount of reiatsu as them. The issue was to discern the opponent’s reiatsu signature and create an opposite polarity before the attack struck. He could just use the people in his Division but Shin didn’t feel very comfortable allowing them to shoot hado at him. That left one person, his zanpakuto spirit.

The smile on her face just screamed that he going to regret this.

“Well then Shin-chan, let’s play.” She stretched herself out on the pillar she was standing on, and gathered a small white sphere of energy into her hands. “Think fast.”

The orb of energy flew towards him at a decent pace. Shin focused on the reiatsu signature the orb was giving off, then charged his hand with the opposite polarity, and –

Fell over head first into the sea as the orb hit him dead center in the chest.

“You took too long to read the polarity of the orb, just scan your opponent’s reiatsu signature first, all their attacks will be similar to it.”

“Did you have to put so much force behind it?”

“Quit whining and get back up here, or do you want swimming lessons instead?”

Kumori was definitely going to milk this for all it was worth. Shin sighed in resignation as he floated to the top of the pillar on some spiritrons. It promised to be a long night.

[Darkoda]

A soggy Shin was busy scanning Kumori’s reiatsu signature while the fox was busy laughing over his impromptu swim. She certainly had one odd aura. Something about it felt fake, like it was only a copy hiding her true force. Unsettling, but Shin did get what he wanted out of it; he now knew Kumori’s exact reiatsu signature, and from the looks of things, Kumori was ready for round 2.

“Well then Shin-chan, let’s try this again.” Another orb of energy formed in her hands, and she shot it out at the same pace. This time though, Shin already knew the signature so it was a simple matter to charge his hand with the opposite polarity and launch it out right next to the orb –

This time, he got slammed into a pillar before falling into the sea.

“I said similar Shin-chan, not exactly.” That smile had transcended into a full-blown smirk long ago. Really, he should have seen it coming. Kumori did not go easy, and different kido would have different polarities as well, so she made a good point. Once again, he pulled himself up to the top of a pillar, and braced himself for Kumori’s next attack.

“Okay, round three then.” Another orb of energy, but this time Shin actually scanned it. With a template to work with he was able to figure out the polarity much faster, and was actually able to cancel out the orb. Shin grew a smirk of his own in triumph.

“Well, it looks like I’m getting the hang of this – “

Shin barely managed to shunpo to another pillar before the one he was on was hit with a much faster orb of energy. Yet his voice was completely neutral as he talked to the psychotic fox.

“Why did you try to blindside me? Besides you being sadistic I mean.”

“You stopped a slow moving orb, let’s see how you deal with real blasts.” Kumori had in her hand a basketball sized orb of energy. With a dark chuckle, she sent the oversized orb rocketing at him.

The game was on.

[Darkoda]

“Well if nothing else, you are decently fast, you waterlogged kid.”

Said “kid” was not in the best of moods right now. His previous trips into his mind’s sea had him completely soaked, his shihakusho clinging to his skin uncomfortably. The ethereal wind now only served to chill him to the bone, not that he would ever admit that the cold was more than an insignificant hindrance. One would think that shunpoing from pillar to pillar, avoiding energy blasts from a sadistic zanpakuto spirit would dry his clothes though.

“The point of this is supposed to be for you to react to reiatsu signatures faster, not to practice evasion techniques, but if you want to that as well, I can oblige.” She was definitely enjoying this too much. Shin was not putting up with this one sided game of dodge ball for any longer though. If Kumori wanted to simulate realism, then she’ll get realism. Flipping over another volley of energy in midair, Shin launched himself right at Kumori, energy crackling in his hand.

“Hado #33, Sokatsui.”

All Kumori did in the face of the blue fire crash was to raise her finger in the air, dissipating the entire kido spell the moment it got within an inch of her finger. Shin heard her dark chuckle again before she vanished, appearing five feet from him, another energy orb already formed. It was all Shin could do to extend his hand in time, nullifying the power of the orb somewhat although it still managed to burn his hand slightly.

“Better, but you need to gather the energy faster. If that was a stronger kido spell your entire arm would be burnt right now.”

Kumori was already standing on another pillar, this time with two of those damned orbs in hand. “There are some attacks you can cancel, and others you should avoid. Time to learn how to tell them apart.”

The two orbs shot forward in a spiral, far too close to tell which orb had which reiatsu signature. With this in mind, Shin vanished from the sky, appearing on another pillar. These orbs didn’t like that however, as they promptly bent in an arc aimed at his current location. Another application of shunpo put him a few pillars to the right, this time focusing more on the path the orbs were taking. As expected, they bent again, homing on to the ninja. Shin had a plan in the works though, and flash stepped an inch to the right of the swirling attack, stabbing two fingers into an orb, which caused it to dissipate. The other orb began to curve again, but Shin put a stop to that with another application of reverse demon.

“Your sensing capabilities and reaction time have definitely improved; I think you got a decent understanding of Hanki Shin-chan.” Yet for some reason, Shin was extremely wary of the kitsune. It wouldn’t be the first time she pulled something new into her “training sessions” after all. Besides, nothing she said had anything to do with her previous statement.

[Darkoda]

Shin’s suspicions were confirmed when Kumori’s smirk returned full force, and her hand started to glow with reiatsu. “Now we only need to see how you fare against real kido.” She raised one finger, and before she even said the incantation Shin knew what was coming.

“Hado #4, Byakurai.”

A stream of white plasma shot from her finger in an arc, flying though where Shin’s chest would have been if he hadn’t dashed to the other pillar beforehand. Kumori wasn’t going to allow him to relax though, and she followed up with a stream of white lightning, leaving shin hard pressed to avoid the shots, even with Shunpo. She wasn’t even saying the name, just shooting the kido like some kind of lightning machine gun. At least until they started hitting an invisible wall in front of Shin anyway. He wasn’t a master of tactics for nothing; thinking under pressure was his forte, and it things like this that he went though the trouble of learning Danku for in the first place.

“I take it that was your example of an attack to avoid?” The sarcasm was oozing off his words.

“No, I just felt like trying to blast a few holes through you.” The scary part was that one couldn’t tell if she was serious or not.

“Anyway, here’s one you should be able to stop.” This time, her entire hand was glowing with a blue light.

“Hado #33, Sokatsui.”

The familiar stream of fire rushed towards Shin, highly compressed to cause maximum damage at the cost of range, not that it mattered; the point was for him to learn to cancel kido, not dodge them, he could do that just fine. This time, he almost lazily shot out the hand at the attack, palm outstretched, as the flames dissipated before the opposite reiatsu he was channelling. Not as impressive as his zanpakuto’s one fingered stunt, but that kind of control would come in time.

“One last test though, you should have an idea on how much power you’re capable of stopping.”

Shin did not like the sound of that. He liked it even less when Kumori’s hand started to crackle with blue energy, which was building up far too fast for Sokatsui. She raised both her hands in the air, and slammed them together before using Shin’s trademark destructive art.

“Hado #63, Soren Sokatsui.”

The wave of energy that shot from her hands destroyed the tops of every pillar in its path, on direct course to its target. Shin knew that there was no way he was going to get out of the blast radius of that particular kido in time, so he did the only non-suicidal thing he could think of, and raised his hand in front of the blast.

The resulting explosion took out the rest of the pillars within a 20 foot radius.

“Using Danku to dampen the force of the attack, then using Hanki to nullify the severely weakened blast, good job. You do know your limits.” She had the gall to smile as if she didn’t just attempt to kill him.

Shin just glared at the woman while flexing his smoking hands. He was quite unnerved by the fact that her kido was even capable of destroying Danku, not to mention having so much power left behind it. The smirk that formed on Kumori’s face at his thoughts told him all he needed to know; she just gave him a glimpse of what she could truly do.

“A glimpse huh, you have no idea Shin-chan.”

He laughed at that. “True, I don’t but we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it Kumori.”

Before he left his spirit world, Shin could have sworn that he saw a look of worry flash over Kumori’s face, but what would that fox actually be concerned about?

The purple clad kitsune leaned back on one of the few pillars still standing. With a thought, all the damage caused during her training session was undone, leaving the room in its original condition. That unusual look of worry was back on her face as she sorted through her own thoughts.

‘You idiot, you really don’t know what you would be getting into do you? I can’t stop you from summoning me into existence, but if you fight me as you are, you will die.’ She certainly would prefer her host to stay among the living, with him she had the most fun she ever had in, well ever.

‘Still, why do I care so much if he dies?’