Lotus Root Salad [Shishiyuki, Nao]

Even Shishiyuki, for her mastery of martial arts, had to concede that she hadn't been prepared for this degree of change in the younger woman's style. She'd wondered if her still spiritual pressure had just been for show, if her defensive style was simply antithetical to what she knew of the Sawachika. This, however, was far more in line with what she ought to have been expecting.

Her kick certainly couldn't connect, on account of Nao having grabbed her leg, but Shishiyuki wasn't such a pushover that she would simply be thrown aside. She caught herself rather easily, landing on her feet and returning to her stance, though now with a bit more of an aggressive lean to her.

"Your defense is quite impressive."

Shishiyuki could have simply released her own spiritual pressure when Nao had caught her, could have filled her leg with far more power and forced Nao to either let go or be crushed. But on a purely technical level, the woman had thought of a good course of action. Shishiyuki felt she ought to acknowledge that.

"Everything shifts between an axis. A defence becomes an offence and vice-versa like a stream flooding to become rapids. As yin and yang, you know."

She explained and took up her stance again. She could tell that someone on par with Shishiyuki probably could've punished her for it and perhaps she would've responded as well to the increased pressure by using Shishiyuki's leg as a hand hold and swinging herself behind the woman. This result was adequate enough though.

"Alright, now I wanna show you my hard work and see how your defence is."

Taking up a stance, Nao leaned forward like Shishiyuki. Her flaring reiatsu and fighting spirit becoming focused and directed into her core.

"San-Zan Ko-Ken: Dai-Ko-Sou!"

Her hands came together and all at once the reiatsu expelled itself at Shishiyuki in the shape of a leaping tiger aiming to tear Shishiyuki's shoulders with its claws and shred her head and torso with its teeth.

A quite well-considered outlook on martial arts, to be certain, and Shishiyuki's eyes studied Nao's form, the movement of her body and her spiritual energy, even as she was listening to her words. As Nao's reiatsu was expelled toward her, Shishiyuki brought her hands together in front of her, focusing for only a moment as her own reiatsu began to rotate at immense speed through her hands. She certainly didn't need to announce the name of this technique, but she would, for Nao's sake. It felt polite.

"Kyokushuretsu Kongou Ken: Tenkaizan."

One hand moved upward, the other downward, fingers curled like claws and filled with such cutting power that, had she used it on Nao herself, there was little question the woman would have been bisected without issue. Instead, however, it simply tore through the tiger that had been thrown toward her. Even as she struck, however, her eyes were not on the tiger, but squarely on Nao.

"Very impressive."

Wow, this was exciting! She tore through her Great Tiger Spear like it was nothing with her own technique. It's a good thing that she had attacked from range or else she'd might've been torn in two pieces as well.

"So your defence is also an offence? Also impressive!"

This woman must exist between the space of yin and yang but her reiatsu seemed to spin, it must be rooted in her fighting style like how the combination of her own reiatsu qualities were involved in the Sanzan Koken.

She shifted her reiatsu again. Once more aligning it to the passive qualities she carried for defence but this time she was not aiming to utilise it for defence. The slowing of her heartbeat and relaxing her reiatsu until it was nigh-impossible to sense, then she started running with her shunpo to move quietly around Shishiyuki like a prowling tiger looking for an opening on its prey.

In a more scholastic setting, Shishiyuki might have wished to study the intricacies of Nao's technique, of her reiatsu and how it flowed. But this was a duel, and the only manner it would right to be learn about her opponent was through combat.

"In matters of martial arts, offense and defense are little more than a question of circumstance. A technique should never be made with only a single use, else it will be rigid, inflexible. I need not tell a woman of the Sawachika what happens to something built unbending when it meets any true resistance."

Shishiyuki closed her eyes as Nao began to move, utilizing not only reikaku, but her other senses as well. It was one thing to try and follow the woman simply by her spiritual presence, but she knew that to rely only on something relatively easily masked would be foolish. So she listened, felt for the changes in the wind, and maintained an open, defensive stance that was ready to strike at any angle.

She closed her eyes? She must be real confident, Nao thought. No no! Real competent. A woman like this didn't fall prey to overconfidence which is why it made her even more spectacular in the Sawachika's eyes. Ergo she'd really give Shishiyuki her best shot!

Sanzan Koken Ougi: Mōko Kō Hazan.

Of all the afterimages she'd released Nao launched off, three of her images rushing towards Shishiyuki to attack her from three sides and all with their full fighting spirit and reiatsu focused to penetrate her spiralling pressure as best as she could. She was bold enough to strike from the side herself but the momentary speed clones would linger just long enough as solid to make their attacks and fade.

Her ultimate secret move!

One from the back, one from the front and her attacking from the side. If she couldn't get her with this then Nao could understand the gap between them and the rest of the bout was pretty much decided.

Shishiyuki's senses, for the briefest of moments, were earnestly thrown by the appearance of Nao's images, but she quickly cast that from her mind. Could she discern which of them was real in this briefest of moments? Perhaps, if she focused intensely, but that was too uncertain. What was certain was that she could handle four separate attackers, and so taking one breath inward, she swung her arm to the right, elbow slashing toward one of the four attackers as her own reiatsu practically flew outward, creating a perfect spinning ring around herself to strike all four at once.

"Kyokushuretsu Kongou Ken: Ressenka!"

A strike of this caliber would easily have cut through a typical shinigami, but Shishiyuki had no doubts Nao was tougher than that. Would it still hurt? Oh, certainly. There were few people who could stand up to her own abilities, and she imagined that fewer still of them were in Soul Society. The Ressenka was a relatively advanced technique, and she was perfectly pleased that she'd found an opponent who had merited its use.

An omnidirectional counterattack!? Nao was ill-prepared for this kind of retaliation as she went to complete her attack from multiple fronts and she felt her hand get the faintest touch of Shishiyuki before the torrent of spiritual pressure caught her and flung her away like a rag doll.

Multiple metres she flew before landing on the ground and rolling along the ground to throw up dirt and everything as a nice little trail showed her path in the ground and she laid there with bruising and cuts all over her body. Maybe she could've avoided committing too hard and tried to utilise something like an utsusemi to back out but she was staking her pride as a a martial artist on her greatest move. There wasn't a chance she'd have backed down when she had used that move.

"Ugh. You're.. real.. tough."

She peeled herself off the ground with a groan before her arm lapsed and she fell back onto her front. Rolling over with a big grin she panted in a mix of pain and weariness, using her trump card sure took a lot out of her.

"Damn."

Exhaling slowly as she brought herself out of the focus of combat, Shishiyuki once more opened her eyes, turning her gaze over to the injured young woman with a faint smile of approval on her face. She certainly wouldn't have expected anything less than a total defeat after a strike like that, but having faced it head-on was admirable in its own right.

"I could certainly say the same to you, Miss Sawachika. Your form is impressive."

Shishiyuki walked over to where Nao had landed and held out a hand, perfectly willing to help her stand if need be. The bout was over, after all, so she hardly had any reason to maintain hostility or guard.

"Would you care for tea?"

She winced while looking up at her opponent who had bested her fair and square. Nao's red hair was a mess and mixed with grass and dirt but she was pretty content after such a fun bout, a worthy opponent! One that had bested her no less. That meant that she must aspire to greater heights, didn't it? She must become able to break Shishiyuki's form if she would learn more to build an unbreakable structure.

"Hehe, thanks."

Tea? That sounded nice as she reached up and took the Koizumi Head's hand. She was not vain enough that she wouldn't accept a gesture of good will after a duel. That was too much pride for her.

"Tea and a bath."