Another Day Another Division [Lerna, Mizu]

Hm.
She tilted her head slightly as she watched all of the crystals gathering up into some sort of cube beside the woman. Curious as to what sort of ploy she had. A Crystal bomb maybe? A golem? There was certainly a lot to consider. But all the more, Lerna's alcoholic fog would continue to saturate the air around her. Her skin gleaming with the stuff that seemed to seep out from every pore, dripping onto the ground and pooling on the ground.

All the same, as Mizu unleashed that spear, a playful smile crossed Lerna's features. Though, if Mizu was under the impression that Lerna was someone to dodge an attack, she clearly hadn't been paying attention to the fight thus far. As that lance came speeding in, the woman areacted viciously. Raising one of those glass-coated fists and SLAMMING it down at high speed, connecting with the incoming spear and aiming to spike it into the sand below, swatting it clean out of the air. All while cracks slithered up the length of her arm. Some of that shell having cracked off at the point of impact, and blood spurted from the spot. But Lerna was abundantly unbothered by the impact, and shunpo'd in. Closing the distance between herself and Mizu before her whole body swung into a full motion roundhouse kick. Alcohol flaying from her body, splashing everywhere as that shin came in. Aiming to ram her leg up and into the side of Mizu's head. Though this time she held back CONSIDERABLY. Rather than a sharp spike of impact, she aimed to simply connect her leg with the woman's head. A soft impact, with a FORCEFUL follow-through. There wouldn't be the sharp stinging impact, but rather, all the power would come after contact, aiming to THROW Mizu head-first across the training area with the force of the kick.

Naturally, along the way, that alochol would drench her surroundings, and permeate through the air. So Lerna hardly minded exposing herself to whatever tricks Mizu might have been up to. Maybe that spear would explode. Or maybe the cube itself would suddenly turn into a swarm of blades and hit her from the side? Good. That was just the kind of trap she would expect to see from Mizu. She WANTED to see the kind of traps that the girl had worked into her strategy. Those were important, after all. But she also wanted to keep up that pressure. Keep the girl guessing. And make her FEEL that oppressive physical valley between them. Pushing Mizu to see how she would make up for it.

Whew, and there they went! Thankfully, when that shattered spear suddenly coated her body, she was already blitzing toward Mizu. Leaving a lot of those shards behind as she unleashed that powerful kick. Oh? A block? She smirked proudly, pleased that the girl was getting a little better at reacting to those lightning strikes, even as the gal was sent bouncing across the arena. But it seemed that her theory was right. That sube suddenly exploded into a mess of bright gleaming crystal shards which promptly swarmed her. Slashing through her shuhakusho and ripping into her frame! Clinking against the sections protected by glass, but the rest bof her was getting fairly shredded at the surface!

Even with Lerna's impressive durability, those tiny lacerations built up and soon she was bleeding profusely , the blood mixing with the alcohol that was dripping from her body and she let out a WHEW, smiling as she raised her fists. And then WHAM! She slammed them into the ground, channeling Hakuda through her body, promptly cratering the ground below and unleashing a shockwave of force and reiryoku, that Hakuda adding MUCH more punch than her actual physical strength could normally apply, aiming to blow those shards away from her.

Naturally, some would still probably be stuck to her body. And there was nothing actually stopping Mizu from just having that mess of shards just close right back in and start cutting into her again. She had to admit, this trap was a LOT more potent than she'd initially given credit for! This swarm of crystals was not easily dodged, and now that it was out, if she were some hollow, then she'd probably be in quite a pickle. Even her ability to move some of her mass around wasn't able to keep those crystals from just shredding deeper and deeper into her body. Hmmmm.

"I concede!" She called out, raising her hand and letting her voice peal out over the swarm of crystals. She had a pretty good idea of how to close this all out. And frankly, her next move would just be to charge in, and spike Mizu as hard as she could into the ground. But well, that wasn't really all that conducive to training. The fact of the matter was that Lerna actually didn't have a lot of answers to those crystals. She could protect her body with mod shell, but that swam could still whittle those defenses down. She could have switched over to her Corrosive Alcohol and just melted the crystals down, but there were probably too many of them to just melt them all. She could have switched over to her Ignitable Alcohol, but then that would just be a matter of trying to take out Mizu before she was taken down herself. She really didn't have any defensive options. Hm. Something she'd have to work on.

"Whew! That's one scary zanpaku'to you have there. But I think it's better we end this now. I don't think I'd be able to continue without being a little less than decent." She pointed out, all of that alcohol, and the effects it had on Mizu suddenly vanished in an instant as she sealed her Shikai. She then gestured down to her shredded uniform, which certainly was on theverge of showing off quite a bit.

Lerna chuckled softly at that and gave Mizu a hearty pat on the back. A Dull crackling noise sounding before she lowered her arm, her skin promptly covered by glass which had migrated from her arms to her main body, covering dignity. Not that she really cared, it waasn'ty like someone was gonna arrest her for public indecency from someone else ruining her clothes. "Hey don't worry about it. This stuff happens in training. And you're very welcome." She noted, flashing a smile and making her way over, patting Mizu on the shoulder. "You did a great job, all things considered. Honestly, with a bit of training, you'll probably beat me no problem in the future." She noted in earnest. Frankly she just wasn't that adaptable these days, someone like Mizu was bound to surpass her once she got her legs so to speak.

"Anywho, I'm gonna go get a change of clothes. I hope to see you around more, yea? We can grab lunch sometime." She ventured with a wave, promptly turning to head back to the barracks to swap out her uniform Assuming Mizu didn't follow.