Cut Through the Silence [AfriCatastrophe Act IV]

She whipped around to see the effectiveness of her counter towards the opponent she was dealing with, it was a daring move that she had no right to do against a formidable speedster and Yugiri suffered reprisal for it as the tendril whipped across her leg to leave a large gash through her thigh.

"Piece of..."

The curse was left unfinished as she utilised her shunpo to strafe to the side of the cero. In the air it was not as simple as left, right, back and, forward. She had many different angles that she could take advantage of to avoid but her steps weren't going to be as effective with her wounded leg.

"Hadō #73: Souren Soukatsui"

She retaliated with her own spell, with a hand over her face to obscure it, two orbs of blue flames manifesting before they fused together and she spun to build momentum as the blast of blue fire was aimed at the tendrils to serve as their pathway to the hollow itself. It might've just caused the hollow to detach them like it had the other ones but Yugiri was happy to wittle down its range over the course of this match.

Indeed, the Hadō cut through Malice O's tendrils effortlessly, and in response a hawk-like shriek echoed through the air, powerfully enough to shatter glass. With its range cut back, the hollow had little choice but to move closer, though that hardly mattered. It was an angered beast, and so it would only ever move in all the closer.

With another jet-like burst of speed, the hollow shot toward Yugiri, invisible to anyone who might have hoped to try and track it with only the naked eye. Burning reiryoku left a blinding trail of light in the air, and two scythe-like blades cut toward the vizard as the hollow arrived in front of her with blinding speed. Fury certainly created a single-minded mentality, but that mentality had benefits, especially in a wild beast.

Too fast for her, it had required her to slow down to cast the kidou spell and so it was only natural that the hollow advanced onto her position. She bit her lip and hoped that Rio had adequately prepared since she doubted that the same trick would work twice. The hollow smashed into her body ready to eviscerate her but all of the speed would come to a halt for the briefest of moments. For the fastest beings a second was worth far more than it was to people that were slower.

"Go to Hell!"

The cracked voice of a hollow resounded between them and the blackened eyes glared down the beast. For a moment the other hollow got to see her passenger, the hollow that clawed its way to the forefront of her soul out of self-preservation. Though the mask barely had time to form before the move was executed.

Shikkō: Fuushin Gaeshi [Cricket War Cry: Wind God Reversal].

The contact that Malice had with the vizard's body inverted its velocity. It would no longer be flying upwards but thrown towards the ground with the bloody body of the hollowfied Yugiri chasing after it to force it towards the ground and not let it recover.

This was the moment where Yugiri expected her cousin to get the hint. Rio's bankai was useless in the air and while Yugiri didn't have the raw output to crush Malice O herself, regardless of how much extra strength she gained from her mask - that had now formed in its entirely - it wouldn't be enough to crush this bird against black earth.

The moment of truth was at hand. In this wartorn plain of Africa, Rio would unveil her zanpakuto's true might. The prerequisite material had been properly fulfilled during Yugiri's clash with Malice in the sky. Slapping her palms together, her hands pointed upward, obsidian blades gathered around her in resounding formation, portending a great calamity upon this monstrous hollow. At the apex of her stance, her voice filled the air with powerful words reserved for her ultimate state.

"Bankai, Gogyōsan Tetsumaru(五行山鉄丸, Five Elements Mountain Iron Ring)"

Obsidian blades disappeared into the ground at the utterance of that activation phrase. For a moment, it appeared that nothing had occurred, only for the land below to become engulfed in pure obsidian, the land terraformed into an environment akin to a small mountain range. All of the materials that she could ever need were on full display, an act that was only capable of coming to fruition due to her beloved sibling's efforts.

"Now, what was that she said about going to hell?"

In the blink of an eye, if Malice had indeed been cast out of the sky, a large pair of obsidian hands would greet her upon falling to the black earth. It was almost fitting considering Yugiri's words. If the skies above were its sanctum, then this was far more akin to hell on earth as those hands monstrously latched onto the beast to keep it confined to the black earth.

Furthermore, a large obsidian blade formed within her hands as she rushed Malice, aiming to bisect the creature from the neck down. Of course, in the event it attempted to fly away, she had a secondary plan in place for that outcome, too. Ah, even though she knew she would be denied this state for some time after this battle, the joy of showing off her full display was nothing short of exhilarating.

The creature had been prepared to face a speeding opponent. It had understood, on an animalistic level, what was before it, what was underneath it. It was the queen of the skies, uncontested in its domain for as long as it had existed. But what it had not been prepared to face was one of its own kind bursting to the surface of this foe, nor the explosion of spiritual pressure that this brought with it. Malice O did not simply fly toward the ground; it crashed into the Earth with such force that dirt and stone erupted upward, a crater forming that would likely remain for centuries to come.

As the jet-black hands grabbed at Malice O, she stared down the shinigami that came toward her. With a loud shriek, four iridescent wings unfurled from the Hollow's back, a wingspan that seemed almost unthinkably wide when compared to the creature's actual size. However, it made no effort to flap them or to fly away, for it had no need to. Reishi in the area flew toward the hollow like a veritable black hole as its body glowed brightly, and then all at once, the very world seemed to quake as the hollow filled the air with a catastrophic roar.

It burst forward with energy far beyond its previous limits, unconcerned with its immediate well-being. It did not slip away from the hands that had gripped it; it simply ripped itself away from every part of its body that had been locked in place. Limbs torn asunder, skin sloughed off like nothing more than a fruit's peel. The sky, in that moment, became like a brilliant starry night as the Hollow's luminescent blood sprayed in every direction, as its body covered in countless spines barreled toward Rio with a suicidal recklessness.

Was tearing at the mask on her face, trying to reclaim control of her own body from the hollow. It might've been an issue except that the creature drawing in reishi and so her mask that she was trying to tear loose was pulled away with the external assistance and the falling vizard advanced quickly.

If the reishi that made up her mask could be drawn towards it then there was no reason that she couldn't take advantage of this for her own means too.

"Chouka [釣果, Caught Fish]"

WIth her Hoho she surrendered herself to the flow of reishi, it became a current that drew her closer to the hollow like a magnet and dramatically increased the speed that she might otherwise have to grab its body from behind. Its spines and body were something that one shouldn't consider grabbing onto but for the sake of slowing its advance on Rio, Yugiri was fine with the skin and muscles being torn from her hands while she put as much drag on it as possible.

"Even now, you still won't give up. Tch... I find that tenacity admirable in an opponent... but this is where you fall, hollow."

What a tenacious creature. Even now, in its cornered position, it ripped its own body apart to ensure its survival, wresting itself free from the obsidian hands that sought to confine her to the black earth by tearing its limbs asunder. In another time, in another battle, she would have found such efforts admirable, but this was no such moment. In the distance, she felt the symphony of spiritual pressures in the area.

Her captain's was pulsating with unrestrained malevolence, Yuuto's was thunderous and unreserved, like a storm reigning over the lands with unrivaled might. Then, there was a familiar spiritual pressure that seemed to be fading out, as though it were slowly faltering into nothingness. The moment she sensed that dwindling spiritual signature her mind set itself into overdrive as her expression grew fierce, charging toward Malice with equal aggression.

At that moment, Yugiri appeared from below like a falling meteor, aiming to grab at the beast from behind to halt its charge. If Yugiri sought purchase against that beast's frame, Rio would use the opportunity to fill her large obsidian blade with spiritual energy, refined steel sharpened to critical mass. Charging forward past the point of no return, she executed a diagonal slash across Malice's mask, intent on felling the tenacious beast for good.

"Haaaaaaah!"

The restraint forced upon Malice O was enough to bring about one final jet-like shriek, a cero bursting from its chest as a final act of violence defiance. Even so, its fate was inevitable at this stage in the battle; it had utilized all its options, and now, it had found itself with nowhere left to run.

The blade cut through Malice O's mask, the yellow orb behind it glowing all the more brightly for a few moments, before the untold glowing reiryoku that pulsed through its body sprayed upward into the sky. Like a visceral aurora, the air shimmered as light reflected off of the condensed, mist-like reishi that had once served as the creature's lifeblood.

Having perished, the corpse of the beast simply fell, lifeless and empty.