Shin'ō Academy

[Bloodedge]

For some reason or another, Daiki was no longer moving from his position with his hand on the ground. As such, he was left mostly still while Benihime's sword came crashing through his barrier. He protected himself the only way he could; his right hand rose preemptively to catch Benihime's Zanpakutou by its blade before it reached his torso. Blood dripped from his hand, but he had avoided a crippling blow. Daiki was then remiss to see the yellow rope of Reiryoku attached to the sword, which pulled it back to its owner against his grip. Daiki's dripping blood became a splatter in that moment, and he winced his way through the mighty sting of a slashed hand. "Kch!"

Still, the male remained vigilant. "You're too close," he said with a smile. Suddenly, a nearby area of the ground was broken through by an orange-hued tendril with yellow spirals around it. The spirals were joined by electrical surges, and the tendril itself carried fire with it. This spell shot up toward Benihime at an angle from behind her, reaching out to ensnare, burn, and shock her while she was still airborne.

[Apollymi]

The redhead noted as she fought that the young man was still content not to move from where he was even as a blade came crashing through the barrier he'd created to protect himself. He was content enough to catch the blade, causing himself injury both when he caught it, and when Benihime immediately reclaimed it. Though the sword didn't immediately come back to her hand and was left to dangle just a bit with the spell still active, as she spun the blade around like a fan and watched. 'Another trap? These tactics will become predictable pretty soon...' she thought to herself suspecting something else as she made her way to the ground it was eventually mentioned that she was too close by Daiki who smiled at her as there was a sudden eruption of a spell from the ground where he still had his hand uninjured hand. 'There it is,' she was unsure of where her capture would come, she turned as fell back towards the ground spinning her blade around so that the contact would initially be made with it, though she still felt the electricity through it, she would be spared a few of the other effects "Tsuzuri Raiden," such would trigger the channeling of electricity through the blade and hopefully trigger a cancellation of the final effect she was doing something about. Nullifying both sets of electricity and leaving both individuals intact. "Yare, yare... you're making me think too much..."

[Bloodedge]

Daiki's most recent combination spell was met by Benihime's blade. Though it seemed he would at least succeed in the electrocution of his own Tsuzuri Raiden channeled through the tendril, it was rendered a temporary effect, as Benihime used her own to cancel it out. "I'd like to say I underestimated you," he said as his spells began to disperse, and he stood. "But... I think I overestimated my ability to match you. Gomennasai. It won't happen again."

Daiki would allow Benihime ample time to reach the ground, as if to start their clash from the very beginning again. He was in the process of exhausting himself by using too many Kidou spells, both in combination and in sequence. He had come to realize that he needed to do more, if he hoped to gain an edge in this battle. Daiki went about removing his sheath from its home, and placing it against the pommel of his katana after retrieving the latter from the ground. The two seemed to connect, as he immediately began using his bleeding right hand to spin the two at his side. "Yorokobiutatte..." As he issued this command, Daiki's sword and sheath fully merged together, forming a golden staff with a bell-like bulb at its end, and a spear tip jutting from the bulb. "Saikirin."

[Apollymi]

Benihime once again landed on the ground, and as such she was bouncing on her toes, twirling her sword around in her right hand. "Ah, no need to apologize. Getting used to fighting someone capable of thinking properly isn't nearly as encouraged as it should be," she said of the general issue with fighting. "Besides... this is more fun than I've had fighting, since we've come here~" commented the young woman as she soon got to witness the release of this young man's zanpakuto. Such a thing was likely quite shocking to the crowd watching, but she already knew it existed. Though she couldn't say she'd seen this form before.

"Sugoi!~" chimed the young woman. "Nice looking Shikai you got there, also pretty sure you just got valedictorian. Nothing says tops like a release~" she said she was still twirling her sword around in her right hand but then passed it over to her left in front of her catching it in a reversed grip. She'd initially intended to switch hands, but... she didn't know how well this young man could handle the new weapon. His sword skills weren't as high as her own, but, wielding a staff was a bit different. "Come on then~" she said waving the young man towards herself. She was content for this clash to reconvene, but she had no desire to release her own Zanpakuto.

[Bloodedge]

"I agree. I've been having a blast. But... As long as you're limiting yourself the way you are, I'm going to be winning this one!" When beckoned toward Benihime, Daiki made the decision that she would instead be coming his way. From his own perspective, he spun his blade counterclockwise. In doing so, he manipulated the forces between himself and Benihime in a way that would pull her toward him as if he had become the singular source of gravity in the area. It was Daiki's intention to cease the spinning of his blade as she was within reach, and shift instead to a left-to-right sweeping movement meant to slam into the young woman's right side with the staff's bell.

[Apollymi]

The smile on Benihime's face seemed to spread a bit more as Daiki spoke. She found it funny that he assumed his win because she was limiting herself. Not that she wasn't fine with allowing said win, if only to keep her general low profile, but... she could really allow the idea that having something over her was worth assumable victory. Soon enough she began being pulled towards the young man, after she'd already motioned him towards herself. 'Sugei, gravity maybe... this will be fun,' unlike most, Benihime didn't seem to mind this. "Dai-kun, it's a bit early..." she stated as she begun to be pulled in, not fighting against it in the least as she suppressed her Reiatsu to the most minute levels. She added Shunpo to this attractive force allowing herself to reach the young man before he'd likely intended her to, as his weapon stopped spinning and aimed a sweeping motion into her right side she hopped over it using her right hand for leverage against the shaft. She aimed a concise kick into the young man's face with her left leg before she performed a series of back flips which would leave her standing on her feet some 5 meters away. "To claim your victory, yeah?~" she teased seemingly amused by this entire thing.

[Bloodedge]

Benihime was brought toward him, and though she hastened the movement and reached him prior to the time of his expectation, she managed nothing offensive in the extra time she had taken for herself. What she did manage, was an evasion that left her with the ability to counterattack. Daiki, however, would be allowing no such thing. He brought his free hand onto his staff to initiate a much faster rotation, which brought the lower end of the staff against the bottom of Benihime's foot during her kick attempt. During her series of back-flips, Daiki took dashing steps forward to remain within range. As such, by the time she stopped flipping, he was standing before her with the rear of his staff aiming for her right side. Regardless of its impact, he would follow this by immediately flipping the staff's momentum and swinging its head at her fore while extending its range. "It would be even earlier for you to assume I'm wrong. Come at me with all you've got."

[Apollymi]

As Benihime flipped she had a series of thoughts about this young man, knowing that her foot hadn't made contact with his face. 'Yare yare, I might have to put forth some proper effort, he's still coming. It's coming from the right?' she thought as she came to a stop the back end of his staff was aimed at her side and she met it with her right hand only to have to block the coming fore shot with the the blade in her left. The impact left her a bit stunned and pushed her backwards, but she seemed to be fine beyond this point.

"Sugoi Dai-kun, you're much better using that staff than you are with a sword~" the young woman said with a smile on her face. As for the likely hood of her going at him with everything she had, a tiny bit of light seemed to disappear from her eyes, it would be almost unnoticeable but there was a reason she didn't try very hard the entire time. Instead of speaking on this, she rotated her shoulders and exhaled, a single breath. And then she moved, it was easily twice as fast than her previous movement and would carry her immediately to Daiki's left, she'd then immediately lash out with her right hand fingers curled in like a claw aimed into Daiki's side, aiming to knock the wind out of him. Immediately following with a spinning slash aimed across the young man's upper back, timed with a swift sweeping kick aimed to his lower back with her right leg aiming to knock him forward and away from her after the initial barrage. These movements were a bit more animalistic and a tad more chaotic than she'd initially shown herself to be, it was like she'd stopped thinking, or perhaps, reached a new type of thought based solely on battle, which combined use of sword and use of physical strikes. It was what she'd not been doing the entire time she'd been in the Academy, because such a skill was only really useful, when you needed someone to die.

[Bloodedge]

"Hai. Swords aren't my style," he said. True enough, during his training within the Nomura household, Daiki never touched a sword of any type. What he had some amount of play time with, however, was sticks and other such tools. Following his plea to have Benihime fight him seriously, the redhead rolled her shoulder and exhaled. At this moment, he raised his right knee, formed a hand seal with his left hand, and held his staff overhead with his right hand. Upon releasing it, it seemed to levitate where it was. Judging by Benihime's reaction to his statement, he expected more of a threat from her following movements. Her speed when moving was much quicker; almost untraceable. However, Daiki's senses at least gave him the ability to track her the moment she stopped at his left side.

Daiki's body twisted to his left, resulting in a strike of his right hand being used to counteract the attack at his side. The slash of Benihime's sword which followed would leave its arc below small amounts of recently-severed hair, as a swift crouch placed Daiki beneath it. This crouch immediately became a tuck, placing Daiki even further beneath the kick aimed to knock him away. All the while, Daiki only seemed saddened. "Hadou no Gojuuhachi," he said while using his arms as leverage, launching himself upward starting with his feet. On his way up into a flip, Daiki kicked one end of his floating Zanpakutou, causing it to spin wildly in place. Only a moment later, Daiki had flipped out of range of both Benihime, and his staff. His eyes were locked on the redhead from the moment he landed. "Tenran." Since Benihime had entered the area inhabited by Daiki and his Zanpakutou moments previously, she would be in the perfect place for his spell's activation. The staff that would be over her head produced a tornado to surround her. "You underestimate me. I know you're stronger than you let everyone know. Don't assume for one second that I'm any different, Benihime. Fushibi!" At his command, Daiki's Zanpakutou ignited the tornado to produce a flaming cyclone around Benihime, as if he intended to cook her within it.

[Apollymi]

Benihime was in a different mindset presently appreciating the young man's movements as he was able to rather seamlessly avoid her coming barrages. She seemed to be testing the waters a bit here, beyond that she found each of her strikes hadn't quite made the mark and a single moment of looking to Daiki let her know he was a bit sad for a reason she probably wouldn't be able to fathom. She'd have to remember to ask him about it later. 'Hmm... ran off, another Kidou trap coming...' she thought, and soon enough she was indeed presented with the kidou trap she'd thought was coming finding herself surrounded in a hurricane type of wind. 'So, one for me too, should I try this again??' she thought to herself a wicked smile on her face as she flipped her sword around in her hand and then planted it in the ground. She began to speak an incantation so low that it wouldn't be heard...

"Sprinkled on the bones of the beast! Sharp tower, red crystal, steel ring. Move and become the wind, stop and become the calm. The sound of warring spears fills the empty castle," she had a ball of yellow sparking energy in her hand as she held it up in front of the encroaching flames. "Hadou no Rokujuusan: Raikoho!" The girl let off a blast of yellow energy big enough to clear the flames before her and aim to get Daiki caught up in the attack, if he was unable to move himself. "Fufufufu~ Last time I tried that, I was out cold for four hours~" the girl mentioned, obviously more exhausted by this use of kidou than anything she'd done with her body before this point, but still cogent enough to try and keep attacking. She then moved forward with that massively quick Shunpo of hers aiming to appear above Daiki, aiming a downward kick to his left shoulder from her present height. "Dai-kun you have an interesting habit of following up dodges with kidou traps. Also don't sad face me... I am not underestimating you, I know you're capable of more than you let on, which is more of a reason to bait out different reactions~" she said to the young man.