tampered | (no subject)

(no subject)

When; November 20th, evening
Rating; PG for violence? Might go higher.
Characters; Orochimaru and Rangiku
Summary; Rangiku's had enough and decides to it's time to handle Orochimaru. Maybe she's bitten off more than she can chew?
Log;

She's never been one to hide away. Not from any Hollow, and not from some human, no matter the power he might have. Granted, she didn't have the chance to sit and talk with Shizune or Tenten and get information that might make a fight with Orochimaru easier, but she'd faced difficult battles before. It wasn't something new to her.

As she jumped through the trees, Haineko purred into her mind, a silent inquiry of the possibility of a hunt. Rangiku smiled grimly and told the spiritcat she would be able to chew to her hearts contentment. The blade vibrated under her palm, eager for the fight. Rangiku shared the sentiment. It'd been too long since she'd had a chance to stretch her muscles to their potential.

A small clearning showed off to her left, so she veered and jumped lightly to the forest floor, feet silent on the grass. Even though the air was cool, she didn't feel it. She was too tuned in to the flares of reatsu around her.

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"Hello." Orochimaru said, his quiet voice easily carrying across the distance as he stepped into the clearing just behind her. "Rangiku Matsumoto, correct? This is the first time we've ever spoken in person."

His arms were folded across his chest, and by all apearances he was perfectly at ease, though like earlier that day, his eyes were locked on their target. This was no silly girl pretending to fight, this was a ranked Shinigami, with who knew how many centuries more experiance than the Nemu girl. This would not be the simplest of fights, but it would be quite interesting.

"That must be Haineko." He purposely avoided calling the zanpakuto a she, simply for the fact that he knew it would make the woman angry, and those who were angry did not think properly. "Nemu san did not have a zanpakuto."

Icy eyes found him as she turned to face him, movements slow and easy. She moved like the cat she shared a soul with, all graceful limbs and coiled muscles. A mocking bow was her answer to his question of her identity, but her eyes stayed locked on his. Never let it be said that her manners were lacking.

She could tell he was an experienced fighter by his casual stance. It belied training and work, which she respected a good deal.

His words tightened her jaw a little, reacting to the low growl Haineko issued at being essentially belittled. The same growl tried to roll in her own throat, but she pushed it back down and merely allowed her fingers to stroke Haineko's saya.

"Nemu has one, but she doesn't carry it much. Her skills are more based in hand to hand and kidou use, which I'm sure your little tests showed you."

He bowed back, the slightest of movements. "I see you do have some manners after all, shocking really after the few conversations we've had."

Orochimaru smirked, he could see that his little barb had hit home. "Yes, I'm quite aware of her skills and abilities. An interesting woman to say the least. Artificial body and soul; I was very impressed."

Still he made no move to attack, no he would not be so foolish. He knew nothing about this woman yet, and the first step would be to push her to the point of attack, how she did so would tell him a lot about her fighting style, and within a few moves, enough about her abilities to counter properly instead of just dodging. This strategy also worked to anger her further, as he avoided her attacks with makeing an obvious decision not to counter, she would grow frustrated.

"I wonder, are you just as interesting? I've yet to see the workings of a real Shinigami, let alone a zanpakuto. I can't wait to study it."

Elegant shoulders moved into a shrug as his words mocked her. "I told you I had manners. I just don't use them all the time. Especially when they're not needed."

Her smile thinned out a little as he spoke of Nemu. It galled her, hearing her friend spoken of so callously. "Her maker is a brilliant scientist, yes, but he's not well thought of among the other shinigami. Regardless, her soul is a good one, artificial or not."

She was growing irritated by now, but she pointedly ignored Haineko's demands that they attack him. That was what got her in such trouble with the arrancar last time... Instead, she folded her arms over her chest and cocked her head, grin slowly growing as she listened to him.

"Like I said, you'll see Haineko, but she won't let you harm me, and if you think to lay a hand on her, I'll kill you."

"One day you'll find that manners can smooth out any situation." He informed her, his tone like that of a parent explaining something slightly complicated to a small child.

"Good and evil are all subjective." He said offhandedly, seeing as it didn't matter to him one way or another. "As for the maker. I've been told about this Mayuri, by Nemu of course, and I'm interested in meeting him. If he does come to the City I will make a point of speaking with him. I am a bit of a scientist myself, after all."

To the last part, his smirk widened into a grin, baring sharp teeth. "I thought that was the entire purpose of our meeting here today; that you would kill me. As of yet, I've seen no indication that you are even capable. You little girls thinking to play warrior today are getting tiring."

There were few people that she'd allow to mock her, one being her captain because he was one of her closest friends, but she wouldn't take it from this one. In a flash, her zanpakutou was in her hand, the gentle thrum of energy quickening at the flare of anger she felt.

"I don't play at fighting. I earned my rank the hard way."

She wasn't the adept Momo was at kidou, but few were. Still, a few softly spoken words, followed by a outstretched hand and a louder, "shakkahou", sent a red ball of energy flinging towards her target, closely followed by several more.

Orochimaru hadn't thought she'd break quite so quickly, but this Shinigami had shown nowhere near the mental fortitude of the other thus far. "We shall see."

As the kidou attack came at him, he dodged to the side, but didn't quit moving knowing the similarities between ninjutsu and the kidou. He moved in a arc, slowly closing the distance between them as he evaded his attacks. As of yet he was not using any chakara, only monitoring how she would react.

He was now in the range of her sword, though, since he didn’t quite know the abilities of her zanpakuto, anywhere could be in the range of it. Here it would be easier to hit him with the kidou as well, but it would also be easier for him to see it coming and stop her from completing the spell.

Like ninjutsu, kidou required some sort of activation. It wasn’t so much necessary as a tool for concentrating the energy into the desired form; the Shinigami used words, however, instead of hand seals. So, stopping the spoken spell would ruin her concentration, and if done at the right point, the reiatsu build up could cause more harm to her than to him instead of simply dispersing. He didn’t know enough about their attacks yet to pinpoint the timing, but, by the end, this would prove a good experiment.

She saw him slowly moving closer and grinned, Haineko purring into her mind. The bond between the two had grown a great deal since coming into the City, which was beneficial to her. Her skills were so much better with her zanpakutou than with other thing, even though her hand to hand was quite good.

Thinking it would be best to try and finish things quickly, she shunpyo'd out of sight, appearing behind him just out of arms reach, releasing Hainkeo's shikai silently. It was something she'd worked on while in the city, not having much else to do before the other shinigami had joined her.

Haineko eagerly dissipated into ash, the razor sharp particles speeding along to their target as directed.

Orochimaru spun, tracking her movements, used to high speeds in fights. His eyes widened as her sword turned to what looked like ash, but he knew it was far more deadly than that.

So this was her shikai? He knew they were different from Shinigami to Shinigami, but he had not quite expected something like this. He tried to dodge as the particals came racing towards him, knowing that with the way they moved, he would be hard pressed to escape them even if he had been expecting this.

As they cut into his body, there was a cloud of smoke, and the bunshin dissapeared. One down. His laugh reverberated through the clearing; he had gotten just what he'd needed to know from the woman.

Kunai sped towards Rangiku, coming from behind and both her sides, none straight on, but instead aimed be mostly in her blind spots.

The ash shifted on its own, spreading to intercept several of the kunai. Pitted metal clattered as it hit the ground, but not all fell. A few still found their target, the impact tensing her muscles momentairily.

A frown creased her lips as she realized what he'd done.

Illusions, just like Aizen, just not as good.

With a wave of the empty hilt, Haineko returned to her mistress, the blonde relaxing her arm as she turned slowly, trying to locate the source of the laughter. A sluggish flow of crimson flowed down her free hand, dropping to the leaf strewn floor as she moved.

"I knew ninjas were sneaks, but this is pitiful."

A few more muttered words and lightning seared across the clearing, seeking a target.

[ooc: Sorry for the lag. I was at work and can't post on comms from there. ]

He was taking mental notes of everything she did, every shift in her zanpakuto's shikai, every bat of her eyelashes. The longer he watched her from his vantage point, the more he could learn about her fighting style, and the easier it would be to find weaknesses in it.

It was easy to tell that the ash like blades did not serve as an absolute defense, all the better, those were too annoying to shatter. She had reverted to kidou again, but her zanpakuto had not returned to it’s original state, meaning that she was still expecting a full on attack, one would come too, just not quite yet.

He formed a series of hand seals, flashing through them in the blink of an eye, setting a light genjutsu on the area.

Nothing obviously changed, that would make it far too easy to tell what he had done too soon, but Rangiku’s lightning stopped short, as if hitting a wall, breaking across and invisible barrier and circling back towards her, stopping before actually hitting her.

Snakes, dozens of green, six foot long snakes slithered out of the underbrush. They came from all sides, and each deadly poisonous.

At least that’s what she would see, in actuality, the lighting had continued along it’s original path and had destroyed another one of his bunshin, but had come dangerously close to hitting him, even managing to singe his bow a little bit. The snakes, on the other hand, were real. His summons may be limited, if not completely stopped, but these snakes were not a summons.

She easily stepped back away from the apparent backlash of the lightning, stopping short at a low hiss from her partner. The ash circled her as she paused, then spread out to slice through the snakes. Haineko served as a defensive partner as well as offensive, though the cat prefered to attack.

What snakes wiggled their way through the cloud of ash found themselves picked off as Rangiku called haien down on them. When the movement stopped and the snakes lay in piles of ash, she turned her attention to seeing if she could locate him yet again.

"Oh, come on. I'd like to get some sleep sometimes tonight..."

She hated when an enemy was so evasive.

"Oh." His voice came from one direction. "But aren't you having fun?" It came from another, and effect of the genjutsu. "I was just starting to enjoy myself too, but if you insist we can step up the game a bit."

He sent a series of bunshin into the clearing, one already forming the last bit of a fire ball justu, a couple of others throwing shuriken and kunai from different directions, exploding tags attached to a good many of them, and the last having more venomous snakes shooting from his sleeve weaving through the air towards their target.

Voices surrounded her, but she held her ground, eyes the only thing moving until a flicker of movement caught her attention. She flickered out of sight, reappearing in the air several feet above her last position, Haineko now back solid and in place.

She batted several of the weapons from the air, not wincing at the explosions the actions sometimes caused. Before the fireball could find its mark, she disappeared again, this time showing up in the lower limbs of a nearby tree.

"I thought we were actually playing now."

Yes, irritation was setting in quite well.

He laughed again, darkness settling in the clearing, as he still had control over the genjutsu. She would not be able to see his attacks until they were on top of her.

Another series of copies rushed Rangiku, once again coming from all sides. Some of the real moving without sound, and some of the illusionary moving with sound, and vise versa. A similar series of attacks being implemented, such as the exploding tags.

One of the bunshin threw shuriken, wires attached to them, and all flying wide of their target. Most were aimed for Rangiku herself, but one was aimed for the hilt of Haineko, just above Rangiku's hand.

The darkness around her set her nerves on edge, but she took a deep breath and stood, not moving until she heard someone closing in on her. A quick move up and over cleared one of the oncoming opponents, but the wires snagged her arm and wrist, one wrapped neatly around Haineko's hilt just above her grip.

"Shit..."

A tremor of panic came over her at the sensation of an empty hand, but Haineko answered her call, disappating until she fell free of the wires that bound the blade.

As it was, Rangiku's sword arm was tangled up in the wires meant to restrain her; the material cutting into her robes and the skin underneath. A savage growl rolled from her throat as she tried to free herself.

The darkness dissipated, though it had had no effect on its creator. He dispersed all the bunshin he had made, stepping out into the clearing, directly opposite her. He still wore his smirk. “You did a good job, I’m quite impressed.” Though he wasn’t really trying with her, it was all just a test in the end.

“You managed to nick me with that lightning of yours.” He gestured to the singed material he sported, that would have to be replaced.

“I’m afraid it’s over now though, we’ve both had our fun. Though I’m afraid you won’t be getting back to your friends just yet.” He stepped closer, closing the distance between them to just a few feet. “Now, since you fight with a sword, how do you feel about dying by one? I hope you don’t mind too much; I’ll make it clean though, I don’t want to deal with too much bleeding, replacing just the one part of my clothing will be enough trouble.”

He tilted his head back, opening his jaw wide. Currently there were only a handful of people in the City who knew about this, most of them were his subordinates. A sword, gold an silver, slowly came from his mouth, once the hilt had cleared his lips he wrapped one hand around it and drew it the rest of the way out, returning his smirking gaze to Rangiku.

With one motion, he ran the blade through her heart, giving it a twist to be sure the job was done.

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