If he wants a fight, well now he's got one

[joinmyreunion]

The Palace felt quiet. A number of the Arrancar were out on a mission with Aizen; only the weak, or the unpredictable, had been made to stay behind, but that number had not, apparently, included Grimmjow. Kadaj and Tayuya had been left to their own devices without him and Yylfordt around.

Three days ago, they'd had a quiet conversation. Kadaj hadn't done much talking, just nodded, and then later in the day had crept into the laboratories down the wing of the Palace that Orochimaru had made his own. Kadaj used to go down there a lot, three years ago. He'd stopped just after the Arrancar arrived. He'd fallen out with Orochimaru once and for all shortly after that.

He emerged from the labs a couple of hours later, showered, and then went into the underground training facility. He didn't come up again for a couple of days, although there weren't really people around to notice, except Tayuya, who went down to check on him a few times.

He'd slept when he came back up, and then went to look for Nnoitra, one of the Arrancar who had been judged too unpredictable to head off to a freshly made Necrohol. He found him in the kitchen.

Kadaj made his way over; an unusual intent certainty in his expression, and spoke quietly. "Want to let off some steam?" His manner was all wrong to be an invitation to spar, but that was what it sounded like, at first.

Comments

[snakeface]

Orochimaru huffed with amusement at Nnoitra's proclamation, but even through the haze of his nephew's building reiatsu, he still felt Kadaj coming up on him from behind.

He turned, and swung with Kusanagi at the same time, tutting softly when Kadaj evaded it. He struck again, and again, avoiding Kadaj's own thunder-laced slashes while trying to land one of his own. "Your determination," he commented, with a note of irritation, "while admirable, grows wearing, Kadaj."

He activated a jutsu, and flung out one arm as chakra-snakes erupted from his sleeve, impossible to avoid at this close range. It only took one to catch Kadaj for him to become entangled as the rest quickly followed suit, and there were too many for Kadaj to try and cut through them all.

[prayingmantis]

"Pray, Santa Teresa!"

With that command, Nnoitra raised his weapon into the air. His reiatsu didn't simply increase, it became more tangible, even visible. It burst out from the hollow space between the two sides of the upper crescent blade. Chakra swirled in shades of bright gold, mimicking fire. Dust rose into the air, agitated by the discharge of energy. Together they obscured him from sight.

The pressure was immense. There was no doubt that it would be felt by those upstairs, not that it mattered at all. Such disturbances were to be expected in a training area. It was unlikely that anybody would come running.

If they did, Nnoitra certainly didn't care.

The visible manifestation of Chakra brought about by Nnoitra's Resurrección ebbed away as fast as it came. The dust dropped in the absence of it, leaving him in view once more.

Nnoitra's appearance had, as expected, been altered by the process. His mask fragment covered almost the entire left side of his face and was now too big to be completely concealed by the patch over his eye. He had horns, two of them, of differing lengths. The main difference, however, lay in his arms -- he now had four and, in each of his hands, he gripped a scythe-like weapon. Lastly, the gash that Orochimaru had given him had healed over, leaving little more than a faint scar.

Kadaj, in the time it had taken Nnoitra to Release, had clearly found himself in some difficulty concerning Orochimaru's snakes. Nnoitra looked from one to the other and gritted his teeth. If Kadaj fell at this stage ... well, he wasn't sure how he'd fare against that weapon of his uncle's. It was something else. He didn't want to risk getting close enough to him without some degree of backup, so he approached the situation differently.

He surged forward in a feint, raising each pole-mounted blade at once. If Orochimaru had any sense, he would try and keep his eyes on those. So, halfway confident that they would be sufficient to distract him, Nnoitra forced out his last set of arms with a snarl, bringing the total to six. Contrary to usual, he didn't arm them. Instead, he used them to direct a vicious and high-powered bolt of raw lightning at them both.

Nnoitra had no doubt that Orochimaru knew that they shared Aero-Elemental Chakra. It was a familial trait. As far as Nnoitra was aware, however, Orochimaru had no idea that, following the implantation of his Hollow, he was Dual-type. Aero and Thunder. The former had a well-documented weakness to the latter and Nnoitra put it to use.

Though hardly a master tactician, he had already figured out what Kadaj's Elemental affinity was and knew that the fulmination wouldn't affect him.

His uncle and the snakes formed from his Chakra, however, were another story entirely.

[snakeface]

The change in the air was palpable, but Orochimaru ignored Nnoitra in the process in releasing to his Resurrección state. He hadn't seen Nnoitra released before, and Aizen had not been forthcoming with data, understandably, but he expected it to be big, and unpleasant, and showy.

He was, however, more usefully occupied with winding one snake around Kadaj's throat, and squeezing the air out of his lungs than with watching the show.

That didn't, however, mean that he wasn't watching for an incoming attack. He knew that one would be likely once the display was over, so when Nnoitra feinted, he reacted to defend, raising Kusanagi in a strike which would have split weapons, and severed hands.

Instead he was hit with a powerful thunderbolt, which knocked him backwards and away from Kadaj. The snakes dissipated. He almost dropped the sword, and for a moment, for too long a moment from his view, between that and whatever Kadaj had struck him with to sap his strength with the black effluvia that pulsed from him still, he struggled to stand back up, panting.

And pissed off.

[joinmyreunion]

Kadaj struggled against the snakes, but every movement only seemed to make them hold tighter, and his breath was stolen when Nnoitra released into the bargain. He grimaced against it, fighting with all he had left to bring souba up and muster another sparkstrike to slice through the damn things....

Nnoitra got there first.

Kadaj was dropped and gulped a breath gratefully before he scrambled back to his feet and back a few paces from Orochimaru. The creepy old snake was... struggling, Kadaj saw, and smirked.

"Thanks," Kadaj said, to Nnoitra, and took a brief moment to get his breath back.

Not yet, but it was getting close, if they could hold on just a little bit longer... And Nnoitra had just put the bastard on the back foot.

[prayingmantis]

Nnoitra grinned as Orochimaru struggled. He couldn't resist. It was nice to see him falter, to see him suffer. It made a change from that cock-sure attitude he'd been wearing since Kadaj had initiated battle.

"Hah!" He hoped that burst of electricity hurt.

He nodded to Kadaj and gripped each of his four weapons more tightly. He could have produced another pair for the newer arms, but he decided to hold back that ability for the moment. He didn't want to put all of his cards on the table, after all. Orochimaru was a fighter made in the same vein as Szayel -- if he knew what you were capable of, he would work out a way to turn the battle in his favour. Keeping things from him was what gave them a chance of victory. Instead, he swept one hand up to his face to pull off his patch and clenched the other into a fist at his side.

"What's your plan?" He asked Kadaj quietly, looking at him out of the corner of his eye. "You know what'll happen if we give the bastard too much space."

But having to deal with that sword too much wasn't something he wanted to risk either.

[joinmyreunion]

Kadaj did know what would happen if Orochimaru got too much space. That was one of the drawbacks to the whole killing him thing, even with Geostigma.

"A few more minutes and I have him," he said, although for what he didn't specify. It was pretty clear that the black ichor was doing something to wear Orochimaru down; his chakra levels were dropping, his reactions were slowing, he was, overall, weakening, and much more rapidly than if they were wearing him down through the battle. "We don't have to overpower him," Kadaj said, "we just have to last, and that includes if he uses that. Once the stigma has him, it won't matter what he's doing, or what he looks like; his time is up."

Keep him going, last him out, dodge the worst and weather the rest; so long as Kadaj and Souba stayed in the battle, Orochimaru was going to die today.

[snakeface]

Ungrateful little brats.

Orochimaru seethed. He couldn't work out what Kadaj's little zanpakuto trick did, or more importantly, how it did it; it felt like being hit with a lot of nasty status effecting spells at once, but some of them were unfamiliar, but there was one thing he could determine, and that was that it was devouring his chakra at an increasingly fast rate. Without being able to identify them, he couldn't cure them. It was aggravating. Then there was Nnoitra, who, in a combat situation, was the greater concern, especially when he'd displayed a thunder elemental affinity.

That one, Orochimaru put down to Aizen and his meddling.

If he didn't get this back under control, he might actually lose this fight. It was not a happy realisation, but he needed to stay off the front line and incur as little damage as he could.

He raised the sword, and utilised a technique, which left it hovering in the air. Then it was a simple matter of guiding it over towards Nnoitra and Kadaj, using a single finger to guide the swords vicious swings as he made a determined effort disarm Nnoitra.

Literally.

He kept a close eye on Kadaj, however. He was the one likely to come running in up close in response.

[prayingmantis]

Nnoitra, upon seeing the floating sword, swore under his breath.

He raised all four arms to block the blade's swing with the shafts of his scythes. It didn't work. Kusanagi, instead of being fended off by a web of poles, hacked through three of his arms. It sliced through one at the wrist and the other two at different points on his forearms, removing them cleanly. The fourth got away with a small but comparatively insignificant flesh wound.

Three arcs of red painted the ground.

The dismembered hands didn't give up their grip on the scythes even as they landed and scattered on the floor.

He backed off, teeth gritted. He braced his last remaining scythe across the front of him with two of the three arms he had left. Blood dripped freely from the freshly cleaved flesh, but he ignored it. Instead of losing the shreds of calm he was holding on to, he smirked, raising his free hand to fire a bala at the sword. He wasn't sure if it would work to knock it away or even affect its position, but it was worth a shot.

He was hardly going to let a few severed arms stop him retaliating.

[snakeface]

All of that work, all that effort and time, and what was Nnoitra's arrancar defence actually worth, in the end? Orochimaru smirked, but had to move the sword when Nnoitra replied with a bala blast.

He swung for Kadaj this time. Perhaps, if he did sufficient damage to Kadaj too, or at least his zanpakuto, he could bring this to a swift end.

[joinmyreunion]

For a moment, Kadaj looked horrified. Nnoitra had lost arms, which was bad enough in itself, but then he kept going, and Kadaj....

Well, if nothing else, Kadaj had to respect that level of commitment to a fight, and also to insanity.

Then Kusanagi came for him and he ducked out of the way, avoiding the swings rather than trying to deflect them with Souba because he couldn't be sure what effect Souba taking damage would have on the stigma, or the plan.

He retreated a few steps, evading another swing, and then darted under the sword, and towards Orochimaru, taking the opportunity to strike, and make this a close range battle again.

[prayingmantis]

When Kusanagi moved away from him, even if it wasn't a direct effect of the bala, Nnoitra relaxed slightly. He watched as Kadaj moved in towards their opponent, blades flashing. Getting in close to avoid the levitating sword looked to be a good method of limiting Orochimaru's liberal use of it, even if it wasn't one that would work for him. Orochimaru would have to be careful to not accidentally catch himself with his own sword. It would limit his ability to fight back effectively. Good.

The distraction gave him a brief respite, but it was long enough for Nnoitra to focus. What he needed to do didn't require too much in the way of direct Chakra manipulation. It was partly a magical response and partly a physical reflex. Or, at least, it was a concentration of energy that his Hollow largely dealt with instead of him.

He snarled wordlessly as the reason for his pause played out. A bright gold glow radiated from him. A more intense concentration of Chakra emanated from the ends of his severed limbs, stemming the bleeding. From the wounds, new arms sprouted in place of the ones that Orochimaru had hacked off. There was barely a seam where the new replaced the old and each new digit was tipped with a claw as sharp as the ones he already had.

His defense was good, but it wasn't all he had in his arsenal.

[snakeface]

Orochimaru snarled as he barely succeeded in avoiding Kadaj's attacks, retaliating with a kunai, and then just managing to block the next strike with it, too.

He saw Nnoitra recover from his damage too, and his upper lip curled.

He recalled Kusanagi, swinging at Kadaj with it to force him to back off, and then cleared back himself. If they were going to press the issue, then Orochimaru was going to teach them a lesson they wouldn't soon forget.

He concentrated his chakra and changed, using his eight branches technique to transform into a giant white serpent with eight heads, and eight tails.

[joinmyreunion]

Kadaj was forced back out of the way again. He was prepared to close the gap again, but Orochimaru widened it further and then....

He scowled, backing way off; not wanting to be directly in front of Orochimaru when he started looking for something to attack in this form.

"Get the heads!" He called to Nnoitra. It was their best shot.

He, meanwhile, backed up a few further steps and raised Souba ahead of him.

[prayingmantis]

Typical. The bastard would turn himself into a many-headed snake powered by pure nightmare fuel, wouldn't he? Nnoitra narrowed his eye and clenched his teeth as he ran at his multi-headed freak of an uncle, sweeping up his weapons as he made the dash. The severed hands relinquished their grip on the shafts as he swung at him. Them.

Nnoitra didn't need any encouragement when it came to hacking away at the heads. Call it revenge for that earlier slight. He made sure to keep two of his arms free just in case Orochimaru somehow managed to remove any of the ones he was wielding the weapons with.

[joinmyreunion]

Kadaj held Souba's grip in both hands, at arm's length, and exhaled slowly through his nose.

"Bankai!"

He'd been alone, a brief few weeks ago, when he'd attained it. A large part of him had wanted to run upstairs and tell everyone, and share his delight with Grimmjow, and Tayuya, and Yylfordt, and Gin....

And he hadn't, because if they knew then he'd lose this chance. He'd lose the advantage it gave him. So he'd sat on the information, and waited; if he was going to battle Orochimaru, it would be on his own terms, and he was going to keep his cards close to his chest to make sure it was on his own terms.

When the dust stirred up from the burst of chakra had settled, Kadaj was holding two swords; one in each hand. Souba bore two blades in shikai, but she was two whole swords in bankai.

She wasn't all that changed, either. Kadaj's clothing altered, giving him a long, black leather coat, and his hair was longer this way, too. That was something Kadaj considered one of the embarrassing side effects that he'd just have to get used to.

He shifted the left hand sword into a backwards grip, and then raced towards Orochimaru, to join Nnoitra in taking off Orochimaru's heads.

[shoottokill]

In the shadow of the doorway to the training facility, an observer lurked.

He surveyed the clash through narrowed eyes, a smile on his face even with nobody there to see it. He had been drawn to the scene by the reiatsu surging from the area. Three people, each of them powerful, were doing battle. Had he not been familiar with the individuals responsible for the spiritual energy he might not have roused himself to watch, but how was he to resist? Given the players, it was obviously about revenge. That was the only possible reason for these three people to fight.

For members of Khamja to war against each other wasn't unusual. Power attracted power and with power came egotism. Egotism begot arrogance and a surplus of arrogance often led to a need to prove that it wasn't just empty conceit. Conflict was usually the result.

This, though... this... wasn't simply overblown posturing. This fight had a purpose. It had been planned.

Kadaj, fighting alongside Nnoitra? Two volatile individuals united against a common enemy? That wasn't an accidental alliance.

Nnoitra hadn't masterminded it, either. While there was little doubt that he had it in him to seek help of his own volition should he consider it necessary to achieve an end, this couldn't be his work. His quarrel with Orochimaru was too personal, too old. It touched too many raw nerves. For him to seek help would mean exposing them. Admitting weakness. Accepting it.

No, this was Kadaj.

He'd obviously waited until the Palace was almost empty to mount his campaign. Bided his time until there were fewer potential observers before seeking the aid of somebody he wouldn't usually bother with. He and Nnoitra were not usually well disposed towards each other, but the enmity between them was mild. Situational. Even so, he'd approached him for this task knowing that they shared a desire to take out a common enemy. An enemy that Kadaj clearly couldn't eliminate alone. That he'd admitted that fact was unusual in and of itself. That he'd sought common ground with somebody he generally had no inclination to spend any time with was more so. It was not so much humility as ... maturation.

He was getting sly. More than that, he was finally putting his brain before his pride.

He had even, evidently, kept the fact that he had achieved bankai quiet. That showed dedication to his plan. He had deliberately withheld that information -- a feat of remarkable willpower in and of itself -- in order to give himself his best chance against Orochimaru. The less he knew, the fewer things he could plan ahead for. Clever, clever. He had obviously thought every aspect of this encounter through ahead of time in order to give himself the best chance up to and including his own power and the limits of it. Even approaching Nnoitra was a well thought out and integral part of his plan.

This wasn't a war, that much was clear. It was an assassination.

The unseen smile widened.

[prayingmantis]

Nnoitra, like everybody else, had no idea that Kadaj had managed to achieve bankai. He paused for a moment as he heard the command and turned his head to look at him as soon as the flare of chakra and agitated sand had dissipated or dropped.

Huh. It changed him as well as his weapon. That was interesting, but not interesting enough to keep Nnoitra's attention off his opponent for more than the scant few seconds it took him to take in that fact.

Grinning, he returned to the task of hacking at Orochimaru's many serpentine necks, surprisingly coordinated considering the number of arms and weapons he had to keep track of. He had no doubt that they could win. Nothing that Orochimaru could pull had a chance at beating them now.

[joinmyreunion]

Kadaj leapt, using a little chakra concentration to boost himself higher and slicing viciously at the neck of one head. Orochimaru retaliated, coming in to bite Kadaj, who defended with his right hand sword, and struck again with his left.

It was clear he had a preferred hand, but practice would solve that particular problem. In the meantime, the considerable boost to his defensive and offensive capabilities was showing itself.

He succeeded in removing one of the heads, and took a brief moment to check how Nnoitra was faring before he set to work on the next. He had to make sure not to stay still, and keeping track of eight heads, and eight tails, was difficult. He couldn't afford to take a hit now.

[snakeface]

Orochimaru hissed and snapped. He tried to pluck Kadaj out of the air when he jumped with his fangs, but the little rodent was too quick, and too quick to defend.

He tried the same with Nnoitra, too, or coiled to crush him. The eight branches technique could level a city, he should not lose to two insignificant little brats.

[prayingmantis]

As soon as any part of Orochimaru's sinuous, mutated and many-headed body came at Nnoitra, he hacked at it with one of his scythes. He wouldn't allow himself to be crushed -- literally or figuratively -- by him. Never again. He was going down.

Today.

He adjusted his grip on all four of his weapons so that they could be wielded and used to slash at him from any angle. He no longer needed to turn for the hooked blades to bite into flesh. With a growl he swung one blade upwards as he brought another down. It kept Orochimaru busy if the attacks were consistent, vicious and constant.

That was an asset when, in his unarmed hands, he was focusing his Chakra for another Elemental attack.

[joinmyreunion]

Having a multi-armed opponent on your team had its benefits. A smirk crept across Kadaj's face as he worked. While he could tackle one head at a time, Nnoitra wasn't so limited. More of the heads were having to focus on his ally, which left Kadaj with less to deal with at any one time.

It helped. It really helped, and Kadaj took the opportunity to use sparkstrike with his offhand blade, and efficiently removed another head with it.

The really good thing about the current situation, Kadaj reflected, was that the better they did, the easier it got. Every subsequent strike was easier than the one before.

Kadaj couldn't quite hold in a laugh.

[prayingmantis]

Many allies would have been distressed or angry at more of the focus being on them than their partner, but Nnoitra liked it that way. This fight's purpose might not have been to prove his strength, but bettering a tough opponent felt good regardless of that fact. His desire to kill his uncle may have transcended his usual blood thirst, but a good fight was still something to be enjoyed, no matter the importance.

His Chakra focussed, he laughed as he discharged it as Thunder at Orochimaru, drowning out Kadaj's unsettling laughter in the process. Wasting no time, he took advantage of the pain coursing through Orochimaru and attacked him again, aiming for two heads at once as he thrashed.