Dance of the Princess

Chiaki eyes darted back and forth as she watched the shopkeeper carefully, looking for any sign of movement that might reveal his next move. Unfortunately (though not surprisingly) however, Urahara seemed to be perfectly unreadable to Chiaki. Infuriatingly, even now his smug expression hardly changed, his cane sword barely guarding anything.

"You know I'm not so easily baited though, right?"

Chiaki couldn't help but give a smile of her own; Despite all the taunting, despite the gulf of skill and experience, despite the advantages Urahara held… in this moment, power coursing through her every vein, her heartbeat reverberating through her body with the power of her unleashed reiatsu… it was nothing less than her peak. Urahara knew it too, and Sighing, the former assassin raised his cane sword in a stance reminiscent of fencing.

"Well, I can't say you're a bad student, that's for sure. Well, if-"

Chiaki's sword fell upon Urahara like a bolt of lightning before he even finished his point, only to be repelled with an audible "CLANG" as it made contact with Urahara's blade. Without a moment of hesitation, Chiaki twisted her katana to try and spear through his elbow using the opening her force had created, only for Urahara to flicker out of her view and appear behind her. Chiaki twisted her footing to perform a back kick, only for Urahara to jump back out of range.

"Oooo, scary. Putting me on the defensive with your attacks… I haven't experienced that in a long time."

"Really? It feels like you have an answer for everything."

Chiaki couldn't help but give a small chuckle. Even now, as powerful as she was, there was no way she could outmaneuver him in a straight fight. It wasn't just a matter of power either; There was a marked difference in the "quality" of the weapon, and Chiaki felt it every time she clashed with Urahara's blade.

"Maybe I do, but you've noticed what's holding you back in each exchange. That's commendable if nothing else. Still…"

Urahara stretched his blade in front of him, a dangerous glint in his eye forcing Chiaki's guard to go up on instinct.

"Awaken, Benihime."

In a flash of blinding power, Urahara's simple sword was transformed into the blade that Chiaki knew well from the original series; Benihime, the Red Princess. Even if she didn't know the danger posed by that blade, she would have known by the way her instincts screamed for her to take caution at Urahara's confidence.

"This is "Shikai", the awakened power of a Zanpakuto with a name. What you have in your hands is nothing more than energy within you that ballooned into the shape of a blade. You should pay attention to what's about to come next: Nake."

A burst of energy erupted from the blade, and while Chiaki dodged out of the way with a jump to the right, Urahara quickly closed in and tried to flank her as his blast limited her range of motion. It was now her turn to be on the defensive: with another wave of energy, Chiaki was forced to dodge out of the way again, only for the energy blast to shift direction and follow her, shifting with every step she took.

Thinking quickly, Chiaki dashed forwards as the energy followed her, and just as predicted, it wasn't able to shift fast enough to double backward, and crashed into the wall. Even as Urahara sent another blast of energy her way, Chiaki was still unfazed, as an idea danced at the back of her mind, the answer to the conundrum on the tip of her tongue.

Dodging out of the way once again, Chiaki's form would flicker, before the landscape and perspective around her shifted as she flash-stepped next to Urahara, her blade coming down to meet his once again, only to be deflected easily, the metal at the edge her blade chipping away like plaster. And yet…

"You said this wasn't a true Zanpakuto, but my brother has one just like it, and it works just fine for Shinigami business. It can't be that fake if it can still send souls to Soul Society, can it?"

Chiaki dodged out of the way of another slash from Urahara's blade, but even throughout the tempest of strikes, Chiaki couldn't help but notice something like amusement on Urahara's face, even as he deflected a stab to his neck with his own blade, flickering backward with his own Shunpo technique as he got into a guarded stance.

"I knew I made a good choice in teaching you, with that intuition… You're pressing forward to be in close range so that my Kamisori would have to double back to be able to hit you, and you're stabbing to minimize contact with my stronger blade. That's quite the skill for a novice! Tell you what, if you can give me a nick with your blade, I guess I can tell you just a little about the Zanpakuto's true nature."

Despite all the praise, Chiaki couldn't help but feel crestfallen that he had seen through her strategy so quickly… and maybe a little afraid too. She didn't have a moment to contemplate it though, as another burst of red energy soared through the air, forcing her to slide under it as she made her way towards Urahara one more time.

"Don't count me out just because you've figured out one or two of my tricks."

As another burst of energy came her way, Chiaki used her superhuman limb strength to push herself off the ground with her off-hand and send herself flying into the air, stabilizing herself with reishi footholds. A second burst of slicing energy from Kamisori arced to strike from underneath her, but-

"Here goes nothing…"

Leaning forward in an incredibly low stance, Chiaki created new footholds for herself, not in under her, but behind her; As if pushing off a wall in a swimming pool, Chiaki propelled herself forward off of the reishi wall, rocketing forward at incredible speed, even as Urahara looked unconcerned, his blade already ready to block. With a downward slash, Chiaki met Urahara's blade head-on with such force that it slammed it down and created an opening for her. It seemed that she couldn't take advantage of it however, the recoil of her strike shattering her own blade. Except…

"Huh?"

Suddenly, where the blade had shattered into fragments, a new blade suddenly shot out of where it had broken, exploding from the hilt right toward Urahara's chest. Barely dodging out of the way, the shopkeeper's face betrayed surprise for the first time as Chiaki's assault began anew, her assault a blistering storm of slashes.

"If it's just energy that forms this blade, no reason I can't just reform it every time it breaks. The benefit of weak and common equipment is being replaceable after all."

The initiative retaken, Chiaki now looked for the perfect opening, waiting for the moment to go all in. As Urahara delivered a counter-strike with a powerful horizontal slash, Chiaki brought her blade down with the full force of her weight, knocking Urahara's blade aside once more, the new blade erupting outwards to deliver the winning blow straight to Urahara's stomach. Then, with the squelch of a blade breaking skin-

"Urgh…"

Chiaki felt Benihime go through her side as Urahara barely slipped out of the way of her thrust, his blade twisted to strike her in the moment her blade had disappeared.

"That was a good try! You did let yourself get baited into overextending in the end though. I'll admit, I never expected you to get that far without Shikai though, so there's really no shame in how things turned out."

Urahara removed his blade. His strike had ultimately only left a flesh wound, but the real blow was to Chiaki's pride: she knew that if this had been a real fight, she would have been killed right then and there. Urahara was miles above her right now, but even so…

"Heh. I wanted to think I had at least a small chance."

Chiaki sighed, grabbing hold of the area where she'd been cut to stymie the bleeding. Much to her irritation, Urahara chuckled a bit at this sight.

"I would heal you, buuut… you know you should really get used to the pain. You'll be expecting far worse wounds pretty often if plan on being a Shinigami."

"Really hanging me out to dry huh?"

Chiaki winced at the pain, still exasperated by her would-be mentor's attempt to teach her pain tolerance. However, it was at that moment she noticed something at the corner of her eye, a flickering image that seemed to draw her attention to it.

"Huh?"

It was hard to see at first, but as she focused on it, a clearer image came into view, one of a cloaked woman with darker hair, bandages wrapped around her face leaving only a single red eye visible. Chiaki did a double take, but as soon as she blinked, the image was gone, as if taken by the wind. Urahara gave her a strange look.

"Are you alright there? I would say you look like you've seen a ghost, but I would know if there was a Plus here…"

"I don't know… must have been a trick of the light I guess? I thought I saw a person there but…"

Chiaki shook her head; It was probably best for her to avoid divulging too much information to someone like Urahara in any case, even if she had to weather a few suspicious glances.

In any case, Chiaki felt that the blood flow had more or less stopped now, and now that she'd had a moment to catch her breath, she felt a lot better, more clear headed. In fact, she noticed something that she hadn't before, one which made her crack a small smile.

"Your coat has a cut on it. Guess I didn't do as poorly as I thought, huh?"

Urahara looked down, surprised to see that his coat had actually taken some damage, before looking towards Chiaki, a bit of a sheepish look on his face as he rubbed his head.

"Guess that's fair then… alright, you know what? I'll count it. What do you want to know about Zanpakuto?"