CHAPTER 33: THE DANCE

---- General POV ----

"You're here." Tristan said as he opened his eyes and looked at his soul clone who was now a vasto lorde.

"You became a hollow huh." he said again as he looked on at Houryu. Then he looked around him at the flowers.

"I like it here, reminds me of them, of then, when things weren't so complicated as they are now." he continued before looking back at Houryu.

"Why, who are you, who are we and why all this." Houryu said.

"Oh, you don't have our complete memories yet. Too bad I can't give it to you." Tristan said as he still rested on the tree.

"Then I'd just have to take it from you." Houryu cut in as he slowly started emitting his spiritual energy.

Tristan still looked like he had something to say but spoke no further as he slowly sat up with a pained expression on his face.

"You look like you're in pain." Houryu suddenly said as he got ready to attack

Tristan looked at him as his eyes began to slowly rotate before forming a more complex pattern. "Oh, but I am." he answered back.

"If you can touch me, you'll get to know all you want to know." he continued as he slowly got up, causing a look of surprise from Houryu, but he quickly took away the look of surprise on his face.

Suddenly, Houryu charged at Tristan with his claws elongated and blazing, but as soon as he got close enough to strike, and he did, he was blocked by a sort of skeleton rib protecting Tristan.

"Susanoo." Tristan said with a low voice as he quickly materialized a skeleton like arm and grabbed Houryu before throwing him far away.

"Don't fight here, you'll destroy the environment." he said coldly as he looked at where he threw him and began to run there at high speed.

As he got there he saw Houryu slowly standing up to face him before asking him, "How do you have that? Something like that shouldn't be here."

"And, who said that it can't be. There are a lot of things in this world that make no sense. If you want to know about me then all you have to do is defeat me. I hate people that talk too much when fighting." Tristan answered back as he began to form the fleshy part of the susanoo after completing the skeleton.

Soon the flesh of the upper body of the susanoo was complete and it stood around him with some sort of cloak type skin covering its face completely and only showing the eyes behind the cloak with a long sword in its sheath in its left arm. It looked like it was formed of some white flame like aura.

Houryu seeing this quickly got into a fighting stance before charging at Tristan. He clawed at the susano but it quickly grabbed the long sword that was still in its sheath and blocked the attack.

Houryu's claws didn't even put a dent on the sheath, so he hopped back before covering his whole arms in flames. He then made a whip of flames to lash at the susano armor, but he still couldn't even make a dent. He ran towards the susanoo again and continued attacking with his blazing claws, sometimes sending a long-range flaming claw at the Tristan, but it was all blocked by the susanoo armor and he couldn't even get him to make the susanoo draw its sword.

All Tristan seemed to be doing was blocking the attacks from Houryu as he just stood there inside of his susanoo's upper body.

Suddenly Tristan moved back dodging the attack coming at him and then controlled the susanoo to grab the handle of the sword with his right hand and slowly draw the sword out of its sheath.

The sword was white in colour and was made of the same white flame type aura that made up the susanoo.

As soon as the sword was completely drawn out, Tristan slashed down towards Houryu at blinding speed, but he managed to get out of the way of the attack using a sonido to enhance his movement.

From that moment, Tristan was the one on the attack, as he continuously slashed towards Houryu, who kept dodging and replying with flying flame claw attacks of his own which didn't manage to penetrate the susanoo armor.

As Tristan continued attacking Houryu, leaving slash marks on the ground around him, he suddenly seemed to have run out of patience as suddenly the sword seemed to have been set ablaze by a white flame. The same white flame that it was made of.

"White Slash." Tristan said as he moved the susanoo into a sword type stance and slashed at Houryu, sending a straight white slice flying at him.

Houryu quickly used a sonido to get out of the way of the attack, causing a loud booming sound to echo through the area.

After dodging the attack, he looked at where the attack landed, only to see a cleave into the soil forming a type of pit.

He looked back at Tristan who had moved into another stance. He also pointed his index finger at the susanoo and started gathering his spiritual energy to form a cero.

"Arie Swordsmanship: White Night." Tristan's words seemed to echo through the area as a sort of darkness seemed to gather around the sword's edges as he slashed towards Houryu.

A wave of white black light that seemed to stretch to cover the horzon made it's way towards Houryu as he stood there condensing his spiritual energy.

Suddenly, Houryu's figured blurred followed by a loud bang sound and he reappeared behind the susanoo at the area where Tristan was the closest to the body armor and released his cero right there at point black range, sending a narrow ray of blazing red destructive light at the susanoo.

*CRACK*

As soon as the cero died out the crack was visible and Houryu ran at the area and struck there with all of his strength, breaking through the area and appearing right behind Tristan before plunging his claws right into Tristan's heart.