Historically speaking, in most conflicts the defending side has an inherent advantage when it comes to indoor fighting. At least in a confrontation between two similarly armed combatants with no specially prepared options.

The attacker can only enter through certain areas, blindspots caused by doors can be exploited,

Kido gave a big middle finger to that advantage.

Up until this moment, I thought the biggest reason most of the surrounding buildings in the Seireitei were as large as they are was due to aesthetics as the ‘capital of the afterlife’ thing they were going for.

Now that I was stuck in a relatively tiny room with only one exit and an enemy that was possibly capable of filling said room with fire, lighting, and explosions the thought of having a lot of room to avoid those things suddenly really appealed to me.

While I was making plans on how to confront the Soul Reaper in front of me, I was also checking her over. It was only a day since we fought, yet she seemed completely recovered. Her black hair tied behind her in a simple braid, and dark grey eyes darting between myself and the room.

“You look good,” I said casually. “But then I guess your medics have gotten a lot of practice recently.”

It definitely was not a good idea to taunt from my position, but finding myself cornered was making me feel a bit more aggressive than I normally would be. And it seems I was expressing that by shoving the fact my group had put dozens of her friends and colleagues into the hospital in her face.

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply, wrestling with my sudden anxiety until I calmed down some.

Once I opened them again I looked directly at Natsumi’s face. She had a placid calm expression, but I could clearly see the anger in her eyes.

“Sorry, that was tasteless of me.” I said.

“Indeed,” Natsumi replied. “You on the other hand, look a bit scuffed up.”

The light jab at my appearance was easily ignored. What she was really fishing for was who I fought and the result of the fight. I wasn’t really interested in telling her though, so I kept quiet.

“You seem much less talkative, miss Ryoka.” Natsumi continued. “I thought you said you were okay with continuing our chat.”

She had a point. I kinda wanted to slip the Soul Reapers some more information, and since the last Soul Reaper I talked to was taking a nap for the next few days this would be the best chance.

I opened my mouth to respond, and snapped it shut as I half turned to look at the wall behind me.

The massive spiritual presence that had been hanging over us suddenly cut out. The sudden absence of it startled me with the feeling of ‘emptiness’ but that one second was enough to distract me.

Natsumi’s hand slashed the air in front of her.

“Bakudo #4: Hainawa.”

A golden rope burst out of her fingertips and wound its way around my torso, pinning my right arm at the same time.

“Wha the…” I managed to get out before she yanked on the end of the rope. I was pulled off my feet and out into the air.

The bitch threw me off the side of a cliff!

The rope splintered into light as I severed it with the blade in my left hand. Didn’t stop me from falling a few hundred feet into a dense forest, but on the bright side I wasn’t tied up anymore. Still falling, so that was an issue, but I also wasn’t trapped in a room anymore.

Eh, I’ll call it a net positive.

The trees were now pretty close and while flight was on the very long list of spells I wanted, it was also one of the many that required too much computation to do without a device. Even floating was kinda had to pull off, and that was when I wasn’t in freefall.

Tiny branches started snapping as I passed through them. I grabbed at some of the thicker ones and used them to bleed off some momentum before managing to kick off the trunk of one of the larger trees and land on a different branch big enough to comfortably stand on. I was brought to all fours from the force of the impact but I wasn’t smashed into the forest floor so I couldn’t complain.

Natsumi appeared across from me with shunpo, a wide smirk on her face. “I apologize,” She said. “I feel like our conversation would be better without whatever surprises you had in your hideout.”

“So you threw me off a cliff?”

She shrugged, “If that’s all it took to take you out I could simply hand you over to the captain. Since you handled it we can either head back to the squad barracks peacefully or I can drag you there by force if you prefer.”

“I’m noticing a distinct lack of actual talking in this conversation.” I said dryly as I straightened up.

Natsumi tilted her head and glared at me a little, though the smirk remained in place. “In many cases a fight is simply a conversation by physical means. Also surprisingly enough my Captain doesn’t trust the word of an invader that showed up out of nowhere, so surrender and you can present your case. Or don’t and I drag you back.”

So go into the den of superpowered ghost assassins, or refuse and fight an officer I already easily beat. Well that was a hard choice.

“I think I’ll pass on both choices, thanks.” I replied.

“Drag you back by force it is.” Natsumi said, hints of cheerful malice showing through the calm air she had been projecting. She held her sword out to one side and released it with a quick cry. After a few quick spins of the chain, Natsumi threw the now sickle bladed weapon at me.

I tried hacking at the chain to get the whole thing tangled up in some of the branches surrounding us, but while I was able to deflect her weapon the chain squirmed like a living thing and actually nicked me on the way back to her hands. It wasn’t much, just a small cut that barely broke the skin on my shoulder, but that it hit me at all was surprising.

This far away my short swords didn’t do me much good so I threw both of them at the Soul Reaper while tracing a bow. It didn’t do much as they were blown out of the air by dual blasts of blue fire. I growled in frustration while firing an explosive arrow, trying to retake the initiative in the fight.

She managed to block the arrow itself, but couldn’t do much about the resulting explosion as she was blown back by the force. A cloud of smoke obscured her from my view as I prepared another arrow. Instead of moving closer like I expected Natsumi fell back a bit, holding her sickle in one hand while the other yanked on the chain that disappeared somewhere in the forest.

I drew the string back and took aim, just in time for a whip to slam into my back with the force of a runaway car knocking me forward.

I bit of a curse and brought my bow up just in time to stop Natsumi from slashing into my side and locked the two weapons together as she landed higher up on the tree I was standing on. With a quick flip Natsumi used my arm as a springboard to send a kick at my head. I let my bow disperse and used my left arm to block the attack. Even with that I was sent skidding down the tree a few feet, though I was able to see that the whip from earlier was actually the other end of the chain on Natsumi’s weapon. She must have used the trees to hide it getting behind me and attack me from behind.

Clever. Annoying, but clever.

Kansho and Bakuya once again appeared in my hands as I used Haste to close the distance between us. Rather than clash with me Natsumi began retreating, throwing her weapon at me again and again while I was forced to duck around her blade or deflect it. More small cuts appeared on my arms and legs from where the chain reacted unnaturally when she reeled it in.

Suddenly a white hot lance of pain erupted from my left hip as I missed a block and the sickle bit deep into my side. This time I didn’t suppress the stream of curses as blood welled out of the cut. I hissed as I placed a hand over it while I stared at Natsumi.

“What’s the matter miss Ryoka? Confused about how this is going differently than you expected?” Natsumi taunted from a little way off. She was also apparently reading my mind.

“You see, unlike most squads in the Gotei 13, Squad 2 rarely specialises in straight forward fights. Unlike last time, I know how you fight, can use the environment against you, and am not tied down by teammates who ran off to be morons.” She continued smugly, though I noted there was some real anger when she talked about the two she was with last time.

An ugly thought crept into my mind as I glared at the Third Seat Officer that was so far the most powerful enemy I faced this entire time.

“You’re one of those under-ranked officers aren’t you?” I accusingly hissed at her.

Natsumi tilted her head, frowning. “Under-ranked?”

“Yeah, like the third and fifth from Squad 11. They would be could be higher ranked if they were in another squad but stayed for whatever reason.”

Natsumi’s eyebrows raised, “You know about that? Interesting. But yes, you could say I’m in a somewhat similar position to them.”

Great, a non-cannon officer that was worth a damn. I knew they probably existed but I was hoping to avoid them until after this mess was taken care of.

During the whole conversation I had turned my injured side away from Natsumi’s view, trying to use a healing spell to slow the bleeding. I think it worked, but like most of my healing spells it would take too long to actually heal and was more of a patch job.

“Guess I can’t play around anymore can I?” My hand dropped away from my side. A sword fell into my hand, hidden by the rest of my body from Natsumi.

Even if she couldn’t see me trace the sword, Natsumi obviously saw my hand shift. “Is that so? Does that mean you will be using that gun again?” Her lips curled into a small sneer, “Don’t think you can catch me off guard like that again.”

I started just a little, “You know what a gun is?”

Natsumi sighed, her shoulders slumping down as a look of exasperation appeared on her face. “Why does everyone assume Shinigami have no idea about modern weaponry? We do transport souls of soldiers along with everyone else, you know?”

“I guess its a common question?”

“Every few years we get some teenager who died in an accident and finds themselves in the poorer districts. For whatever reason they think recreating guns will put them on top of the pecking order. Then they meet someone who has too much Reiatsu to be hurt by a normal piece of metal and get killed.”

I… I didn’t know how to respond to that.

“R-right, no, I know it won’t work on you now.” I stuttered. “But I have other tricks up my sleeves.” My eyes hardened and I whipped the sword forward, a crimson fireball racing up the blade and straight toward the shocked Soul Reaper.

Natsumi dodged a direct hit, but the resulting explosion kicks up a thick smokescreen. With a flick of my wrist I trace another weapon and throw it off to the side and rush her. My left arm came down in a powerful chop but Natsumi caught the copied Tobiume in the chains of her weapon. I pressed down on her making her scowl while I smirked in return.

“Surprise!”