Natsumi watched as Alexandra disappeared down the hallway as several conflicting emotions raged inside her.

On one hand, she had absolute faith Alexandra had every intention of killing Doctor Akihiro Kanou in the most brutal way possible given the sheer hatred she seemed to give off once she knew Kanou’s creations were beyond saving. On the other, an incredibly powerful combatant was now unsupervised and was significantly motivated to do serious harm to at least several high ranking Shinigami. There was no telling exactly when Alexandra might decide to strike out against them again. And Natsumi wasn’t going to be there to de-escalate whatever response she might decide on.

And of course that didn’t begin to dip into the cocktail of anger, regret, betrayal, and fear she was feeling in general.

It wasn’t that her superiors used a conditional poison on Alexandria that bothered her. She had seen several different types in her line of work and applied quite a few herself. It was simply part of the job and she could accept that.

What she had a harder time accepting, was that no one told her.

She recognized the symptoms easily enough, and she carried antidotes to several of Squad Twelve’s more common poisons as a matter of course. But normally when going on a mission with a pre-compromised companion there was a brief on what the trigger condition was, what the higher ups wanted accomplished, and when to stealthily administer the antidote if something developed during the mission.

Natsumi had gotten none of that.

Instead she had to improvise after Alexandria triggered the poison condition and was inflicted with some version of poison no. 37, a substance that was supposed to burn the reishi inside of the victim and immobilize them completely. If the antidote isn’t applied within minutes, the victim would eventually lose the ability to manipulate reishi at all while leaving the internal workings unaffected.

So that meant capture rather than elimination. Which was good. Between their interactions during the Ryoka invasion, Alexandria saving her life, and their time together on this mission Natsumi realised she had come to like the impossible person known as Alexandria Cross. She wasn’t sure she would be able to carry out an assassination order.

She also wasn’t sure she could capture Alexandria either since the poison seemed to only make her lose control of her reiatsu rather than make it inaccessible. Natsumi finally saw the full extent of Alexandria’s monstrous strength, and she was certain Alexandria was fully capable of holding her own with any three captains should she need to.

Natsumi also finally had an answer as to why Alexandria had such a hard time fighting her. She was so much more powerful that it was easier to let her opponent get several hits in rather than risk losing control and killing her opponent. Natsumi felt incredibly relieved that the Ryoka were not interested in killing the members of the Goteijūsantai.

The damage would have been incalculable.

“Don’t look so distracted Miss Third-Seat. I haven’t been able to use my true strength since I took this role. I would be really disappointed if I crushed you when you weren’t paying attention.”

Natsumi turned her attention to the fourth confirmed traitorous Shinigami she had dealt with this month.

“You seem remarkably unconcerned you let her past you, especially since you made the effort to block her in the first place.”

Yuuto Kiba shrugged, “I wanted to fight her myself. I don’t often get the chance to seriously fight Doctor Kanou’s more successful experiments, and was hoping she would be worth the time. Unfortunately it seems I won’t get that opportunity.”

Kiba moved his sword to casually redirect the weighted end of Kusarihebi from striking him in the back.

“Oh course, if I finish you off quickly enough I suppose I could still catch up to her.”

With a similarly casual movement Natsumi flicked her wrist and allowed the chain to pool around her.

“I wouldn’t count on that.” She warned, raising her own reiatsu in response to his.

He smiled at her.

By some unspoken signal both of them started chanting. Natsumi pointed her left palm at Kiba while bracing it with her right hand, while Kiba held his sword horizontally in front of him.

”Ye lord! Mask of flesh and bone, flutter of wings, ye who bears the name of Man! Truth and temperance, upon this sinless wall of dreams unleash but slightly the wrath of your claws. Hadō #33. Sōkatsui!”

”Wander through the twisting path, and reject the biting thorns.Jinsei no Michi”

A wave of bluish-white fire crashed into Kiba as his sword glowed a pale yellow as his shikai released. Convinced that she wasn’t lucky enough to end the fight in one hit, Natsumi arced the sickle end of her weapon through the resulting smoke cloud. Feeling the blade being deflected she quickly manipulated the chain to wrap around the interfering object.

Not wasting any time to confirm she had captured her target, Natsumi placed her right hand on the chain of her zanpakuto. ”Hadō #11. Tsuzuri Raiden.”

Yellow sparks briefly played around her hand before racing down Kusarihebi’s chain and theoretically shocking Kiba with a not inconsiderable amount of electric charge. Theoretically because there was no reaction from inside the dust cloud.

As that cleared Natsumi saw that her chain was wrapped around Kiba’s zanpakuto. The basic katana shape remained the same, but several thornlike protrusions ran down the back of the blade. More concerningly Kiba showed no reaction to either kido. They obviously hit, but with no damage to show for it Kiba’s zanpakuto probably was either a negation-type or an absorption-type.

“Was that your best? While I do want to catch up to your companion, I don’t want you to feel like you died holding something in reserve.” Kiba mocked.

“You talk too much.” Natsumi muttered before vanishing with a shunpo.

She reappeared inside Kiba’s guard slashed upwards hoping to score his arm. Kiba retaliated with a lightning fast stab after deflecting, this in turn was parried by a loop of chain pulling the blade off track. The two Shinigami continued to trade blows. Neither one of them was able to land more than a glancing attack.

The closest they had gotten to a serious hit was when Kiba managed to sneak a hit to her left side. Natsumi countered by wrapping her arm in Kusarihebi’s chain like an armguard and deflecting the blade. Her retaliating kick landed cleanly, hitting Kiba in the face and knocking him backwards, but it lacked the force to do major damage.

’Still, first blood went to me.’ Natsumi thought as she spotted the trail of blood leaking from Kiba’s mouth. More amusingly she also noticed he was no longer smiling.

“Twice as strong as a Lieutenant, was it?” Natsumi taunted. “Are you sure about that?”

Kiba growled at her.

“I suppose I will have more of a challenge with you than I thought.” He admitted. “It was a mistake holding back.”

With that he surged forward much faster than before. He slashed high, forcing Natsumi to jerk backwards to avoid the sword but not before he managed to slice through several dark hairs. As she danced backwards and threw the weighted end of her chain to force him away, Natsumi distantly noted that was a close call. She extended her hand outward.

Hadō #31: Shakkaho!

The orb of fire rocketed directly for Kiba’s chest as he pursued her. Rather than make any move to get out of the way, he simply slashed through the approaching fireball. Instantly the sphere of red flames vanished the moment it made contact with the blade, no traces of the spell remaining and Kiba continued onward not affected in the slightest.

’Definitely a negation-type. No signs of energy being redirected or stored somewhere. It seems Kido will be ineffective unless I manage to make him drop his sword.’ Natsumi deduced.

Which was a pain. Her entire style revolved around immobilizing or distracting her opponent and following up with a Kido to finish them off. But it wasn’t unfamiliar either.

Throwing the sickle-bladed end Natumi was unsurprised to see Kiba bat the blade away with his own. When Kiba followed up with a downward slash Natsumi wove a loop of chain through the air. Kiba dismissed the chain as unimportant and attempted to spear Natsumi through the torso with his blade which she deftly spun around to avoid. Drawn too far forward Kiba was unable to respond quickly enough when Natsumi pulled hard on her chains causing the ignored loops to tighten around Kiba’s right arm.

Even with his arm trapped Kiba proved hard for her to handle as he managed to get a solid punch in. The strength behind the blow was disproportionate to Kiba’s own small frame and Natsumi found herself thrown through the air. Still, she had the presence of mind to pull hard on one section of chain.

Kusarihebi tightened, forcing Kiba’s arm to straighten even as the sickle blade retracted. With a splash of blood Kiba’s right hand up to the middle of his forearm arced through the air before landing on the ground with a dull thud.

“Guh!”

With a pained grunt Kiba grabbed at his bleeding stump of an arm even as Natsumi skidded across the floor several times before managing to get her feet under her.

Panting heavily as she reoriented herself, Natsumi noticed despite the pain on his face he didn’t seem perturbed by the loss of a hand.

“I might owe you an apology Miss Third-Seat. We assumed you were merely another Shinigami sent out to show the flag while someone stronger took care of the issue but you are very capable.” Kiba ground out through clenched teeth.

“Too late to regret your actions.” Natsumi replied.

Kiba started laughing, “Hahaha, regret my actions? You misunderstand, I’m just happy I ran into someone else all the way out here that can test me. You see out of all the other children in my group I was the only survivor. Only I was worthy enough to live and continue on the path to perfection. And then Doctor Kanou pushed me to the next stage.” As he talked blood red tentacles suddenly burst from both his arm and detached hand. Both ends seeked eachother out and quickly intertwined before pulling the removed hand back into place. Barely a heartbeat later the only sign of the injury was an angry red line on his forearm.

Kiba held the newly attached arm up and started flexing it, looking at it with an expression Natsumi couldn’t really place.

“I’m sure you figured it out by now, my Jinsei no Michi negates Kido. I am immune to anything even the most powerful Kido masters can attempt simply by using this blade. Doctor Kanou saw this potential and found only one weakness.” He gestured at her with a cold smile. “If Kido cannot harm me, then just cut up my body. As you see he made me better.”

“And now you believe yourself invincible?” Natsumi hissed. She was disgusted by the warped creature in front of her.

Kiba smiled, “Invincible? No, not yet at least. Not until the Doctor finds a way to give me the power to match the Captains. Though I’m sure after a few more years of experiments we will get there.”

“That won’t happen.”

Chains formed loops in the air as both fighters re-engaged. Natsumi tried to trap Kiba in another bind or by having both ends of her weapon attack from odd angles. Kiba was getting used to her weapon’s behavior however and managed to avoid most of the attacks. The ones he failed to block he either tanked and allowed his regeneration to heal or shunpo to barely avoid. Natsumi noticed the injuries he did take seemed to slow him down some. So it wasn’t perfect regeneration.

The two traded several blows that would have killed a less skilled opponent. Kicks and punches that would have crushed the limbs of someone without Kiba’s regeneration, slashes that would cut someone in half if the edge was not stopped by lengths of chain.

After one particularly bad block Natsumi found herself skidding over the floor. While her chains stopped her from getting cut, it didn’t always mean the force didn’t hurt. She roughly wiped a hand past her cheek to confirm that, yes, that last blow was certainly too close considering the blood that was pouring out of a cut on her face.

She would need to find a way to finish this soon or she risked taking a hit that would cripple her. And unlike in the Seireitei, she would not be able to count on reinforcements arriving to help her if she was unable to move.

Plans rushed through her head as they both took a moment to collect themselves after the last exchange.

Only to pause as the walls started to shake.