Balance of Souls: Perdition

Part 1
"Fùsōng!", Zhōng slapped his hands together and immediately before him a wall of tree roots spilled forth, writhing like the tentacles of a beast as they thrashed out from beneath the earth. They quickly rose to stand however, creating an impenetrable defense that the Heilig Pfeil simply plinked off of, uselessly. His hands then pressed over one another before being placed against the wall of trees. "Ruòmù!", he yelled again and each of the roots shattered, the bark across them all visibly cracking before exploding at Haiiro and Kaede in a barrage of splintering projectiles.

Haiiro, undettered from the Balancer's counterattack, assumed a defensive position as the shards of bark that were shattered by Zhōng came careening towards the young Quincy. The bark hit him surprisingly heavily, causing Haiiro to slide back slightly due to the impetus of the numerous pieces of bark, however the attack had seemingly been repelled by the strength of the armour that was Kaede. "Damn it, Haiiro! You're gonna scratch my paintjob!", complained Kaede in mock protest. The powers of the Polymorph greatly dulled her sense of pain, a necessary trait when one was physically turning themselves into weapons or armour.

"It'll do much more than that", replied Zhōng, catching them within earshot. He had descended to his knees, as if in prayer before digging his hands into the earth and drawing a pattern to either of his sides. "Rìběn!", he canted. What followed was a sudden weight that threatened to topple the two Quincy. The splinters shone with light and then suddenly exploded with fearsome power. A clearly impressive spell, requiring such a lead up as two others to preceed it, and it had only been further bolstered by the spell-enhancing pillars behind the old Balancer.

Haiiro, not anticipating the force that the explosion would make, hurriedly used Hirenkyaku to try and escape the blast radius of Zhōng's spell, however due to his inattentiveness in reagrds to reacting to the Marshal's attack, both Haiiro and Kaede were caught in the explosion, the strength of it sufficient enough to knock the Quincies out of the air, causing them to fly off uncontrollably for a couple brief moments before managing to right themselves. Haiiro, stumbling slightly as he tried to tell up from down, finally righted himself as he faced Zhōng once again.

"Okay, really wasn't expecting that!", the male Quincy blurted out through an exhilirated laugh, he sounded thouroughly shaken, though his laugh indicated he wasn't too frightened by the spectacle that he had just witnessed. "Itetete, okay he wasn't wrong about that one", said Kaede, a pained voice echoing inside the armour. "Don't let it happen again", she continued, immediately becoming demanding.

"Alright, alright!", Haiiro responded, not wanting to ivoke the ire of his best defence, he began moving in an erratic pattern towards Zhōng, firing Heilig Pfeil's at the aging Balancer during the periods where he reappeared from moving, causing his attacks to appear as if they were converging upon their target in what looked like a firing range of glowing bolts. Feeling that his counter-offensive was sufficient, Haiiro stopped in his assault to once again take aim at Zhōng, however, instead of making a typical Heilig Pfeil, the Reishi that Haiiro was putting into his bow started to form chain links, increasing in size until it became a large chain, it's weight causing Haiiro to falter a little as it fully formed.

"Schatten-kette!", Haiiro exclaimed, drawing back the Reishi chain with some difficulty before loosing it at Zhōng. Due to the weight of the chain and the force that it was shot with from Haiiro's bow, the chain flew towards the Marshal at an alarmingly fast rate, it's trajectory making it so that it headed towards Zhōng's left arm.

The elderly man had responded in kind, charging straight through the onslaught of arrows that came his way, not bothering to avoid a single one as they perforated the outer layers of his flesh, turning him into a glowing blue pincushion. The assault ended and Zhōng found himself bound by the black chain of the final arrow, but the fiendish grimace that had overtaken his features left him looking unperturbed by these events. "That's right, struggle, fight, survive", he announced loudly as if commending his opponents.

"Ugh, why do we always get the nutjobs?", Kaede decried with an echo-y sigh.

Meanwhile Zhōng's body tensed up, veins rippling and tensing across his entirety. An explosion of physical strength rendered all of the arrows loose as they each snapped simultaneously and the Reishi that they had been made from dispersed into the air. All that remained was the black one, and Zhōng quickly took hold of it. "Moeru Hashi", he stated causing the chain to ignite in flames which shot down its length intent on burning whatever rested on the other end.

The chains managed to keep their form for a small while before slowly starting to break down from the power of Zhōng's fire, the chainlinks breaking into reishi as it released the Marshal from it's grasp, however, not before allowing the fire to travel across the length of the chain towards Haiiro. Haiiro was taken aback by how his attacks were so easily repelled but he regained his composure, he dispersed his Schatten-kette, causing the rest of the chainlinks to follow suit and be eradicated.

"Kaede, need a Seele.", the young Quincy urgently said.

"Alright, be quick!", she replied whilst the chestplate of the armour opened up like an expanding ribcage, exposing the less protected form of Haiiro within its confines.

Seeing this, Zhōng flung himself into action. He wasn't one to cast aside an opportunity, especially one such as this. His body was a blur of motion, shrouded in the signature swiftness of Shunpo. His Jiūkǔndao was drawn back into his hand and the man drove himself into a frightening lunge, intent on piercing through the heart of the young Quincy.

Haiiro responded with a similar level of swiftness, he used Hirenkyaku to immediately distance himself from Zhōng, snatching his remaining Seele Schneider from his belt and readying it in his bow, just as Zhōng appeared in front of him. Haiiro, despite still having his defense comprimised raised his arm to block the incoming attack, holding his breath as he did so in preparation for Zhōng's strike. The distance gained had been enough time for both of them, for Haiiro to get his weapon, and for Kaede to seal back up their mutual line of defense. But, though an attack had been expected. The previously charging Zhōng was nowhere to be seen.

Until the screech of metal rattled out into the air and pressure built up behind them. In a single instant of distraction, when the Quincy pair were occupied with their own preparations, Zhōng had moved to the back and continued his plunge. The blade struck the armour, and despite its momentum, proved unable to pierce through it. The force still tossed them forward, however, and a gasp of pain that only Haiiro was privy to, made it more than clear that blunt trauma still really hurt.

Haiiro, not ready to be struck from behind, was flung from his position back down towards the earth, landing heavily on the ground and sliding a fair distance from where he landed, gouging out a groove into the soil that he had landed in. Despite taking such a heavy hit, with the help of Kaede's reishi strings, Haiiro bounced up into a standing position and took aim with his Seele Schneider, the "sword" drawing in all of the scattered reishi that was released from Haiiro's previous attacks, allowing the blade to grow to nearly double it's original length.

"Come on then!", Haiiro excalimed, keeping his Seele Schneider ready, waiting for Zhōng to move in closer before taking the shot.

"No", Zhōng yelled back with confidence. He was not to be provoked, at least not in the typical sense. "Instead, allow me to show you that which I did not have the chance to unveil the first time we met", his body had thrown itself into a rhythm, a pattern of movements that heralded an unseen blade. Several scars cut perfectly into the earth around the laid-down archer, and from those earthen wounds rose black transparent walls, reaching high enough so that they stood even taller than the engorged Seele Schneider that sat strung on the boy's bow. They were walls made out of converted Reiatsu, and so they would not be cut by that blade that stole Reishi from every nip of its blade. A roof was added to these walls, filling in as soon as the walls had risen and prevented any obvious escape for the two Quincy.

Zhōng's dance continued unabated, one motion signaled the conjuring of a diamond-shaped spear of blackened flame, a mirrored motion conjured a second on the opposite side of the man. A fair distance out, a massive radius of similar spears began to manifest just above the ground. A perfect ring that was filled with these ethereal bullets, each of which were aimed at the box and its prisoners.

"This, Mokushiroku Yomo no Kabe, is one of the greatest spells in my arsenal, it is a rare treat that I get to use it", the old man spoke with his dance seemingly finished. "Consider yourself honoured, that you get to die by my hand in this manner".

His hand moved to signal, and the spear on his right fired down on the box to smack against its roof only to be seemingly rebounded. Then, like a beacon this called in half of those that had formed around the box causing them to pelt it in much the same way as the first. They continuously hammered off the walls only to be repelled and shattered. And it repeated a second time when he motioned for the left spear and the volley tied to it. When all was done, the spears had shattered and the walls were now aglow with victorious light. They shattered briefly afterward and the environment was quickly rocked by numerous apocalyptic pulses. Explosions rang out for miles, caking the entire area in a massive dust cloud, leveling houses and eradicating many dead Quincy and Balancer along the way.

Haiiro found himself exposed to the elements, his armour gone. Kaede was to his side, she who had received the brunt of this catastrophic spell. Her body was blackened with brutal bruises and burning blisters, the girl herself had all but lost consciousness. Staring off listlessly into space, her mind blank with pain.

Haiiro, having only been stunned by the attack thanks to Kaede, recovered and turned to see his partner's battered form next to him. His eyes widening in shock, Haiiro released his bow and reallocated his Seele Schneider into his left hand, reversing his grip so that he could carefully pick her up in his arms before using Hirenkyaku to take her away from Zhong, placing her down a long distance away from the Balancer.

"That's it.", Haiiro growled, he spun on his heel before disappearing from sight with the use of Hirenkyaku, appearing alarmingly close to Zhōng, his bow once again summoned and his Seele Schneider drawn far back into the bow before it was loosed with a great amoung of force, the large weapon speeding it's way towards the Marshal. Haiiro, not intent on letting up his assault, used Hirenkyaku once again to move to Zhōng's side, firing continous stream of arrows at the Balancer in an attempt to distract him from Haiiro's main attack.

Their methodology was different, but the application remained the same. A trite motion that Zhōng intended to crush hard enough that no opponent, in this realm or the next, would ever think of encroaching on his vision with it ever again. He stepped back, a single fluid movement that got him out of reach of the oncoming Seele Schneider, but nonetheless allowed him to be perforated by arrows once again. They pelted against him like droplets of rain, poking holes in his clothes and etching themselves into his flesh like barbed hooks. He ignored them outright, his eyes were focused entirely on the silver sword that flew downward. His hand flew out just as it passed and just like that, he'd caught the Quincy's tool.

It was the height of overconfidence, the pinnacle of his boldness. The attempt could've severed his hand just as easily as it could have stolen such a weapon. But it paid off. He flung himself into battle immediately. He had beset Haiiro in a hurry, both of his blades swinging at the young Quincy who weaved back and forth lithely, evading each cut just barely and too intent on living to waste time preparing Hirenkyaku. "Why do you refuse to face me?!", Zhōng roared in demand.

"Is it fear? Is it cowardice? Or, is it ignorance?", his assault stopped for a moment and the elderly figure drew himself into a stance. A humming sword of blue light in his right, a shadowy mist enveloped dagger in his left.

Haiiro kept quiet in response to Zhōng's rantings, straightening up as he recovered from the Balancer's onslaught. The Quincy glared at the Marshal, his eyes piercing daggers into the elderly man as he raised his left hand, holding it out in front of him as his other hand reached out to the spokes that stuck out at the wrist of his Sanrei Glove. He had no other weapons apart from his bow, nor had he any other way to injure his opponent, yet Haiiro needed to end his adversary, especially so after what they had done to Kaede.

"Vollständig, activate!", Haiiro bellowed, snapping one of the spokes of his glove, causing it to be positively blown off the Quincy's arm, as it did so, Haiiro was enveloped in a large pillar of light, the top of it forming the Quincy insignia before fading away, revealing Haiiro from within it.

The most notable difference was his appearance, he was wearing a black trenchcoat which extended down towards his calves, the collar of which was upturned at the neck, he also started forming reishi from behind his back and above his head, the spirit particles coming together in order to form a pair a light blue wings and a flat, circular halo respectively. Finally, Haiiro's bow, instead of looking as if it was made from a silvery metal like it had previously been, appeared to be made out of a flickering, almost wild mass of black reishi, it's form resembling his previous bow somewhat.

Without making a sound, Haiiro quickly drew back his bow and fired a plume of Heilig Pfeil at Zhōng, however, the arrows appeared to be thicker and brighter than how they were previously as they flew at the Balancer at an alarmingly faster pace than before, already getting closer to him despite only being just recently loosed from Haiiro's bow.