God Yet Lives

Enkidu leaped backwards and flung a ball of fire at the Captain from his axe before raising it horizontally across his chest.
"Yes! Get serious! Show me all your power!" Enkidu bellowed, his voice caught between hysteria and anger. He also formed a flame sword in his free hand as he spoke and crossed it with his axe. "Hit me with everything!"

*The lightning collects around her left arm & shoulder & she punches the fireball, easily extinguishing it. A bright white lance of energy continues travelling towards Enkidu.*

Hisagi<What did you...how did you...?>

Metastacia<Once each night, the first Soul Reaper to touch my tentacles will see his Zanpakuto destroyed before his very eyes!>

Enkidu leaped forwards and lowered his axe before lifting it to crash into the lance of energy. At the same time he held the flame sword in the path of the attack in case his axe should fail to redirect it.

*Kite flashsteps next to Iris and swings one of his wheels at him at blinding speed.*

*Iris quickly sonidos, landing a fair distance away.*

Iris: <Oh, it's you, is it?>

*Soi Fon jumps in the air, quickly flipping around & firing a new energy blast at the back of Enkidu's neck. Meanwhile, Hisagi repels metasticia with a weak Hado blast.*

Hisagi<I'm guessing that isn't your only power...isn't it?>

Kite: <Oh, it's me all right.>

*Gritting his teeth, Kite whips his free arm forward, calling his other wheel that comes flying towards Iris from the opposite direction.*

Kite: <To think I felt bad for not helping you two!>

Iris: [Looks like he's serious this time...]

*He jumps over it and quickly fires a Bala at Kite.*

*The wheel's enveloped in flames and spins into the Bala as Kite flashsteps behind Iris, ramming his fist against his spine.*

*Having no way to dodge this time, Iris takes the hit, sent flying to the ground. He gets back up and looks at him.*

Iris: <Heh. Not fond of holding back, I see. Guess you didn't get to where you are now from doing so, huh?>

Kite: <You haven't seen anything yet!>

*The second wheel flies to Kite's free hand and he launches both of them spinning in flames. One circles around to rocket into Iris from the left, the other from the right, and Kite raises his right palm towards Iris.*

Kite: <Bakudō #63, Locking Bondage Stripes!>

*He closes his hand into a fist, summoning a thick chain of yellow energy that wraps around Iris.*

=====

*Aera finally arrives near the 13th Division barracks.*

[He is probably here...]

*Iris, not being able to move, activates his Hierro to take as much damage as he possibly can. He feels the circles lunge into him from both sides, but he doesn't scream, just tightens up. It obviously hurt a lot, but he did his best to remain his composure. Blood can be seen dripping from beneath his clothes. He starts to breathe a bit heavier now.*

Iris: <Hah.... That really hurt. Haven't been beat up this bad in a long while...>

*He gives off a weak grin.*

*Kite holds his arms up and swings them down, the wheels following and ramming into the ground on either side of Iris. He then puts his palms together and a mass of flames begins to form around each of the wheels, shaping into a tree. The two trees of fire wrap their scorching branches around all of Iris's body and continue to glow brighter as the heat rises.*

Kite: <You will not hurt the Soul Society!>

Iris: [If I keep holding back like this, I'm going to die... but what... do I do...?]

*He sees the fire start to spread around him, burning him a bit.*

Iris: [But... no. Not Resurreccion. I can't use that. Not after everything I did...]

*Images flash in his mind. Images of a white knight slaughtering large crowds of Hollows.*

Iris: [Those days are gone. I don't want to go back to them...]

*He sighs and looks at the ground, awaiting his demise, until another thought pops into his head.*

Iris: [But if I die... who's going to keep Aera safe after this is all done...? The entire reason I decided to stop being who I was... was because she was with me back then...]

*He looks back up, hopelessness turning into a fiery, intense glare at Kite.*

Ambiance music

Iris: <You think I wanted to hurt anyone...? I say this to everyone, but I hate fighting. Despise it. Wish it never existed. I just go where she goes...>

*Realizing that he still has his Zanpakuto in his hand, he closes his eyes.*

Iris: <Stab and protect... Armadillo.>

*A white light surrounds him, getting rid of the bindings. Emerging from it is a white knight, surrounded by a sphere that seems to be preventing him from harm from the flames. He sonidos, appearing in front of Kite and charging straight into him, aiming to bash him with the sphere at a speed he had not even tried to use earlier.*

Kite: <Wha-->

*Kite widens his eyes in surprise as Iris slams into him, the barrier sending him flying through the air and into a wall. The flaming trees' branches extend towards the Arrancar, charging into his barrier.*

*The barrier cracks a bit, but Iris continues charging forward through the flames.*

Iris: <I don't care if you ARE a captain. I'm through with backing down and holding back, playing pretend like I can't do a single thing for anyone else.>

*He fires a Bala at Kite with enough ferocity and power put into it that it could be mistaken for a weak Cero.*

*Kite flashsteps near Iris as the Bala hits the walls. The two blade wheels fly towards Iris. One spins high above him, shooting down barrages of rose fireballs that bombard the barrier at high speed, while the other one spins around it, striking it every other second.*

Kite: <Let's both stop holding back then!>

*The barrier breaks, and as it does so, Iris jumps out of the way, some of the fire grazing his armor slightly. He lunges at Kite with his lance, his other hand behind his back, a light materializing in it.*

*Kite grins and swiftly leaps backwards, the two wheels spinning in circles around Iris and enveloping him in a large flaming tornado.*

*Iris activates another shell around himself, protected from the fire. He brings his hand from behind his back and, while hidden inside the tornado of flames, shoots the charged Cero right through his barrier and directly towards Kite, then jumps out of the tornado right afterwards, the barrier breaking completely.*

*Kite grits his teeth, sidesteps and vanishes, the Cero grazing his torso. Having flashstepped a ways behind Iris, he catches the wheels and spins them in his hand releasing from them what looks like a giant flower bud of flames that swallows him.*

Kite: <You'll need to be faster than that to get me!>

*Blood drips down Kite's right leg, from the wound the Cero inflicted.*

*After recovering from the shock of being eaten by fire, he jumps back out the way he came in and turns to face Kite again.*

Iris: <You certainly have a lot of sick, twisted ways to burn people alive.>

*He sees part of his shoulder pad dangling down and burnt. He rips it off and throws it on the ground.*

Enkidu spun to evade the attack but was too slow and the beam of energy smashed into his shoulder-guard, splitting in in half and allowing the beam of energy to cut a gash down the front of his shoulder and chest.
Rather than stumble, he drew power from his anger and continued with the spin, sweeping his axe around and hurling a massive wave of fire in Soi Fon's direction.
At the same time he yelled, causing several car-sized fireballs to rain down towards and around her.

*Soi Fon crosses her arms over her chest, emitting a powerful burst of Shunko. She then uses Flash Step to produce clones who do the same thing. In this way, she comes out of the blast mostly unscathed, but at the cost of several buildings around her. She retreats to his other side, & Metastacia bursts into tentacles, digging into one of the fallen Soul Reapers. Said Soul Reaper gets up, his skin now a decayed-looking green, with Metastica's distinctive empty eyes.*

Metastacia<Not quite what I had in mind, but it will do for now.>

*A glance in the distance will see that the Gillians have been picked off behind the scenes, & are now just a few in number.*

A shadow hand, wielding a lanza, pops out of the inside of Noct's jacket to parry the stab. At the same time Noct slashes at his face again. Hoping for the same reaction as last time, Noct launches another lanza at Yesod's chest during the time her other lanza was in front of Yesod's face, obscuring his vision.

--

"Right, right, now Astarte looks halfway decent," Mortal said, "Can we get on with this?"