17 What Lies Beyond the Tip

Upon arriving at Urahara's store, Ohta found Kisuke waiting for him in the storefront, fanning himself and sporting a sly smile as he said, "Yoruicihi is waiting for you in the underground study chamber. But, as your senpai, let me give you some advice before you go. Push her buttons too frequently, and she's bound to start pushing back..."

"I'll keep that in mind," replied Ohta, making his way past Urahara without sparing the man a glance. It was fairly obvious that Yoruichi and Urahara were more than simple colleagues, but as he had told the buxom cat girl, he didn't care about matters of the past. If they were together presently, and Urahara allowed him to fuck her, that was more the haggard-looking man's problem than his...

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"Here already? I wasn't expecting you until noon," remarked Yoruichi, grinning like a succubus as she stared back at Ohta from the interior of a hazy, comfortable-looking hot spring.

Instead of responding to Yoruichi's teasing, Ohta pulled at the fabric of white cloth around his waist, making it appear as though he was about to strip. In response, Youruichi mused, "Too late for that," before rising to her feet, revealing what Ohta already knew: she had an incredible body.

"I may have made a mistake..." admitted Ohta, earning an amused chuckle from the brown-skinned beauty as she strode past him completely naked, stating, "The past is in the past. Do better from now on..." before promptly kicking him toward the hot spring.

Anticipating Yoruichi's vindictiveness, Ohta's body floated over the hot spring rather than falling into it. About halfway, he created a foothold in the air to use Shunpo, vanishing and intending to appear behind Yoruichi, but she had already moved.

"Nice try, but your half-assed Shunpo can't get the jump on me," teased Yoruichi, standing atop a boulder a few meters away. Unfortunately, even though only a few seconds had passed, she was somehow wearing most of her clothes. The only thing she was missing was the band used to tie up her hair, so she reached up to fasten it as she added, "I'm not a good teacher. More importantly, you're insufferable as a student. So, instead of concentrating on theory, we will focus on your favorite thing. Experiencing things directly..."

With her hair fixed, Yoruichi lowered her hands and adopted a toothy grin as she teased, "Now's your only chance to run..."

Instead of running, Ohta raised his right hand and unleashed a powerful psychic push, utterly obliterating the boulder Yoruichi had been standing on. At nearly the same time, a heavy blow landed on his ribs, sending pain through his body but failing to do any substantial damage as he swept his hand in a wide arc, tearing away a large swath of the terrain.

"Those invisible attacks of yours are pretty scary," remarked Yoruichi, appearing a few meters away before promptly vanishing as Ohta sent another destructive blow toward her.

Appearing in Ohta's blindspot, Yoruichi briefly appended, "But your actual movements are slow. Once the element of surprise is removed, any skilled opponent can predict and evade your attacks..."

Kicking through where Yoruichi had been standing, Ohta calmly asserted, "That's a pretty dangerous assumption to make. You still haven't seen the full extent of my power..."

"So you say..." responded Yoruichi, appearing atop Ohta's shoulders as she looked down at him, grinning fiercely as she said, "Perhaps I should demonstrate a fraction of my own..."

Though a veil of psychic energy protected him, Ohta suddenly felt as though Yoruichi's diminutive 42 kilograms had compounded hundreds, if not thousands, of times over. The ground didn't crack beneath him, but he found it impossible to breathe, much less stand, as a powerful vibrational force wracked his body.

Standing atop Ohta's back with her arms crossed, Yoruichi's expression became apathetic as she explained, "This is Reiatsu(Spirit Pressure), the form spirit energy takes when imbued with a person's willpower. What I have you experiencing right now is what you can expect from the average Lieutenant with their Limiter in place."

Alighting from Ohta's back, Yoruichi was about to ask what he thought of a Lieutenant's Reiatsu when her instincts triggered, compelling her to step back and disappear, reappearing several meters away.

Rising from the ground as if he was hovering limply, Ohta exhaled a deep-throated chuckle that gave Yoruichi chills as he raised his head to reveal a smile and a faint red glow in his eyes.

"Fine, if you want it that badly, I'll give you a taste of what lies beyond the tip..." declared Ohta, losing his smile as he corrected his posture and exuded a powerful pressure of his own. Instead of simply causing the air and ground to tremble, however, large boulders began to rise around him, fracturing into tinier pieces that were sent hurtling toward Yoruichi at high speeds. At the same time, the majority of the debris began to swirl around him, concealing him from view as static caused lighting bolts to crackle in and around the destructive tempest.

Evading the projectiles hurled her way, Yoruichi appeared more than a hundred meters away from Ohta's rapidly spreading swirl of destruction, muttering, "This explains why he refused to use his power in the city and forest..." while smiling fearlessly.

Though she doubted Ohta could hear her, Yoruichi shouted, "Time for a Kido lesson!" before crossing her middle and index fingers, chanting, "Oh carriage of thunder, bridge of a spinning wheel! With light, divide this into six and seal...!"

Upon completing her chant, Yoruichi pointed toward the center of Ohta's tempest, locking onto his spiritual signature. As she did so, large, glass-like panes of golden light materialized around the typhoon-like swirl of debris before converging toward its center. Immediately afterward, the debris cloud unfurled outward and began to disperse, losing the invisible force fueling it. At least initially...

Earning an appreciative whistle from Yoruichi, Ohta released a loud "Ha!" that resonated through the underground study chamber, shattering the panes of light that had momentarily restrained his body. Then, instead of trying to recreate the storm, he tore it apart with a palm thrust, creating an invisible column of destruction that tore through the area Yoruichi had been standing in before drilling into the painted chamber wall, leaving a crater more than ten meters deep and fifty in diameter.

Catching a glimpse of what Ohta looked like when he emerged from the dust cloud, Yoruichi's brows perked up. His usually wild hair was sticking out and had become noticeably spikier, and she could actually see a dark purple aura surrounding his body...

Sensing Yoruichi's position, Ohta looked toward her, regaining his usual smile as he said, "I expected this place to be sturdier. Looks like anything more than the tip is too much for it to handle. How about you? Want some more...?"

Rolling her eyes, Yoruichi crossed her arms and asked, "How much further can you go? This is certainly impressive, but if I were serious about killing you, the fight would have ended dozens of times by now."

"Your Zanpakuto...?" asked Ohta.

Shaking her head, Yoruichi revealed, "I'm actually stronger 'without' my Zanpakuto. At least its base form. As for its Bankai(Second Release), the only people who have seen it and lived are the Captain Commander of the Gotei 13(Thirteen Court Guardian Squads), my younger brother, and that bastard, Kisuke."

"Ominous," mused Ohta, closing his eyes and bringing his hands together as if he were about to offer up a prayer. "Then, in anticipation of being the fourth survivor, I'll give you a preview of what lies a little further beyond the tip..."

Feeling every nerve in her body tense, Yoruichi wanted to evade but felt as though Ohta's power had permeated the entirety of the underground study chamber. Stones and debris rose from the ground everywhere she could see, and even her hair and clothes began to rise, almost like gravity was in the process of reversing.

Demonstrating that Yoruichi's impression wasn't far from the truth, the aura around Ohta deepened, shifting from dark purple to near-black as a powerful attraction force pulled the affected debris toward him. Yoruichi was also affected but managed to stand her ground by adhering her feet to the terrain with her spirit energy.

"So he really can manipulate gravity..." muttered Yoruichi, her golden eyes glistening with intrigue. She had heard as much from Kisuke, but this was the first time she was seeing Ohta get 'serious.'

"Kusho(Void)..." muttered Ohta, his voice carrying despite the fact he had barely uttered aloud. As he did so, the aura around his body grew until it formed a sphere that appeared to disintegrate everything that came into contact with it, including the water from the nearby hot spring.

Sensing a legitimate threat to her life, the back of Yoruichi's orange top abruptly burst apart as she flickered out of existence. Unlike when she usually executed Shunpo, however, the ground where she had been standing erupted as if the mother of all anti-tank mines had exploded beneath her.

At nearly the exact moment when Yoruichi had disappeared, Ohta opened his palms, unleashing a nearly black beam of energy that struck the area she had been standing at near-lightspeeds, penetrating the wall of the chamber and causing the ground near to beam to heave, pulled into the beam's immense gravitational force.

Reappearing on the opposite side of Ohta, bluish-white 'steam' rising from her back and shoulders, Yoruichi extended her hands toward Ohta, palms facing forward and the tips of her index fingers touching as she shouted, "Hadō #32. Ōkasen(Golden Flash)...!"

In response to Yoruichi's chant, a golden sphere of light materialized a few centimeters away from her palms. Then, much like Ohta's 'Kusho,' it formed a beam of light that instantaneously impacted the black sphere enveloping his body. Yoruichi didn't think a hastily chanted spell would have much of an effect on the sphere, but what actually occurred left her wide-eyed and speechless.

Similar to the water and debris that had been pulled toward him, the beam of golden light unleashed by Yoruichi impacted the purple-black sphere around Ohta's body and simply disappeared. The only thing her attack managed to accomplish was alerting Ohta to her position, causing him to swivel like a turret before unleashing another black beam.

("What the hell is that barrier...!?") exclaimed Yoruichi, albeit only within her mind. She thought the energy around Ohta's body was simply a form of gravity manipulation, but unless he was a literal black hole, it shouldn't be able to 'eat' her attack with such ease...

("Wait a minute...why isn't he attacking...?") wondered Yoruichi, observing Ohta extremely intently after dodging his second attack. Several seconds had passed since then, but Ohta remained completely still, his eyes shut and palms together.

Immediately putting her theory to the test, Yoruichi slapped the ground beneath her, causing a massive, rectangular slab of stone to rise up as if she had flipped a tatami. Ohta didn't respond initially, but he immediately swiveled toward her when she kicked the stone slab, sending it crashing into the black barrier and causing it to break apart before being absorbed.

Dodging the third beam of light with much greater ease than the first two, Yoruichi brought her hands around her mouth and shouted, "Hey, asshole, drop your barrier right this instant, and I'll let you fuck my tits...!"

Confirming Yoruichi's suspicions, Ohta didn't react at all to her shout. It could be due to the massive amount of debris being pulled toward him, causing a tremendous racket, but he should have reacted at least a little.

"This little shit can't see or hear anything..." concluded Yoruichi, crossing her arms and waiting nearly seven minutes for Ohta to open his eyes, the 'barrier' around him dissipating as he did so.

Regaining the ability to sense his surroundings, Ohta pivoted toward Yoruichi and found her staring at him with a smile. He thought this was because she had discovered the secret to his Kusho, but if he knew the true reason, he might have shown her what came after...

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(A/N: It's not an oof moment if you're unaware of it...right?)