Who here is the one being tested? Suiyo, waking from his slumber to find himself in an entirely new dimension, for the second time, is entirely unfamiliar with where he is or who he faces. He does nothing but smoke and ponder. Yet this Nao arrives drooling at the reputation of a man who has spent his life avoiding that very same thing. She skips any introduction, and without prompt, opts to deliver a thousand cuts from four different directions, flexing her reiatsu and utilizing her zanpakuto to manifest four different phoenixes, and using her shunpo to form four clones so as to avoid any consequences of facing this man. In essence, she was doing the most to an examinee who has yet to do anything at all. Her actions told of a desperate need to prove herself, to show that she too was a threat with her blade, that she too could tangle with the best. Yet everything she does to overcome Suiyo only proves that he is indeed all of the things she wishes to be.
While she dances about, lacing cut over cut to reinforce her bladework, where only one masterful cut would have been necessary, Suiyo only observes. He watches her dance, to form her speed clones, watches her blade whisk about repeatedly to pose some sort of threat, her reiatsu and feathers forming four massive creatures. Touched that she would put in so much effort to introduce herself, Suiyo notes that she is doing too much, but is impressed nonetheless. That is why he observes her actions as a work of art. It is not the formation of Kanji that bewilders Suiyo so, a simple flaming word is not enough to catch his full attention. Rather he finds it amusing to see her reinforce her own cuts, curious as to why she would admit them to be so weak as to need reinforcement. Nonetheless, having never seen an opponent form kanji and fire from repeated strikes, he considers her actions as a living form of art, and appreciates them as such, already impressed.
Indeed, Suiyo, who is capable of seeing the organization of Reishi particles down to their molecular structure, is not ignorant to what has formed before him. He observes how Nao holds her blade, how she forms each strike, then doubles back to reinforce them a thousand times over. Like looking at a kanji on paper and seeing not simply each brush stroke, but each particle of ink, no detail of her strike is lost on him, nor is the speed of her strikes such that they become imperceptible to him. Nao believed that if she moved fast enough and lagged her reiatsu, she would cause the drunk to sense the strikes only after they had formed. Yet, even if speed was enough to dilute his senses, even if reiatsu was enough to trick his genius mind, the killing intent behind her strikes makes them reek to the senses of any true swordsman, broadcasting their arrival before even their creation. What's more, the predictibabilty of Naos strikes, which comes from knowing the presenting opening he himself offers, as well as noting her penchant for organization, only further adds to their ability to be anticipated and perceived. While these strikes approach the seemingly oblivious drunkard, he does not appear to move nor notice their arrival. However, just as Nao’s movement had been seemingly imperceptible but to create a current of wind, so too would Suiyo deliberately do the same. In this, Nao’s observations cause her to fall for the very same deception she hoped to pull off.
Where she sees a single gust of wind meant to deflect her own, she fails to see that this wind is equally a byproduct of a thousand repeated strikes. The speed of Nao’s own strikes was nothing to Suiyo, who deliberately slowed his own strikes to match them. Their reinforced nature was also of no benefit, as Suiyo’s slashes had been of equal strength, reinforced, thickened, sharpened to be exact copies, stabilized with a simultaneous infusion of condensed Reishi and sharpened Reiatsu, bestowing the pressurized air with a fortified and tangible foundation that would eat through the sturdiest defenses like a hot knife through butter. Just as the fire spread around Nao, so too did the smoke spread around Suiyo. A master of observation, with masterful control over his own Reiryoku, ensures that what Suiyo is responding to is not the lagging after image of a purposefully delayed assault, but the formation of the assault itself. It did not matter how thin each sheet of wind was, nor how molecularly sound. As once again, Suiyo’s own observational abilities allow him to perceive the molecular structure of his surroundings. As such, he successfully ventures to form an inverse copy of her assault, deprived of even a single microscopic imperfection, preventing his assault from giving out without a whimper. Further he is able to do this four times over, responding to the assault from each side.
It was foolish to think that because the drunkard did not possess any shunpo ability he was incapable of fighting or perceiving fast-ranged movement from a distance. Had Nao been as observant as she believed, as studious of the man’s actions during the Kenpachi games, she would have noted this. Though it is true that Suiyo cannot traverse long distances in the same manner as a shunpo master, when it comes to close range he is at no disadvantage. This was evident when his own zanjutsu was able to repel that of the Phantom Captain’s, who had outsped Suiyo in his maneuvers from a distance, and yet could not find an opening in the drunkard’s zanjutsu. Nao had fought the man’s protegee, and feared her shunpo ability, while Suiyo had fought the master, and hardly noticed. Perhaps if this were a footrace Nao would have had the advantage, but as it is, Suiyo is her target, and so she was forced to come to him.
Further, as Nao should know, distance only has meaning in a fight between equals. With her and Suiyo, distance holds no meaning at all. A single swing of his sword was just as effective in point blank range as it was miles away, meaning that Nao would be forced to use Shunpo and that distance she is so proud of simply to avoid his strikes. Using Shunpo and reiatsu as crutches to mask the weakness of her Zanjutsu ultimately served no purpose. Somehow, she had formed an assault that was both microscopically compacted and yet simultaneously full of venting holes, which lagged behind in fractions of a second and yet was meant to strike in the same instant. Fortunately, Suiyo’s own reinforced strikes collided with the dangerous edges of this assault, while the “loose” wind they carried, the only thing Nao had perceived, successfully flowed past in-between these slits. However, they would not then be returned to the command of nature, but instead reform, and once again reinforce, behind Nao’s assault. What this means is that Suiyo’s blade struck away each of Nao’s cuts, while forming a secondary assault behind them. He had delivered double the attack at the same time Nao had delivered her initial one.
The Captain had severely underestimated the drunk while overestimating her own understanding of the opponent she faced. She believed that she was familiar with the swordsman’s style, that he was beholden to the Drunken Blade style due to his own drunken nature. This was a fair assumption, given that unlike Nao, Suiyo’s bladework lacked any killing intent, organization, or predictability. However, Suiyo’s instinctual habit of fighting does not derive solely from his inebriated state. His ability to fight subconsciously, his instinct, is no simple gut feeling, sixth sense, or sheer luck. Rather it is the input of every variable of his surroundings, the absolution of his observations, life times of experience in combat, countless battles with his blade, and his sheer and true mastery over zanjutsu in all its forms, that allows him to fight at a level so high that it requires no effort from him at all.
This man's intellect and skill has surpassed what Nao can comprehend as mastery in combat to the point that he has achieved a type of Nirvana, having long ago surpassed the eight thousand forms of Kenpachi Yachiru. Combat, particularly against Zanjutsu, has become trivially unimportant and disinteresting, that it occupies no mental space in his conscious thought. This is the instinct with which he fights. His eyes, his senses, they would not permit him to lag behind an opponent simply because the opponent was deceptive in their reiatsu or quick with their shunpo. Nao’s masterful and “imperceptible” bladework was impressive to the conscious Suiyo, but inconsequential to the subconscious swordsman, he need not even think before his body can move. It is for this reason that he can function so highly in a drunken state, or fight even while unconscious. With a lifetime of Shunpo Nao may become faster than the speed of light, but Suiyo’s zanjutsu is faster than the speed of thought. So long as the woman plans, schemes, or intends, she will never be able to surpass him. Nao may be a Sword Master in every sense of the word, but Suiyo is a Sword Saint.
The Drunken Bastard wakes up, sits up, reads the note on his blade, observes and is assaulted by thousands of cuts forming fiery imagery. His response mimics his attacker deliberately, limiting his own speed and reducing the sharpness of his own cuts so that he must reinforce them in a similar manner to his proctor. Four gusts of wind collide against a singular dome of wind, and each of the thousand cuts is met with an equal force that equally disperses them, not simply eight, as Nao may have hoped. Not only are these dispersed, but the wind that the blade carried is somehow reinforced behind the cuts, manipulated in some form to continue on. This means that this blade of wind spreads out in every cardinal direction, heading towards not simply the source of the attack, but the origin as well. Yet having had all this occur, Suiyo’s only thoughts on the matter is simply
"Ahhh, beautiful."
He was fighting completely instinctually, with no thought or intent behind his moves. This becomes equally apparent given that despite his own imperceptible movement, Suiyo does not seem to react to the attack, but instead remains blissfully transfixed on the art surrounding him. Burning brightly, the after-image of the phoenix and the kanji can be seen through the cloud of smoke that now pollutes Suiyo’s vicinity, until each fizzles out. Untouching of the air around him, each inhale burns the ember at the end of his pipe as brightly as Nao’s constructs, while each exhale emits a sparkling cloud of silver smoke. What Nao perceives next serves only to confuse her, as the Drunkard sits there, moving in a flurry, at these high-level speeds the vision of him remained a blur, as he leans forward, backward, sideways, each time in a position to dodge a strike that would never come.
Nao’s only explanation for this strange behavior is that the Swordsman was confused, and striking at ghosts. While it is true that each movement was primed to counter an assault from the speed clones, whether they actually came or not was irrelevant to the Swordsman’s true actions, to target the feathers formed from Nao’s Zanpakuto. It was not that he perceived them assaulting him, but rather that he perceived them at all. The Feather’s created from Umōmaru were under Nao’s control, every last one of them an extension of her very being; she could experience the world through them, feel that which existed around them, able to manipulate them at a whim, all of them simultaneously or just one, as if they were her own limbs. Due to this, just as with her zanjutsu, Nao believed that they moved at such speeds as to be imperceptible spare left over traces, and that Suiyo was simply striking at the deliberately lingering signatures of reiatsu, believing it to be a FACT that Suiyo was incapable of perceiving their true location, that it would be a futile endeavor to strike at them.
That is, until a series of explosions suddenly detonate around the battlefield. Mirages of feathers came and went. Activated by the release of the Captain’s shikai, these feathers were spawned from her blade as it swung through the smoke filled air. When they are formed, they are formed of Reiatsu, from the blade, meaning that they are sensible even in their inception, not only when they are lagging behind. Additionally, having to follow the trajectory of the blade in their creation made the feathers easy to predict before they even formed, not unlike Nao’s cuts themselves. The Captain surely thought highly of herself and lowly of her opponent, if she thought that someone lauded as a Sword Saint is only capable of following and striking at a lagging and lingering image. Her entire game plan thus far is predicated on her own assurance that she is both faster and more cunning than her opponent, to such a degree that he is incapable of even perceiving anything but trickery. Yet, downplaying her opponents abilities would not serve to boost her own. Was she even a master at all, or simply someone accustomed to fighting fools?
It is a popular experience amongst swordsmen to train their blade to strike two places simultaneously. Generally this is trained by following the unpredictable flight patterns of a sparrow, which can dodge and move through the air instantaneously at any angle with such swiftness that it is impossible to follow. Once a swordsman trains enough, they are not only able to predict this flight, but create simultaneous strikes so as to cut the bird from the air, leading their shot, and striking ahead of the bird before it even knows where it will fly. Long ago, Suiyo mastered this technique to the point where he could strike down an entire flock of sparrows with a single strike. Predicting the flight trajectories, speeds, and variables of hundreds of birds before they themselves could even instinctually move. How arrogant, to think that because the feathers were under Nao’s control, that they would be imperceptible and unpredictable to the Sword Saint, despite being beholden to the trajectory of the sword in their spawning, a sword which is more than perceptible even utilizing reiatsu and shunpo to cover its weaknesses.
To Suiyo, a swordsman who can strike down particles with such swiftness that he can cross the bed of a lake without a single drop of water falling upon his person, the speed and maneuverability of these feathers is nothing. Particularly since they are limited to the tempo of a sword swing, meaning that their instantaneous creation can only occur from an already existing blade. Even more so given that Nao observes Suiyo’s farce as a means to defend solely against a non-existent opponent, rather than as a ploy to strike down every feather that this Umōmaru had formed.
Additionally, the durability of these feathers would be of no consequence. Even had they been composed with such immense density that a blade could not strike through them, even if they had been made to be more durable than even the Commander’s crystals, Suiyo’s strikes would succeed in cutting each one in half. What’s more, just as their durability does not matter, neither too does the nature of their explosive ability. If severing a feather would not cause it to explode under normal conditions, then Nao would finally realize she is not fighting under normal conditions. As such, upon being struck, every feather the Captain had displaced around the battlefield would now explode into a blast of spiritual energy.
Yet any fiery blast that they emit, which may come within the drunk swordsman’s vicinity, finds itself redirected in a similar manner. Sucked away by the vacuum-velocity of his own sword swings, not unlike how he had countered the Kido chief's own explosive kido. Instead, much like the Captain’s entrance, the fiery feathers serve only to add an element of drama to this situation. The white of Nao’s teeth, revealed by her devilish grin, reflects the same explosive energy of her eyes. There is heat in the air, excitement in the atmosphere, as the two grin at one another.
Not even seconds passed since Nao’s arrival to the Valley, their immediate surroundings finally cleared of the smoke born of her accord, but not the smoke born of Suiyo’s, the red-hot sun high in the blistering blue skies finally returned to view. When Suiyo woke up, he had enjoyed the moment of peace, the cloud-dotted shining blue sky, the warmth of the sun, the silence of this valley, and the solitude of the desert. Now though it would appear that this tranquil valley had suddenly become the remnants of a previous battlefield.
Though the drunk was unaware of this, as he was most things, the purpose of testing the Valley of Screams was to give the examinee a fresh and fair battlefield devoid of distraction, a literal even playing field. There were in truth multiple Valleys of Screams, which were simply byproduct pocket dimensions which formed, came, and went. To ensure the fairness of a fight, the same valley is rarely ever used twice, especially so if the same person to have fought in one valley is to now fight in another. This promised that anything that occurs during the examination does so during the examination, and that a proctor cannot use the remnants of a pre-existing battle to seek an advantage in a current one. This is why there are no crystal spires, no towers of rope, or hands of black metal that litter the battlefield. However, it seems that is not the case for this fight, as Suiyo’s proctor requires every advantage she can get. Besides, it wasn’t against the rules to set up before a fight, and it’s not like Suiyo knows the rules or would follow them anyway.
The groggy drunk is immune to the sensation of a spinning world, given that his normal perception of existence is enough to give even the most grizzled souls vertigo. More so, the cloud of smoke that engulfs his person already places the world through a filter of haze. Yet even still, Suiyo is capable of perceiving the imperceptible, noticing something off about the reishi that forms his current reality. Curiously amused, he ceases his untying of his sash, and raises his hand before his face, forming a claw-like shape with his fingers, as he waves it about, as though to clear the smoke in his immediate vicinity. A bemused look seems permanently etched upon his face, as though he has forgotten about the fight and believes himself to have finally gotten high from the herb he has been smoking.
“Oh dear…”
So it would seem to continue, so long as the Captain perpetually made the same mistake. Underestimating the Drunk’s perception, his speed, his zanjutsu, predicating her strategy on the mis-believed “fact” that he cannot see her nor respond to anything besides her after images. Every swing of her blade would be parried in the same tempo by one of equal speed and skill, once again deliberately restricted to be an equal match, not forcibly enhanced to catch up. Every feather she launched would be sliced upon its creation before it is fully formed or able to be moved telepathically. Every blade-based Hado she formed met with a reversed flow of energy so as to dissolve it. Every explosion fired redirected with a vacuum sphere of defense. While if every one of these was somehow negated, even still the attacks she launched would simply seem to pass through Suiyo’s form, and be fired off the other side unimpeded and harmless, regardless of how many she launched, how enforced they were with her abilities, or how fast she moved. Nao’s Dream of humbling a legend would unfortunately remain so, so long as she sought to outplay him at his own game.
The four phoenixes that had previously fizzled away, now seem to reappear. With Four Naos smiling in front of them, firing off more and more volleys towards their opponent. Yet, just as suddenly as they had appeared, they would disappear. Well, three of them at least. Utilizing the speed clone technique, meant that Nao had to remain in perpetual motion so as to continuously provide tangibility to four separate points. It did not mean that there existed four separate Naos in space and time. Suiyo, having watched the woman continuously dart about in an amusing amount of effort so as to be impressive and intimidating, had entertained the farce long enough. Following her second futile assault on the man, the wide-eyed and smiling woman would return to her position to keep up appearances, only to find her movement suddenly and immediately halted.
All around her, black katanas immediately form. They offer no chance to shunpo away, they appear not from thin air, and make no motion towards her with which to dodge. No, the blades form from Nao herself, meaning that she has no hope of avoiding their creation. Though this opportunity might have allowed a chance to slice Nao to pieces as she hoped to do to Suiyo, this simply would not have occurred. Instead, every blade that forms around her skin does so with the dull side facing her, and the expertly-honed sharpened edge facing away. This, much like Suiyo’s imitation of her zanjutsu, is undoubtedly an insult, meant to show, in a similar manner, that he isn’t taking this woman seriously, and is fighting her with less effort than he is putting into smoking his pipe. Rather than cut then, what the blades do instead is interlock with another, positioning themselves in such a way so as to bind every one of the Captain’s joints, preventing her from moving at all.
Yet where had they come from? Nao, priding herself on her perception of Suiyo’s blade, on noting the similarities between his pipe and zanpakuto, on feeling assured that she had witnessed his sleight of hand, should already know the answer.
“This is what you wanted to see, right?”
