The princess and the substitute[Private]

Blod received the note and checked it with some interest. Someone asking for the Soshi of the Kidoshu... For training? She laughed, mostly because she knew that there currently was no soshi, not after Ryougi's departure. Secondly it was because of the boldness of the request- she was well aware of the Crisis-Core initiative by the Gotei-13, though she wasn't sure that even these special soldiers were special enough to receive training from the Grand Kido Chief. Luckily enough, she was not the chief, despite the note being forwarded her way for lack of a better recipient- and so she figured she could take an afternoon off to humour the 7th division's substitute shinigami representative.

She flash stepped quickly out from the Kidoshu's HQ, and in only one or two bounds, she had already reached the training grounds. She could detect his reiatsu from a mile off, he was like a spiritual lighthouse- the strange mix of human and shinigami spiritual pressure very obvious. A pearly grin flashing across her face briefly, Blod felt that it was high time for some mischief; she fluttered out of her step right behind him, her reiatsu incredibly well-hidden due to her excellent control over it. She appeared as he spoke some oddity while scratching himself- did he have nits or something? He would probably hear the stepping noise, so she quickly shouted; "Boo!" to make him jump before he could react.

She then bowled over, cackling with glee at the mischief she had surely caused. It was good to let loose and cause trouble sometimes- otherwise what was the point of living so long?

She was satisfied with having made him jump, and stood stock still, looking at him starkly as he grumpily sorted himself out. She emphatically looked at him, getting the sense that her prank had been far less than well received. She frowned, concerned, an apologetic look in her eyes. She didn't want to really upset anyone- maybe only behave mischievously. It was in the past now however, the voice in her head that might traditionally have talked her down was absent, following the event whereby she attained her bankai.

"Blodeuwen Hirashi, Chief Bakudo Witch in the Kido Corps." she said sunnily, making up a title for herself on the spot to sound impressive, shaking his hand with great enthusiasm. "You're more than welcome. I'm happy to help anyone with their kido if it'll stop them from getting killed." she told him, truthfully. Goodness knows how many times she would have been converted into a red squicky smear had she not been a pro enchantress. "No big fish here. Right, down to business." she said, gleefully rubbing her hands and depositing her cumbersome zanpakuto in the ground.

"What exactly kind of kido were you looking to learn? Do you have a book? Or would you like me to pick some? Hadou or Bakudo?" she asked, a single eyebrow raised.

Blod's eyebrows shot up, before she smiled in response to Raiden's grin. She knew she was a bit of a sunshine daisy flower girl and that that wasn't necessarily a bad thing at all. In fact it was a relief that someone seemed to appreciate that, given how stuffy most army boffins were. She flicked a stray bang out of her eye, levelling a glistening and momentarily serious gaze at him.

"Well us Kidoshu are cut from a different cloth, I'll have you know." she said, still straight-faced. "Our job transcends inter-division squabbles." she told him proudly, with a a raised finger and a slightly snooty face to indicate pointedness. She returned to her gaze, soft lips curled into a smile, while he explained what he wanted to learn. Blodeuwen could pretty much instantly cast any kido she had a scroll for- but she figured she might as well start with one she knew and so Haien was as good a bet as anything.

"Nope, sounds good. We'll get right to it." she said, her face truly falling flat- training or none, they'd be trading extremely powerful blows, Blodeuwen especially. "Firstly, we'll do Haien. Watch carefully." Blodeuwen would walk towards a training dummy, and spoke the incantation for the kido. Energy formed upon her palm- she was executing the technique slowly so he could see. "Hado 54, Haien!" she said, and a shot of energy flew from her hand at a fast speed, before exploding with intense ferocity upon contacting the dummy. Those training nearby started and began to move away, terrified of the frightful levels of reiatsu Blod released when executing even such a low level kido.

"Did you see? Would you like me to repeat?" she asked him sweetly. "If not, I would like you to execute this kido... Upon me." she told him, face straight.

Blod knew exactly what Raiden meant about the stupid fighting. It was one of the reasons she'd always keenly avoided being in the Gotei 13- her talent with Kido had always afforded her that opportunity, too so it wasn't a massive struggle. Suki and Kitado, her sister and brother respectively, both had to deal with oneupmanship and infighting. The Kidoshu weren't immune to that- oh no, but they were somewhat less disposed towards it, she felt.

She didn't react at his impression of her kido abilities. It was simply a natural part of her life that now, after a good long while, she'd developed her raw ability into a truly devastating skill. She nodded at Raiden as he asked her should he use his kido on her. She was skilled enough to know the exact power of this kido, and also to know that she should be able to tank it with relative ease, unless Raiden was hiding a whole lot of spiritual pressure. She didn't think so- not unless he was a damn sight better at it than her.

"Try again." she told him sedately, a tiny smile pulling at the corner of her lips. He would really have to hurry things along if he wanted to improve while she was able to hang around.

Blod saw the completed kido coming at her and knew it; this was it, the real deal. It was a brightly glowing orb of energy, just exactly the right strength, stability and consistency. Blod knew enough about kido to appreciate its strength and also know what measures she would need to take to prevent it: ordinarily, this kido might cause some problems. However, Raiden was weaker than her, and so with little focus, she was able to catch the speeding kido and it exploded on her hand. She hardly even needed to blink. It stung a little, like an overly enthusiastic hi-5, but otherwise Blodeuwen was absolutely golden. As the dust cleared, she would be standing casually, smiling at Raiden with her hands clasped before her bosom.

"I'm absolutely fine Raiden. That was well executed. Fantastically done; I'm happy to move on. Next, I think we shall be learning Kotetsu no Ame. For this one, remember to focus the kido on the air above my head; on your first go don't channel the energy too quickly or it'll burst too fast and nothing will happen- if, however, you keep it steady, it'll some up. You know the incantation for this one, right?" she asked him.

Blod smiled. "It's not too hard; Fall, hath-bringers of death, for you shall empower my conviction!" she enunciated slowly and carefully, repeating bits if he seemed to get lost. It was simple enough- having said that it wasn't an especially complex or powerful kido, she'd have little trouble dealing with it. She laughed at his faux pas with the heated glove, how silly. "Remember my advice and you'll be fine. It's much easier to practice kido with a good target so just go for it, I'll be fine." She told him, nodding.

She was right- she herself had spent an age practising her spellwork alone taking hours to even do the most simple things... After a long while, Suki, her adopted sister, found her and chastised her for not asking for help. Blod had laughed at this admonishment before conceding to Suki- and instead switched to praciticing her kido upon her sister who, in her defence, took blow after blow until Blodeuwen grew far too powerful for this to be possible any more. This would not be the case- undoubtedly, Raiden had a long, long way to go before he would be on a level where Blodeuwen could not even defend herself with a defensive spell, or simply ignore the blow as she did now.

Blod winced on Raiden's behalf as he managed to cast the kido upon himself. While it might not have been obvious to him she could see quite clearly: he simply hadn't accounted for targeting, resulting in all the energy in the kido being formed above his head. That must have been painful, and it appeared to damage his shikai. Blod knew it would recover and was not too concerned. She nodded when he asked for a moment, and tried to think of more kidos to teach Raiden. She wasn't quite sure what he was after- ahh well, whatever- she was sure they'd work something out together. She watched him regenerate his arm, and smiled toothily, as he appeared to be ready to continue.

He launched the kido at her. It was considerably weaker than Haien- it was weak even for a regular occurrence of the spell. She didn't even blink as the hailstones merely bounced off of her. Once the effects had ended she clapped politely.

"Very good. But you didn't put nearly enough oomph into it. It's a balance of force and aim, recall." she said sweetly. "The first time you had all the force you needed- perhaps a little too much, control your reiryoku flow. The second, you aimed- careful not to hit yourself but had stoppered that reiryoku flow too much. It's all about balance, Raiden."

She nodded to him and smiled, happy that he wasn't losing face. It could be an incredibly frustrating experience, attempting to learn Kido. She knew that, as perfecting her kido had been at the centre of her professional life for as long as she could remember. Still, Raiden showed promise. He wouldn't be winning any awards any time soon but he could cast the spells he had set out to learn and Blodeuwen could tell that he had determination, which was honestly by far the most important trait. She looked over at his strange prosthetic arm, which he was now using to cast the spell- strange, but she knew Mayuri Kurotsuchi had had his way with the members of the Crisis Core, so he could have done anything to them.

She heard the incantation and steeled herself for it but it was old hat by now, and the attack merely glanced off. She wondered if it at all impacted Raiden's ego that the spells he could now cast flawlessly did absolutely nothing to harm her. She wasn't sure how it'd make her feel- probably nonplussed. She merely smiled sweetly at him and used her reiatsu to clear the air between them.

"There's honestly no need to worry about me." she said. "Perhaps if you were using higher levelled kido than that, but alas, you are not." she said, brushing some errant hair from her face. She really needed to have her bangs cut. "How long have you been a Shinigami anyway, Raiden? We do seem to go through Crisis Core members awfully quickly." she said, not realizing that that might have been cause for panic.