The Mysterious Hunter (Bleach x RWBY)

XXII. Strange Beginnings

Ichigo's POV

The Vytal Festival Tournament is the ultimate battle of skill, pitting Remnant's most powerful Huntsmen and Huntresses in training against one another. The way the tournament works is that there are three rounds. First, there's the four-on-four team battles. The winners of those elect two members to participate in the doubles round. The third round is one-on-one combat, composing on the chosen member of each team that makes it that far. Any team that wants to can participate provided they pass the preliminary rounds.

Making it into the tournament is as much motivation to get stronger as being in the tournament is, if not more. If a person or team stands out, they could potentially become celebrities, sponsoring brands, using company equipment, and so on. Pyrrha Nikos is such an example, though her fame came before she even entered Beacon through winning the Mistral tournament. On the surface, it's a great deal for those involved. They get to show off their skills and hard work, potentially score a side-gig, and also get more experience fighting people they aren't used to.

Team RWBY's currently in a match against Team ABRN of Haven. The randomly generated terrain is half volcano, half ice. Professor Port and Dr. Oobleck are doing commentary, which is rather fitting for them. Between Port's penchant for telling stories and Oobleck's fast talking and explanatory nature, the two teachers make excellent match reporters.

Blake's fighting a green haired girl named Reese wielding some type of hoverboard. Reese launches the board at Blake, who knock it back. Reese punches it towards her, but Blake once again pushes it back, this time charging. The girl grabs the board the starts using it as a shield while Blake uses her Semblance to make cones to give her momentum. After a few exchanges of blows, Reese backs up and starts riding the board towards Blake and jumping. Blake counters by creating an ice clone that knocks the hooded girl slightly off balance, putting Blake into a position to slice the board in half. Reese takes this opportunity to make the board into a pair of pistols and shoots at Blake. However, it seems that she isn't very aware of her surroundings, considering she lands square on her butt onto the hard, icy ground.

Mila: "Yeowch. That's gotta hurt."

Nemu: "According to the board, that girl took 2.32% of Aura damage from that."

The Aura Display that gives information on all the fighters doesn't give that precise of information. Nemu just calculated it based on how much the bar itself went down.

Meanwhile, Yang's fighting the leader of Team ABRN, Arslan Altan. After a few blows, a punch from each of them connects with the other and causes an explosion. They get into close quarters combat again and Arslan grabs Yang's leg with her weapon, which looks like a knife on a string, and flings her towards her teammate, Nadir.

Sui-Feng: "The people of this world can be skilled in the basics of Hakuda, even if they don't really have the strength to back it up. Even though both of their strikes are slow, the techniques themselves are solid. There's some wasted movement, but that's to be expected."

Kukaku: "Wow Sui-Feng!" she pats the Stealth Force Commander on her back, hard. "I didn't expect you to compliment them so much!"

Sui-Feng: "I'm just analyzing their skill in hand-to-hand combat. Ichigo was right in that the people of this world make up for their lack of strength with proficiency. The matches today have proved that, even if these people's speed and power are almost negligible."

Kukaku's grin only increases as she realizes something about what Sui-Feng just said.

Kukaku: "You're calling him by only his first name instead of saying his full name? What's gotten into you?"