[i]"Shiiiiittt!"[/i] She thought to herself as she connected.  She has no idea why in the hell she could have made such a blatant mistake of not noticing the actual shape of the spear.  It was like someone was controlling her movements and was doing a shitty job of it!  The spiritual attack that lashed out on contact with her saya and spear simply found itself not able to penetrate past the black material of the saya for reasons that will be brought up soon!  

Things were going the same way as she was still moving forward and that is when just pure instinct kicked in.  Her body reacting without thought as her left thumb quickly flicked on the tsuba sending the blade out of its sheath like a bullet.  With the handled pointed down at the time, it's only destination would be straight into the ground...handle first up to the aforementioned Tsuba.  The sword once out of its saya is already pulsing red hot in correspondence with the rune on her hand.  It's apparent at that point that the saya itself is "different" from a normal one.  Composed of a black dark exotic material that completely stopped ether from traveling through it, be it magical, spiritual, or any kind.  It's main purpose was to contain and hide the energy inside the blade so others could not tell it from a normal weapon until drawn and to keep the weapon in check.  In other words, the spiritual attack would hit the saya and be repelled from it like it was a physical object.

 Still reaching in for her gun to pull it out to shoot, she finds that the saya is now locked into her opponents weapon as he gets leverage to pull her left as he turns to the right.  She made the only decision she could and lets go of her saya to keep moving forward like she was before.  Him side stepping would make her gun fire even more erratic and no were close to actually hitting him as she unleashes a series of nine shots.  Meanwhile the ether stored up in her hand unleashes itself, but not from her hand.  The sword that was jettisoned out a moment before and the rune on her hand are now one, a fused entity that shares each others powers to become more than what they were.  The Ether erupts into a geyser of flame that would have easily been a large fire arc if it was drawn into an attack, but stationary it only has one way to go and that is up.  In a circle radius of about three feet around the blade and straight up into the air about one-hundred feet the flame rose up.  The sword would likely be between them now due to their movements and the attack was more to create some distance and make sure to keep stabbity and it's wielder at bay for a few seconds.

Still trying to fire erratically over her left shoulder now, the girl stumbles right into a large section of shrubbery.  Down on one knee she sees one of the nice friendly squirrels from the scenery.  It looks at her for a moment and blinks.  With her green eyes she returns the stare and before she can even get the words out "hey there little guy" the little shit jumps up onto her face and begins to bite at her nose.  Quickly she raises out of the shrubbery and Grabs the nut gatherer with her left hand.  At this point she looks to where the Russian Aladdin would be using her extra sensory perception from the Relic/Rune Combination.

With her almost empty of ammo gun in her right hand and a squirrel in her left with only a few minor scratches on her nose she just nods at him.  "Alrighty then, I'm ready for the next go around.  Your turn to come at me buddy!  And by whatever god thingy you believe in, I will win with this [b]god damned squirrel![/b]"  It squirms in her left hand as she holds it by its back, her right hand once again starts to charge up with her sword still in the ground pulsing along with it.

Up above the canopy seems to not have gone unscathed from the flames as it has caught fire and is slowly moving from leaf to leaf foreshadowing the forest blaze to come.