Description: Zach and Nagase duke it out in Saitama! (DKO)
Hanno City, located in Saitama, Japan, has an estimated population of about 83,000 people. None of them are officially designated as ninja, but that's what makes this small town so special. At one point in the not-so-distant future, a small clan of ninja had lived here in secret. The town is nestled in a valley, allowing for training on high mountain peaks in relative safety. It has a river running through the middle of it, allowing for training in aquatic environments. It has an old foot bridge crossing the river, allowing for ninja to practice attacking targets out in the open. And it has a relatively modern bridge, painted a bright red, to force the practicing ninjas to get used to modern society.
Nagase hates this place. She detests being out in the open, crouching upon one of the tubular sine-wave undulations that describes the general shape of the bridge. She loathes having a HitBit headband wrapped around her forehead, and she could really do without the wristband she'd had to duct-tape to the Battle Disc System strapped upon her right wrist.
Most of all, she hates waiting for people. The flame-haired teenager stays upon her roost at the peak of the bridge, fingers wrapped around the tubular arc for additional support. She's the biggest target around.
She'd be more concerned with that if her eyeglasses weren't also simultaneously wired into the lattice network of quadrotors buzzing about her, transmitting the details of the fight locale to everyone around the world. If someone were to sneak up on her, her custom hardware drivers would pick it up instantly on one of the numerous video feeds.
"Where the hell is this brat, anyway..." mumbles Nagase into thin air -- fully cognizant that the HitBit device is picking up every word and transmitting it to those tapped into her feed. Whether she's cognizant of her opponent being several years her elder is another matter.
Seriously, this whole fight premise ticks her off. Why did they have to pick -this- village, of all places?!
Zach Glenn has no idea why the fight is way out here, comparatively speaking. He had not had a lot of time to research the place after figuring out his route. Google was INCREDIBLY unhelpful for once, bringing up pictures of a bald hero wearing a garish yellow suit, red boots and gloves, and a white cape. GPS was slightly more helpful, though, getting Zach to the bridge.
Glenn is wearing a long coat, a light sweater, and pants. A long cloth-wrapped bundle is strapped to his back as he makes his way towards the bright red bridge, and Zach looks at the structure with unbridled curiousity.
The bridge looks seriously cool.
COMBATSYS: Nagase has started a fight here.
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Nagase 0/-------/-------|
Nagase has, in fact, done her research on Glenn. She's watched his previous match. And she knows that he fought a member of a rival ninja clan last week. But most importantly, she has a strong suspicion of what that object on his back could be.
"Tch." Nagase makes a spitting gesture, though it's debatable on whether she actually did or not. She shouts out, forcing those listening to her feed to immediately fumble for their volume controls: "Freaking tourist! Are you dressed for a walk with your girlfriend, or a -fight?-" The little spitfire can really belt her words out when she wants to.
Her opinion of the bridge is a complete contradiction to Zach's. She'd be happy to see the bridge torn down, but only because she'd been strung up from it one too many times. Hence... why she's parked her ass on top of it. Small goals in life.
She glances past Zach on the footbridge -- some official-looking guy in black and white stripes is a few meters behind him. The quadrotors are obviously recording, waiting.
No time like the present. She'll get an answer to her question one way or another. But right now? She hopes Zach is watching her intently -- that's why she called out to him.
For the next moment, she'll be right -behind- him, the two panda-styled ninjato already in her hands. And they're sharp -- sharp enough to shred the cloth surrounding the bundle into ribbons if she chooses.
But her objective is not that -- she swings both the ninjato in one swift circular motion, aimed at slashing across his right arm. If he can't swing the sword, what good is it?
"By the way, I'm starting!" she cries out in mid-swing, just to make sure the referee doesn't immediately disqualify the impertinent ninja.
COMBATSYS: Zach Glenn has joined the fight here.
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Nagase 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Zach Glenn
COMBATSYS: Zach Glenn blocks Nagase's Aggressive Strike.
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Nagase 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Zach Glenn
Zach does indeed look up when Nagase calls out to him, and faint grin on his face. This person's outfit is... interesting to say the least. One moment, Zach sees Nagase perched on the bridge. The next moment?
Zach's hand is flying for one end of the bundle, shoving the cloth aside with the ease that only comes with practice as he tugs the wooden weapon free. Wood meets steel with resounding impact as Glenn reinforces his grip with his left hand. "Ah," Zach says as he glances at Nagase over his right shoulder, "Nothing like a classic to start things off." He steps through, pivoting as he brings his weapon, a wooden claymore, around over his right shoulder to push the smaller swords away from him. The sword, however, only seems to suffer some small nicks from the abuse. Zach continues his pivot and spins once to bring the weapon in a large, looping overhead swing!
COMBATSYS: Nagase blocks Zach Glenn's Dragon's Tail.
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Nagase 0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0 Zach Glenn
The fight began so fast, most of the audience members hadn't even had time to adjust. But the folks who had hoped to use Nagase's video feed as some secret insight into her swift motions will be gravely disappointed, as the video feed instead is switched to a stylized caricature of Nagase pulling down her lower eyelid with one finger and sticking her tongue out. As audience members from around the world, and those in Hanno City are thumping their mobile devices trying to restore the video, they might not notice that the audio, accelerometer, and vital data are all transmitting. So it's not a total wash, but they might prefer Zach's stream!
Well, until his video frame is jarred violently by the impact of his training sword into Nagase's ninjato, doubled up into a cross pattern. The diminutive kunoichi kneels beneath the strike, her entire frame flexing to absorb the physical impact. "Nngh. Lucky you!" she chirps, forcing the blade back upwards as she avails herself of the free space to spring to safety.
"Hope you noticed, but that blade's -not- very sharp..." she calls out, springing into a backflip as she steers back towards land -- -avoiding- the center of the bridge that was at one time her personal nemesis. When she lands, though, she slams her palm into the ground.
And fire erupts from her palm in a twin helix pattern -- and those flame helices bounce along the ground in a pattern not unlike two flaming Slinkies(tm) of doom! "Unrelenting Fire!"
COMBATSYS: Nagase successfully hits Zach Glenn with Unrelenting Fire.
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Nagase 0/-------/-----==|====---\-------\0 Zach Glenn
Zach blinks once before the twin fire blasts slam into his chest, scorching both the longcoat and the sweater underneath it. Zach grunts with the pain as he hops down from the brdige and lands heavily in a low crouch. He looks at Nagase as he stands upright and starts to walk towards the smaller woman. "It's not meant to be," Zach says as he launches towards Nagase in a horizontal leap.
As he closes, Zach lashes out with his left foot in a sweeping hook kick. He follows with a back kick with the right before finishing the combination with a left legged axe kick designed to drive Nagase into the dirt before he touches the ground again.
COMBATSYS: Nagase dodges Zach Glenn's Storm Kick.
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Nagase 0/-------/-----==|=====--\-------\0 Zach Glenn
Nagase scratches the bridge of her nose as she rises back to her feet, a faint smile beginning to replace the casual disdain she'd had for the fight thus far. But it's only there for a moment before a smirk overtakes it. "Boring!"
The referee solemnly nods at the response to the footage; though even he is having trouble keeping up with how fast the fighters are moving. The audience members tuned into Zach's camera will be almost as confused as the ones tuned into the quadrotors, because -- again -- Nagase completely vanishes from view, robbing Zach of the sensation of his kicks landing home. The quadrotors aren't able to catch up either, until one of them happens to catch sight of the Iga-ryu ninja standing dramatically upon one of the horizontal handrails leading across the red bridge.
Yawning.
Her ninjato make an audible 'click' as they snap back into their protective sheaths resting upon her back. "So, Blondie... when're you gonna show me what you showed that Genryuusai tramp? You're gonna need to step it up a notch to compete with me."
Then the ninja's bright yellow form will blur into motion again, as she rockets forward at Zach. She's aiming to slip her arm around the man's sword arm, and leverage him forward to the ground so that he lands on his shoulder. If that succeeds, she'd give a small stomp kick to his chest before springing backwards to safety.
COMBATSYS: Zach Glenn endures Nagase's Combo Grapple.
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Nagase 0/-------/----===|=======\-------\1 Zach Glenn
Zach grins a bit. Nagase puts Zach on the ground, but he controls his landing so it doesn't stall him nearly as badly it ought to. Zach comes up in a three point stance. "You're going to have to hit a bit harder than that," Zach advises.
Zach charges, aiming to spear tackle Nagase to the ground, before delivering some classic ground-and-pound. Or perhaps he gets a faceful of dirt. Nagase /is/ pretty fast after all.
COMBATSYS: Nagase fails to counter Rushing Tackle from Zach Glenn with Hyperdrive Nagase Spiral.
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Nagase 0/-------/----===|=======\=------\1 Zach Glenn
Nagase is a bit overconfident when she slams her foot into Zach's chest: she hadn't realized that the man had -wanted- to draw her out of hiding. A grumpy frown flashes across the deadly ninja bee's face as she realizes that. But she -does- have a method of dealing with quick reversals of momentum.
It just so happens that she's caught so off-guard by the sudden shift -- having expected Zach to simply wait for another attack -- that her execution is faulty. She'd planned to drop low and flit past him -- which is why his tackle catches her right in her atlas vertebra, stopping her cold and leaving her wide open for the rest of his response.
As the red flash of illumination in Nagase's eyeglasses fades, the ninja log-rolls to her side, springing back to the handrail for relative safety. "Maybe I'm just saving it for the finale," she offers, with equal measures of sulking and self-deprecation.
Zach looks at Nagase. "Show-off," he thinks with a grin. Zach spins the large sword in one hand, describing a large circle with the tip of the blade before resettling the grip. "Probably shouldn't underestimate me, though," Zach warns. "Could be fatal, dull blade or no."
To illustrate his point, Zach leaps towards Nagase, bringing the weapon back and over his head before slamming the blade down on Nagase's collarbone with destructive force!
COMBATSYS: Zach Glenn successfully hits Nagase with Crushing Strike.
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Nagase 0/-------/=======|=======\=------\1 Zach Glenn
Show-off? Maybe! Ninjas don't really think of themselves as showy so much as everyone else being boring and predictable. And Nagase's mostly said as much, anyway. "Tch, you can kill someone with a dull pencil if you do it right. Doesn't mean you -will-." Nagase even rolls her eyes at this, dismissively.
She senses the shifting wind, alerting her to the approach of something big and heavy swinging towards her. Almost disdainfully, she begins to let herself fall back to the ground level of the bridge -- but she's a bit tardy to actually -miss- the blade striking down onto her collarbone. It's... it's not pretty, as the nimble ninja doesn't tend to wear armor for fights like this.
She crumples onto the bridge, the opposite hand clasping to her clavicle as she glares up at Zach, making a feeble roll backwards to put some distance between herself and Zach. Tears well up in her eyes as she stares back at Zach.
"My god, I think you -broke- it! H-how the... how am I supposed to find a husband, or start a -family- like this?" Her ribcage hitches, and her gaze drops down to Zach's feet as she begins to sob...
The psion would likely feel that, yes, she -could- be experiencing that pain. But even though she's not looking at Zach, she's quite cognizant of where =he= is looking, as the sneaky tech-ninja is using the man's own HitBit video feed against him. Is that even -allowed- in a fight?
COMBATSYS: Nagase calculates her next move.
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Nagase 0/-------/=======|=======\=------\1 Zach Glenn
Zach shoulders the blade and regards Nagase carefully. Zach would find that kind of gambit to be pretty clever, actually. He makes no move, just waits for Nagase to stop the alligator... well... not really alligator tears. He has pretty good idea of how hard he just hit the smaller woman.
Zach is watching the woman, relying on experience and savvy where Nagase uses technology. "Still underestimating me," he chides.
COMBATSYS: Zach Glenn focuses on his next action.
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Nagase 0/-------/=======|=======\=------\1 Zach Glenn
Nagase brushes the tears away upon the backs of her fingers. All in all, they weren't -exactly- fake -- the strike hurt her a -lot- more than she wanted to let on, and it's better to at least play up the tears than pretend they didn't exist.
"Am I?" asks the tech-ninja as she suddenly blurs forward into motion. There's no transition between her crouching in her earlier position and crouching from -beneath- Zach, other than that she somehow -is-.
And when she rockets forward in one swift motion, she will be lashing her hands outward, aiming to grab hold of Zach's middle. The diminutive kunoichi has a remarkable disadvantage to the ex-Marine, but no one seemed to tell the girl's muscles, as she'd be more than strong enough to not only propel him skyward -- but also to -spin- the monster hunter in a whirling Izuna Drop.
The aim would be to throw him -off- the bridge and plow him into the ground some dozens of feet below.
COMBATSYS: Nagase successfully hits Zach Glenn with Hyperdrive Nagase Spiral.
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Nagase 0/-------/--=====|=======\====---\1 Zach Glenn
Zach barely gets a chance to step away before he finds himself going for a ride! Nothing for it, he thinks, and weaves a thin barrier of golden light, which serves to absorb /some/ of the impact. Zach still stays in the resulting crater for a moment before rolling to a seated position. He's looking a bit beat up, but given what just happened, one would think that the damage would be, well, worse.
He heaves a sigh as he rolls his neck to work out a crick in it. "Maybe just a little," Zach says in answer to the question. "But I think I'm done holding back anyway."
With that, Zach /hurls/ the claymore at Nagase even as a ripple of violet light mixed with gold lightning washes up Zach's frame. The former Marine settles into a boxing stance and waves the girl on.
COMBATSYS: Nagase blocks Zach Glenn's Thrown Weapon.
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Nagase 0/-------/-======|=======\=====--\1 Zach Glenn
Nagase, on the other hand, springs back to her feet. She's definitely hurting, and favoring her right side when she stands -- that sword sure packed a whallop.
Nagase does -not- want to get hit by it again, and when she sees it fly in... well, she grits her teeth. The panda-headed ninjato at her left is brought to bear, and with a 'THOCK' sound, the wooden sword gets parried aside, blasted into the air. But it wasn't an easy feat -- for even -with- that, her boots drive twin canyons into the dry riverbed as she's knocked back from the impact.
But her determined look only lasts an instant, before Nagase's eyes widen. "Oh really? A gift? For -me?-" And with a blur of motion, the ninja leaps -into- the sword, vanishing along with it.
The quadrotor directly overhead may catch her as she flits back into view, upon the bridge she'd just Izuna Dropped, er... Nagase Spiralled Zach off of. She drops the sword there, leaving the hilt where he can see it from his vantage point a long way below.
The kunoichi sheathes her ninjato yet again; her hands move swiftly into action as she describes the shape of another ninja seal. 'Fire'. Maybe Zach will appreciate the gravity of the seemingly meaningless gesture as she leaps off the bridge -- and her feet alight with flame! The height should impart some extra momentum into the fiery kick she aims at dropping right into Zach's sternum...
COMBATSYS: Zach Glenn interrupts Fierce Kick from Nagase with Heartbreak Shot EX.
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Nagase 1/---====/=======|====---\-------\0 Zach Glenn
Zach peers at the discarded sword for a moment before he sees Nagase come flying in on a blaze of fire. Zach smirks. There was a /reason/ he had thrown the weapon. It freed up his right hand. Zach brings this back, charging what appears to be a right stright. Purple soulfire whips around the hand even as golden lightning wraps around it, spinning the fire. Twisting it. The energy takes on an almost drill-llike shape as Zach torques his right arm strangely.
"I'm pretty sure I warned you," Zach says before unloading a corkscrew right straight that slams into Nagase's chest even as the kick slams into his left shoulder. Zach winces at the impact, but it appears that the Heartbreak Shot did its job!
There's a reason that the best and most elite of all ninjas are quiet: overconfidence has been the downfall of many a nation in the past. And Nagase is just on the cusp of being good enough to -match- her extremely high levels of confidence. She's got the speed... she just needs more practical experience.
When she wakes up, anyway.
Or can even be -found-. For while the kunoichi is certainly visible when Zach's fist slams into her thigh, and she's certainly visible when her body is spinning wildly out of control to the side, and leaving a crater as she literally skips off the surface of the dried river bed, she's... well, she's not visible at -all- a moment later.
Until she suddenly manifests to Zach's left, with a high roundhouse kick whirling at Zach's face.
But then she disappears again, manifesting to his -right-, slamming an elbow into his side.
COMBATSYS: Nagase can no longer fight.
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Zach Glenn 0/-------/---====|
COMBATSYS: Nagase successfully hits Zach Glenn with Punishment Mode - Stealth.
-+- CALCULATED HIT -+-
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Zach Glenn 1/--=====/=======|
COMBATSYS: Zach Glenn takes no action.
COMBATSYS: Zach Glenn can no longer fight.
The ping-ponging between left and right continues as a merciless cascade of ninjutsu-fueled strikes land home. Adrenaline alone is keeping the kunoichi from passing out as she hammers blow after blow into the man -- she is -not- happy, and she wants to make sure that Zach -knows- it. The symphony of strikes culminating in a rapid backflip -- punctuated by a rather loud explosion of fiery chi as the ninja backflips to a three-point crouch... utterly exhausted.
She also has another reason for constantly moving at her hyper-accelerated speed. Blackness crowds in upon her vision as she pants through clenched teeth. Her eyewear is dutifully noting that she should be unconscious -- and -will- be soon -- but she has something to say first, her eyes scanning the trees surrounding the river.
At one point though, she just shakes her head, hissing under her breath: "Seriously?"
And then vanishes in a blur. One second later, the spot where she crouched is filled with an array of shuriken and kunai. Roughly... thirty or so...?! Someone sure wanted her dead, and was waiting for the right moment to strike.
And it becomes apparent that this wasn't the right moment, as the kunoichi's video feed snaps back to life, revealing a forest not unlike that alongside the river. "Screw this, I'm not dying -here,- you assholes." She coughs, violently -- it sounds sickly and wet. But then the video feed pitches downards, the colors whirling together for a moment before resolving onto Nagase's own face: she's clearly removed the HitBit headband. Mugging for the camera, it's clear from her pale skin that the ninja has had better days. "... Wasn't my least favorite fight, but... eh. Not bad, Glenn."
The camera feed fails again, but this time it's because the tech-ninja has removed the devices entirely. Something's up -- and she needs answers. But most importantly, she needs a safe place to rest, and she -totally- doesn't trust the Rumble Committee's free medical care for that.
Zach staggers under the rapid-fire assault. He would be impressed; this time he knew /exactly/ how hard he hit Nagase. It's easier to get that kind of feedback with your fist than through a weapon. He tries to call up some more energy to blunt some of the attacks... nothing comes. He got a little carried away there.
The chi blast flings him on his back and into the river He barely notes Nagase fleeing the scene before passing out completely.
Not long after Zach lands, he will find a kunai thrown at his thigh. Nothing critical -- just a warning.
A piece of fabric is attached to the ring. Rolled out, there is a message.
"Don't come back here again."
Log created on 18:44:48 01/31/2016 by Zach Glenn, and last modified on 16:09:54 02/04/2016.