Nagase - The Ghost and the Mitsugami
[Toggle Names]Description: The trapper becomes the trappee, as Team Ninja's best-laid plans are revealed to have been built right on top of their mysterious foe's even better-laid-plans.
[NAGASE]
Well, at least two of the attendees know where the meeting place is supposed to be. It took quite a bit of humility on her part to do so, but considering how wide the gulf was between her and Maki in their last fight, the tech-ninja felt compelled to ask her new teammates for a little bit of help.
Training, specifically. If the team was going to be fighting in the prestigious King of Fighters tournament, it would probably help to bring the least-experienced master of ninjutsu up to speed. Sure, Nagase may be good at technology and computers, but there's only so far that those l33t hacking skills will carry her in the middle of a ring with thousands of people (and cameras) watching, after all.
For the meantime, Nagase is not resting in the cave overlook, and not warming her hands by the blazing hearth she'd set a little while ago. No -- as the weak link in the chain, she is out in the open. Ropes have been strung between several of the craggy outcroppings, and from the ropes dangle straw dummies. At the moment, the bumblebee ninja is moving almost faster than the eye can see, shuttling between the straw dummies at a high rate of speed. Her destination is merely to tag the dummy in strategic locations: an elbow to the neck, a kick to the solar plexus, a strike of her ninjato pommel to the kneecap.
It would effectively take a ninja, or a high-speed camera, to even recognize the potency of the displacement techniques the young flame-haired ninjette is employing against the hapless dummies; the average eye would only see the dummies wobbling for some inexplicable reason.
[MAKI]
There was a strong battle between Maki and Nagase awhile back. Quite a battle, too, as Maki learned a lot about her opponent as well as herself, all while fighting in extremely cold temperatures. In spite of everything that was going on, Maki still did a very good job of fighting against Nagase. So when she got the invitation to come out here, Maki didn't mind coming at all. In fact, she was rather quick in coming to this cold, cold location once again for some training. Especially since something's going on here.
Despite the cold weather, Maki's wearing her usual attire, not letting the cold atmosphere get to her in the least bit. In fact, the more cold it gets, the more intense her training becomes. Between getting the blood flowing and the adrenaline pumping, the training helps keep Maki focused on what's important and not letting the cold get to her.
"This place would be perfect for a match against Guy," Maki comments idly as she strikes several dummies with her tonfa. "I could prove to him that I'm truly the successor to the Bushin-ryuu line of martial arts, since you need more than just skill to handle a battle like this!" She drops to the ground and does her spinning kick against another dummy before she continues to train using her tonfa.
[RYU HAYABUSA]
While Ryu Hayabusa may be best known for his violent and intimidating presence on the battlefield, his mastery of the traditional ninja arts of stealth and deception are much less widely known.
With good reason.
Hours could be spent in observation, taking in every detail of a target to determine the optimal time to strike, searching out every weakness in defense until the critical flaw was identified and then simply striking decisively from the shadows. This was the true of the ninja that had led to their terrifying reputation through all of Japan, and increasingly, the world.
Techniques that the Dragon Ninja would often be forced to set aside in the name of urgency and expediency in the face of threats capable of unbalancing the world.
This was different. Out here in the isolated wilderness, with his new allies practicing the art of combat, Master Ninja Ryu Hayabusa has become one with the shadows, keen eyes taking in every motion, every breath in total silence.
[SEISHIROU]
Someone had invited the shinobi here a long time ago.
It was something never forgotten, but as is the stripe of all things, the fact was easily lost in the sands. After all. Is it the way of the shinobi to archive, to catalog, to endlessly quantify? No, not for most. For most, there is a secret winding through the world that most clans refuse to acknowledge. Chunin and genin disappearing, being returned alive--but crippled, careers ended by a so-called 'ghost.' Not many clans would acknowledge the loss of their own to a ghost. Secrets nd lies enshroud the ninja world, but the story being told is not the one many clans would prefer told.
He has rested for some time here, after hearing of the shinobi in the tournament. A pair of kunoichi and -- one of the strongest, he's heard. A legend. An Iga, a Bushin and Hayabusa himself coming to King of Fighters. They come to make history. And if they stand in history's light--they will inevitably meet him.
Nagase moves between eyeblinks, and Maki twists. With each expert blow, the dummies sway on their lines. But what they might not notice is that they have awakened something. There is a reason the bitter cold does not churn the soul--and pure toughness isn't it. At least, not today. Today, it is unseasonably warm in the Manji. The difference is in degrees, so subtle that not even the master ninja may notice. At least, not until an eye opens in the dark.
An icicle, not far from Hayabusa's hiding spot, releases a single drop of icemelt.
A snowdrift separates, something moving from within it. The drift clings to him like a shell, casting everything within in darkness. Slowly, steel rakes free from a sheath as silk peels from the ice. A single somatic hand-seal in the dark splits the sky, a distant explosion causing the sky to roar.
They will surely notice that for the first time in some time, it begins to rain in the Manji valley.
[MAKI]
Ninjas do have that kind of sixth sense, so to speak. It's something all good ninjas must have. Even while she's training intensely with the dummies and not trying to let the cold get to her, she's still got her 'third ear' open to anything that might be out of the ordinary. It's almost surreal when she stops training abruptly and stands absolutely still in place for a moment as the rain begins to fall, almost like she can tell something else is giong on here.
Maki doesn't move an inch, instead, gripping her tonfa tightly and her eyes darting from side to side. She dares not speak at all, lest she alert anyone who might be watching and waiting to do her some harm. Instead, she simply stands as still as a statue, waiting to surprise anyone who might be intent on coming in.
[NAGASE]
Nagase had been exerting far too much energy to notice the heat -- too much flitting around, too much motion means she was practically cooking herself within her garb. In the context of an urban landscape, the Iga-ryu ninja prides herself on situational awareness -- though that is, by necessity, a by-product of her reliance on electronic surveillance.
She had cameras here. But none of them would have detected anything. No heat signatures had stood out. No abnormal shifting of the snows. Just... the same as it ever was.
Until the snowdrift breaks loose. The sound is unmistakable. The -sight- is not something to be ignored.
And for one moment, Nagase falters, her yellow-and-black form falling to a dead stop with her palm planted in the abdomen of a practice dummy. Her bespoke outfit is discolored with perspiration.
In the blink of an eye, she flits back into the darkness, her hands flickering into a series of handseals. Fingers extended, then curled, then clasped shut into fists. And in a second eyeblink, she is no more material than a shadow from the sliding snowdrift.
And the next moment, she is on a high peak, overlooking the clearing where she had been attacking her dummies, overlooking the spot where Maki had been striking hers. Raindrops fall upon live steel, outstretched warily to either side of the Iga-ryu kunoichi as she holds in a low stance, knees lightly curled and ready to leap skyward once again.
Her treble voice nonetheless carries through the valley. "Tryouts ended a while back, tiger -- it's a little late now!"
[RYU HAYABUSA]
With perhaps too much attention focused on his allies and not enough paid to his surroundings, it takes far too long for Hayabusa to notice the changes all around him. The moment the change finally draws his attention, Hayabusa instantly shifts from target observation to target acquisition. Without shifting from his hiding place at the start, his eyes observe every aspect of the environment for anything else that may stand out.
An extra shadow.
An out of place breath.
The faint hint of a Ninjutsu chant on the breeze.
A new threat has arrived, and whatever comfort his presence may offer to his allies, he can offer a great deal more by withholding his advantage until a target is identified.
[SEISHIROU]
There is no moment of target acquisition for the young boy shaking off the turtle shell of snow from his back. The symbol of the clan of Ryouhara appears from under the snowdrift as it splits away from him, the cracking of an egg. Against three trained shinobi, there was no combination of stealth and tricks that could have allowed him into their midst unbidden. But stealth is a matter of patience. And he has slept long, waiting for this moment.
The voice that slips free from chest is like a loosed cobra. Enmity and danger in equal quality entwine through an obscene apparatus, a full-head helmet flanked by pipes and an audible life support respirator. It gives his voice an alien reverberation, one that fills the valley like a cicada's song, just as loud in the back of the head as it is to the ear.
"You conspired to stand in the light of history," the ninja seethes in response.
As high up as Nagase is, she will notice the true source of the rain--snow is coming off of the surrounding steppe with force as the built up piles crash down the slope and into the valley. A partial avalanche triggered by some remote explosive, perhaps. However, the driving snow melts long before it gets to ground level, hitting the ground as freezing rain. The source of the heat in the valley is no great secret. Hayabusa can tell it easily. The slim form in the white haori is hard to make out against the snow, but the heat radiates from him as its focal point, and gets worse the longer he's active. It has nothing to do with ambient power--it is a conscious technique to fill the area with heat and force. Some kind of advanced Katon ninjutsu...
He knows that there is a third in the valley. But he continues, unbidden. "Conspired, but now you are going to pay the price. Standing in the light of History means facing the ghosts of the past."
A sword lay bare at his side. Not a ninjato, a full length blade.
[MAKI]
By now, Maki has twisted, albeit while her feet are still in place, and is glaring daggers at this mysterious ninja who has just made himself visible. In fact, if looks could kill, then this guy would easily have been impaled by Maki's eyes only a few moments ago. Instead, she just grips her tonfa, staring at him with a sneer of anger and contempt on her face. Her breathing is barely even noticeable, only the tiniest bit of mist coming out of her mouth as she breathes. Her eyes don't even blink as she stares at him.
"Ghosts of the past?" Maki asks, her sneer growing even bigger. "I don't know who you are or why you're interrupting our training session, but..." Maki trails off as she realizes something. About how she'd heard bits and pieces about something like this, and some kind of curse or something. And then the missing students...
"No, you can't be!" Maki scowls even deeper, her sneer turning into a view of clenched teeth. "The one who abducted numerous students from my father's dojo. Do you know something about this?!" Maki yells, pointing her tonfa at Seishirou. "Is this your doing, or is there something else?"
[NAGASE]
The Iga-ryu emigre scans the horizon quickly in search of the source of the rain -- and as she finds it, her lips speak two nigh-imperceptible syllables. As she turns to glare down at the haori-garbed intruder, a monochrome view of the descending avalanche appears in a secondary window, allowing her to keep partial awareness of the unfolding drama even as she keeps a dagger-sharp eye on the figure below.
Conspired to stand in the light of history. May the gods grant the fast-talking ninjette the strength to deal with this old-tongue nonsense...
"Just what the hell is that supposed to mean, anyway?"
The gods have failed in this tiny miracle.
Small whorls of ice crystals form as the young kunoichi draws in her breath, even as the falling rain bores cylindrical holes into the snowdrifts. She feels the needle-like droplets too, stinging like fiery needles against the chill air. And yet, she focuses upon Seishirou.
Particularly, his helmet.
"What in the world gives -you- the power to declare good or evil, anyway? Let the strongest survive, or some stupid crap like that? Tch, you're awfully full of yourself!"
Nagase grits her teeth, tucking her trailing ninjato back into its scabbard. Her right hand begins twisting through a series of handseals -- slowly and quietly, with her lithe body and the extreme height concealing the specific gestures she is making.
And her mouth moves again, silently. The audio subprocess in her Battle Disc System is tuned to an even higher sensitivity.
[RYU HAYABUSA]
Moving with the same swift invisibility of a midnight gust, Hayabusa slips free of his shadows, the open space between the Ninja Master and the clearing vanishing in a wink of the eye, gliding down the slippery dust and snow that lines the hidden crevase until he intercepts the walking ghost's path on a three point stop, legs spread wide with his left hand bracing, his right extended out toward the side, easily positioned to either strike or move for the blade strapped acrossed his back.
"If the past wishes to claim grievances, then so be it, but the eyes trapped looking backward will never seen the path forward."
Hayabusa's words come out in his even, authoratative voice. He speaks with all the will of a man several lifetimes older than his deceptively short years, his eyes staring at the ghost as if able to pierce through to his very soul.
[SEISHIROU]
'The one who abducted numerous students from my father's dojo. Do you know something--'
"--I have despised you." Ryouhara states lividly, cutting into Maki's words with authority and showing very little patience for her anger. A match against a bonfire. "For those of you who have walked away, and those who have openly conspired. Don't talk to me of students. The only thing they learn is treachery, and I will erase your school a thousand times over to clean the stains of 'inherited sin' away."
He looks up, tracking the Iga absently, even as Hayabusa crosses in front of him to intercept. Against the two remaining, he growls, his respirator turning the sound into a venomous hiss. "There is no good, and no evil. There is only enmity, raw and unfinished. The past has a voice. It is clarion. Devastating. And thurough. Ghosts are the agents of the past. And they are history's will. I would expect you most of all to advocate moving on." Ryouhara remarks, coldly staring down Hayabusa. "You of all of the clans and all of the shinobi have benefitted the most from the arrangement of things. Amongst ninja, you are the greatest traitor of all."
He slams his blade into the ground, point first. Despite being almost a bare blade, the long-form hilt is wrapped in linen. Though it rains, his clothes are dry, billowing around him in unnatural fashion. The so-called ghost lifts his two hands, knitting his fingers together in a ram seal.
"In this miserable place, your legends will come to an end."
[MAKI]
Maki can only sneer at this. She's a little nervous sure, but there's still something about this guy that doesn't scare her as much as he thinks he might. She simply narrows one eye and shakes her head. "You're trying to sound prophetic or some nonsense like that, but you don't convince me!" She plants her foot into the ground and looks to the others. "And furthermore, it's three on one, so don't think you can beat us that easily." By now, it's obvious Maki's losing patience, believing this to be some kind of a joke.
Maki then looks to the others again and raises an eyebrow. "Uh, you are with me, right? You don't believe this to be true, do you?" She now starts to sweat a little bit.
[NAGASE]
The heat is rising. Surely, Ryu Hayabusa will feel it the most, standing the closest. Surely, Maki Genryuusai will feel it, being nearby as well. But as Nagase's tongue darts out to moisten her chapped lips, she becomes mindful of something very key.
Even high on the peak, the snow next to her is beginning to soften.
The heat is rising. She tugs at the black choker about her neck, thoroughly drenched from both the rain and her own perspiration.
"Yeah," comes her answer to Maki, "but I don't really like his sense of humor..."
She knows that Hayabusa did not guarantee involvement in inter-clan conflicts. His clan, as told to Nagase, saw no losses. But the Genryuusai has, as she'd just heard. And so has hers. And now...
She listens to the deep words from her team leader -- the oldest (if not by far) of the four present. She respects his words -- but those of the ghost are filled with foreboding and threat. She does not take it lightly -- her clan has lost too many. "If your legend is so damn important, how come we've never even seen your crest?" The bumblebee ninja does not wait -- she sees the seal taking form.
Being a ninja of an illusive and deceptive school, she already has one of her own ready. A preset charge fires -- great minds think alike -- this one being at a point roughly behind Seishirou's helmeted head.
This was activated by a single keyword.
The handseal, though, allows her to step forward into the air.
Her very next step has her stepping away from the rock face, falling through the air at a much safer and more controllable height.
More dangerously, she is also hurling a series of three shuriken at the extremities of the white ghost's haori. Warning shots.
COMBATSYS: Seishirou has started a fight here.
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Seishirou 0/-------/-======|
[RYU HAYABUSA]
Slowly Hayabusa rises from his three-point position, his right hand gliding up to the hilt of the Dragon Sword as his left foot traces a curve on the ground before him until only the left side of his body is exposed to the Ghost before him. The entire time, his eyes are locked in battle against the icy glare of the young man before him.
"The linneage that flows through my veins was birthed long before the word 'ninja' first graced lips. The duty that spurs my clan into action is as old as humanity itself," his voice composed and steady in contrast with the long simmering hatred bubbling up from within the Ghost who stands as his accuser. "And it is this duty that holds more weight than any brotherhood of the shadows. Whatever betrayal it may be that you claim, it is of some imagined accord to which I am no member."
The muscles in the Dragon Ninja's arm tense as his fingers curl tighter around the hilt of his blade, his whole body a coiled spring ready to unleash the legendary Ryuken from it's sheath. "Though I expect nothing but violence from a soul in such turmoil, I offer you this last warning. Surrender your misguided quest or you will face my blade."
But the Ninja Master's words are given no opportunity to linger as Nagase's explosion offers a significantly more bombastic punctuation.
COMBATSYS: Seishirou has joined the fight here in the center.
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COMBATSYS: Nagase has joined the fight here.
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COMBATSYS: Ryu Hayabusa has joined the fight here on the top side.
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Seishirou 0|-------|-======
COMBATSYS: Maki has joined the fight here on the right meter side.
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Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|-------
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Nagase 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Maki
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Seishirou 0|-------|-======
[SEISHIROU]
"There is no sword, no soldier that can dam the will of history."
By now, Ryouhara is at the limits of his patience. "The thing that I am--and the family that I belong to--is gone." I am no one. "I will break your swords and scatter them to the four winds. And in the end--my crest will be the last thing you see. And you will know the name of Ryouhara."
The explosion draws his attention, forcing him to turn behind him, holding his knit hands together, but his elbow raising in defense. However, the direction of his attention has nothing to do with his readiness. As he holds the seal, another seal is triggered by lifting his foot from a seal in the ground. The release causes the hilt of his weapon to unseal, paper unravelling en masse from the hilt. The whipping lines of linen spin off of the hilt.. and snatch the shuriken out of the air, causing thme to flip end over end past the shinobi, tightening linen seals re-wrapping themselves around the metal. He expected an attack the moment he formed the hand-seal, and made plans for it.
Imagine what may have happened in a full frontal attack.
The moment Ryouhara realizes the attack is a distraction, he frowns behind his visor. But absorbing attack was not the only reason he planted the protective measure. In the moment the jutsu unfurled, the seals were completed.
And the earth twists.
A weapon from beneath the snow detonates, lifting great reams of paper at least four-feet-wide from a focal point in the center of the valley. Long roads of paper unfurl, attaching to anchor points throughout the Manji. Across their run are dangling weapons and bits of metal. And seals. What must be a literal mile of ink is distributed across the reams of paper unfurling. The paper itself is something entirely different from the normal ninja scroll--it tears through bits of te scenery, carving great gouges across the cliff faces, cutting down icicles as if by a literal sword, and blooming out and over the valley in a great, long road of jutsu. Standing on the paper as if it were a walk cut from stone or steel, Ryouhara occupies a central point in the middle, his sleeves slipping to his sides. Though he stands still, the roads of paper shift with his weight unnaturally, responding to the heat and his will.
"Mitsugami - Tekigata Fuukyuu. An absolute defensive technique borne of ninkougakujutsu, the science handed down for generations amongst the ghosts of Ryouhara. Over months, I created this technique to destroy the Hayabusa threat. But it will suffice just as well against others. Against one or against a hundred, it does not matter."
"The will of history will not be denied."
An instant later, seals glow along the length of the great paper road. The rain at first turned from snow to water. Now it turns from water to steel.
COMBATSYS: Mitsugami has joined the fight here as a boss!
MITSUGAMI
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Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|-------
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Nagase 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Maki
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Seishirou 0|-------|-======
COMBATSYS: Seishirou has joined the fight here as a left henchman!
MITSUGAMI
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Nagase 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Maki
[NAGASE]
Nagase had been over this area countless times -- combed it, searched it. She had found the best locations in which to place six different explosive charges for multiple contingencies. This valley was, after all, a trap. A -weapon- to ensnare the ghost -- the /young man/ -- standing right in the middle of the activity.
In short, the tech-ninja had expected surprises.
She did not expect -paper-. Nor did she expect metal to have been placed beforehand in such meticulous fashion -- to be literally buried underneath weeks' worth of snowfall.
Let alone for it to erupt upwards in such dramatic fashion. She nearly falls upon one of the avenues of paper as it rises up to meet her: hissing in irritation, she throws all of her weight into the unsheathed ninjato, using the weapon as additional mass to axel out of the path of the paper.
She concludes that she was right to have been concerned about the handseal. But she had never expected an automaton that terrifying.
The Iga-ryu ninja lands in a crouch -- but her ears twitch at the changing timbre of the rain. No longer the soothing sound of raindrops, but the whistling of steel. She doesn't dare point her eyes to the sky -- she at least -does- know the sound of these things -- instead lurching forward out of old jabits, diving into a quick tumble. As she rights herself, a column of needle-like senbon impacts into the ground she had been standing on one moment earlier, precision steel punching holes right through the rock face and standing as upright as if the edifice were as porous as a spongecake.
Nagase frowns at the sounds, weaving sharply to her right as a different weapon entirely thuds into the ground at her left -- a blade twice as thick as her ninjato and quite heavy. "You could arm a freaking -army- with these, or somethin'!" she mutters under her breath, pausing to glance back at the new weapon.
She dare not chance picking the damn thing up. It's easily twice her weight.
Instead, she tilts forward, both her hands trailing behind her as she leaps into action with newfound determination. "So you're a warrior without a clan -- ha! Is that supposed to make us feel -sorry- for your genocide?" She bobs left, as an array of six senbon strike downward. She leaps right, as an ancient dagger embeds itself in the rain-slick rock. But when she leaps forward in a kick -- it's not -just- a kick.
It's an attempt to slam her foot into the base of his helmet. If successful, she'd jar him right in the atlas bone -- and not only that, cause such heavy reverberations to the helmet to make it difficult for him to think properly. "Hyaaah!"
[RYU HAYABUSA]
The surge to action is instantaneous as any hope of diplomacy evaporates into violence. As the tremors of motion flow up from beneath his feet, Hayabusa launches himself immediately into the air, every muscle in his body acting to draw the Dragon Sword from his back in a flash of metal as he soars away from the path to landp precisely atop one of the larger stones marking the valley.
"The darkness that has laid claim to your soul blinds you to the truth of reality," Hayabusa retorts, his voice only barely raised, yet clear as a bellow despite the surge of chaos that has consumed the training ground.
Then to his allies he shouts, "Do not underestimate our opponent. We may have the advantage of numbers, but we don't understand the full extent of this new threat." This always was going to be the problem with the alliance, had he been here with Momiji or Ayane, Hayabusa would know for certain that they would follow his lead and would know what to expect. With only a few weeks of training to go on, the Ninja Master must both combat the unknown of both foe and ally alike.
With Nagase rushing headlong into action, it's clear that patience won't have an opportunity to be a virtue this time around. With his feet gliding along the stone surface, Hayabusa draws up into his infamous fighting stance, with the Dragon Sword aimed blade up at head height. Whatever claims the Ghost makes toward destroying the legendary blade on the altar of history would first have to overcome it's unique power.
A power that will be tested against this new weapon.
Drawing in a deep breath, the Dragon Ninja centers himself, drawing into the peace at the eye of the storm.
And then surges into action, launching himself from her perch like a falcon swooping for its prey. While Nagase is occupying their opponent, the Master Ninja sets sights on the weapon, dropping down on the sword at the center of this iron road with a single, definitive strike.
[MAKI]
Maki steadies herself and looks to the others as she realizes that there is no escaping this fight. She grips her tonfa tightly and then narrows her eyes. "You and your nonsense about history are worthless to me!" She comments, now more confident than ever. "All I'm here for is to get revenge for the students you have taken from us! I'm gonna send you to hell!" Maki emphasizes this by stomping her foot on the ground, albeit carefully enough to avoid possibly causing an avalanche or something like that. "You'll pay!"
The blonde haired ninja starts towards Seishirou, her tonfa gripped tightly. "History writes itself, no one controls it. Not us, and definitely not YOU!" Her breathing becomes a little heavier as she talks. "You're going to learn that the hard way though. You're just one of those fools who needs to be taught the hard way, that's what you are!" Another deep breath, then Maki moves closer.
"Of course, if you're THAT foolish, then I have to say I pity you, since you obviously should know better than to try to challenge us. It doesn't matter how uneven we are, that I admit is true. It's about skill and things like that. But your foolishness outweighs your skill!" Maki finishes her comments with a swift horizontal strike from her tonfa, letting out a yell of power as she does so.
COMBATSYS: Nagase successfully hits Seishirou with Medium Kick.
Glancing Blow
MITSUGAMI
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Seishirou 0/-------/-======|
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Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|-------
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Nagase 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Maki
COMBATSYS: Seishirou dodges Maki's Medium Strike.
MITSUGAMI
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Nagase 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Maki
COMBATSYS: Mitsugami interrupts Deep Strike from Ryu Hayabusa with Kibakuzai Shisha.
MITSUGAMI
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Nagase 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Maki
[SEISHIROU]
"History is something that many people attempt to control."
Atop of his paper road, the shinobi seems less diminutive than he did previous. Standing on his higher ground, it gives even the anonymized ninja an air of imperiousness that is hard to manage in any other situation. But it is something coincidental, a side effect of the welded authority in his voice, forged and sharpened to an edge sharp enough to cut through the ambient click and mechanical distension of his respirator.
"I've not been a part of this world very long. But I've heard thin pleas and weak reason enough to know that this shinobi world does not have the authority at all to speak for History. We, who used to move continents with our minds and hands, fallen so far. Those who are weak and destitute are all that are left, lorded over by fat vagabonds with wasp justice. Such parasitism will be burned and left by the wayside. We are the hands of History. The savior of all 'roudoushakaikyuu....' That much is enough!!"
The faceless shinobi looks up, craning his neck by centimeters as the Iga drops on him, the Bushin coming up in front of him to drive him. He only has eyeblinks to respond. In the space between seconds, he raises a hand, splaying his fingers out. The movement seems slow to him--but it is only a blur to everyone else around him. The hand reaches past Maki as she moves against him. And makes a single handseal.
The paper shifts, the entire road he stands on bucking underneath the shinobi as he kicks off, Nagase slamming into him with the force of a sledgehammer. But the blow is mistimed, hard to hold. And then he is gone--and Maki comes within centimeters of cracking her ally in the knee with a tonfa.
As the road bucks, it reveals lengths of sealing ink across its broad side to Hayabusa as he falls into it. Those seals glow, ink unravelling and scattering reams of paper around him as Hayabusa falls into it. A ninja of his skill can tell, as his blade which could shear through anything finds the paper as unyielding as the ironsides of a ship, that the layers of paper that separate from the road are inscribed in explosive jutsu. It forces him away, then surrounds him in a chain of powerful chakra detonations. What kind of techniques...?
"Your revenge is nothing," Ryouhara thinks aloud. "In the face of will!!"
He's only moved a few steps behind Maki!! Though it's patently ridiculous, he moves in eyeblinks, and slips past Maki as if she were no more substantial to him than water. One hand tensing at his side and slipping back in a forceful movement, he follows through to strike with his leading hand, wrapped in beads. This one will come straight forward and hit Maki in the back, a light touch.
That if it lands, will tag her with a ninkou capable of dismantling her chakra on the spiritual level.
COMBATSYS: Maki blocks Seishirou's Kaitaijutsu.
MITSUGAMI
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Seishirou 0/-------/=======|
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Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|-----==
[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Maki
[MAKI]
Even if it's a spiritual attack, Maki's not about to let it get the best of her. She knows how to focus her inner energies as best as she can, and she tries to utilize her chi to help defend against this incoming attack along with some physical posturing as well. The combination is enough to help her absorb most of the attack. It barely even fazes her, but it is noticeable. "This is really getting crazy here." Maki comments to herself, feeling a little out of it before she shakes her head to clear out the confusion. "Not bad, but you need to do better than that!" She twirls her tonfa again.
"You caught me off-guard with that one, but I'm DONE warming up!" Maki comments with a scowl. She steps sideways a little as if to survey her opponent carefully "You think your powers are all that? Well, let's see how they fare after I'm done kicking your butt!" She throws a snap kick in an attempt to strike Seishirou.
[NAGASE]
Nagase's armor-plated shins clash against the Ghost's reinforced helmet, bringing a frown to the flame-haired kunoichi's lips. Being that her leg didn't get to fully connect, she starts to follow through -- only to realize her ally's tonfa closing in on her! The bumblebee twists about in midair, allowing Maki's tonfa to strike nothing but air as Nagase lands on her fingertips.
But that's when she realizes that the road is undulating beneath her, apparently under active control of their prodigal opponent. With wide eyes, she looks back to where the Ghost had stood -- only to find that he had practically moved -through- her teammate.
"Rrrgh..." Nagase mutters as she leaps backwards, swaying slightly to her right as a series of four senbon whistle past her left shoulder. "Aren't =you= attempting to control history?!" she demands, right hand slipping into her left sleeve, even as her partner practically soaks up the rapid buildup of chi energy. The paper trail bucks sharply, tossing her into the air -- and yet, Nagase backflips along with the motion, flinging three shuriken out at the Ghost. The pattern is a wide one, intended to fan out and strike against the talented ninkougakujutsu master. Each star blazes with a telltale blossom of orange flame. "Wouldn't that put you -above- the roudou-shakaikyuu?!"
[RYU HAYABUSA]
Whatever this creation was, it had all the markings of a Master's ultimate creation. The fact that it was able to withstand the Dragon Sword and Hayabusa's might is not insignificant. Although still in its imperfect form, Ryuken has laid low all manner of foes, cleaved through armor and machine alike.
It was clear now that the Ghost had no been overstating himself when he claimed that he had devised a weapon with which he had planned to end the Dragon Ninja.
Sheer inhuman reflexes were all that stood between Hayabusa merely being singed and being obliterated by that explosion; he lands a good distance away, once more balanced on three points as he skids back while his feet dig faint trenches in the long burried pebbles that line the ground as he slows to a halt.
"Be careful, with all of these runes we have no way of knowing what sort of Ninpo has been prepared on his weapon," cries the Master Ninja to his allies as he draws back up into his proper ready stance, "And we can't be certain that it's power is tied to its creator. Even if we defeat the Ghost, we may yet have to deal with this threat."
With his words laid bare, Hayabusa clenches his grip on the Dragon Sword, taking a deep breath as he recenter his spirit and sends electricity pulseing down the length of his blade, imbuing it with elemental power as he launches himself back into the fray, gliding over the iron paper road as he lashes out with a violent pair of crossing slashes.
COMBATSYS: Mitsugami just-defends Ryu Hayabusa's Lotus Slash!!
MITSUGAMI
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0|---------------|----------=====
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 0/-------/=======|
[ |||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|------=
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Maki
COMBATSYS: Seishirou dodges Nagase's Shooting Star.
MITSUGAMI
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0|---------------|----------=====
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 0/-------/=======|
[ |||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|------=
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Maki
COMBATSYS: Seishirou dodges Maki's Light Kick.
MITSUGAMI
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0|---------------|----------=====
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 0/-------/=======|
[ |||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|------=
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > //////////////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Maki
[SEISHIROU]
It was an overextended move, putting him at risk. But his back arm flexes and his defense comes quickly, the blade he left embedded in the ground at the foot of the valley suddenly flying up into the air of its on volition. He pays it no mind yet, shifting easily from his attack into a folded arm defense, cross-blocking Maki's snap kick.
Ryouhara's dispassion is as clear in his voice as anything else.
"I don't even exist. But I will inspire the destitute to rise up and choke you."
From her heightened vantage point, Nagase can see the blade twirl up into the air-- and land in Seishirou's hand. A hidden wire from his back hand must have pulled it out of the ground. But the problem is that the Seishirou that grabbed it is not the one that blocked Maki's attack. The new iteration is sitting in the shadows of the paper road, clinging to the underside of it above the exchange between Maki and the first ninja. --but the first ninja has a sheathed blade, the exact one that Ryouhara grabbed out of the air.
"...no matter how we have to bleed," the duplicate murmurs.
It's a copy!
Maki has a second to react and Nagase even less time to warn her before Nagase's shuriken cut into the whirling copy, who unsheathes a blade that doesn't truly exist, attempting to slam the point of it into her middle. It doesn't do a tenth of the damage that the shinobi duplicate will do when it detonates.
In the meantime, Hayabusa finds himself just barely avoiding being atomized by the attacks of the rippling road, the art of the shinobi being a thing of hair-widths. The electricty of his blade crosses with the rippling lengths of paper, energy crawling all along its length. But as he does, the seals flicker across its length.. and he finds it almost impossible to break through, a force propelling him free as triggered seals release along the length of the paper. A searing screech fills the air, and then a swarm of crows made of black fire slip free from the length, attempting to cling to his blade, attempting to cling to him. The harrying flock fills the air around him, making it difficult to determine which of the cackling pack mean to drag him away and which mean to searingly drag him in half.
Ryouhara, in the shadow of the ream, crouching upside down on the papers, has his hands clasped togeter around the hilt of his blade, as if in prayer.
COMBATSYS: Seishirou successfully hits Maki with Bunshin Suicide.
Grazing Hit
MITSUGAMI
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0|---------------|------------===
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 1/------=/=======|
[ |||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|------=
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Maki
COMBATSYS: Mitsugami successfully hits Ryu Hayabusa with Karasu Dancing.
MITSUGAMI
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0|---------------|---------======
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 1/------=/=======|
[ ||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|----===
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Maki
[RYU HAYABUSA]
No matter what he does, Hayabusa's blade can find no purchase on the weapon. It's clear that he needs to consider this threat from another perspective.
But before he can manage that, he must first work his way to a new position without being overwhelmed by the weapon before him. The burst seals send a storm of energy flying at him, the flock seeing much more like a murder. His eyes fly across the open space around him, seeking any weaknees in its pattern through which he might escape, and in doing so line only one opportunity.
Ryuken glides back into its sheathe as Hayabusa launches himself toward a single clear space in the flock, only to have it seem to change pattern in flight, catching him from the flank and sending him flying away, rolling through the remains of puddling snow that have become little more than slush across the battlefield.
Rising back up, his eyes narrow in on his prey, his arms raised in a ready stance as he hunts for any opening to make his own.
COMBATSYS: Ryu Hayabusa focuses on his next action.
MITSUGAMI
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0|---------------|---------======
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 1/------=/=======|
[ ||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|----===
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Maki
[MAKI]
Trying to avoid the incoming attack from Seishirou, Maki's agility proves to be only partially useful. While she does move out of the way in time, the attack still gets part of her flesh, and it causes her to yelp in pain. She rubs at the injured spot, her hand coming away with blood on the palm, causing her to wince even more. "Good thing I'm wearing red," She comments sarcastically. She picks up some snow off the ground and rubs it in her hands to wipe the blood off, before looking at Seishirou again. "You're good, I'll give you that. But don't think you've got me just yet." She looks around at the area, trying to make sure she has enough room to pull off what her next move will be.
Once she sets up her positioning and calculates the velocity needed, Maki steps back a few steps, then proceeds to jump back onto a nearby part of the cavern wall, then shoots herself at Seishirou with her leg outstretched. Her rate of speed is so fast she's almost like a human missile!
[NAGASE]
Nagase had, at little as four weeks ago, thought she was the best at being her. She had assassinated dozens of men, a handful of ladies -- all of them 'bad guys,' of course. She was a master-level hacker, able to destabilize the secret Skull Cross network and make off with a treasure the likes of which might never have seen daylight again.
She feels like she's in first grade again, watching the jounin of her clan demonstrate their impressive techniques for the class. Sure -- she's hardly a genin any more, cognizant enough of the steel rain that none of the airborne projectiles is posing much of a threat to her. A bob here, a weave there -- not even the undulations of the paper roadway fazes her. And yet, keeping up with the likes of even her King of Fighters teammates is almost too much for her -- let alone the ephemeral Ghost which has haunted her kind for far too long.
The explosion in Maki's direct vicinity shakes Nagase out of her momentary reverie, as she lands once more upon the Mitsugami. She leaps backwards, just as the paper ripples once more in what appears to be a painful blow to the Super Ninja. Gritting her teeth, she puts the thought out of her mind.
Revenge clouds her. If she does not strike back now -- all could be lost. And yet, she hears her teammate charging forward. She aims herself, pausing to watch the Ghost's movements carefully to plan her attack.
She expects him to move.
She's counting on it.
Nagase takes off, her form shearing as she blitzes forward. She aims to lock her arms around the Ghost, perfectly synchronized with her blonde companion.
Should she manage to grab hold, she would rocket him into the air, spinning in rapid circular motions -- and plow him headfirst into his own Mitsugami.
COMBATSYS: Seishirou blocks Maki's Hassou Kyaku.
MITSUGAMI
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[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 1/------=/=======|
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Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|----===
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/-------|==-----\-------\0 Maki
COMBATSYS: Seishirou interrupts Nagase Spiral from Nagase with Katon Citadel.
MITSUGAMI
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[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 1/----===/=======|
[ ||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|----===
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/-----==|==-----\-------\0 Maki
[SEISHIROU]
He breathes.
Now is the moment when all things shy of the battlefield fall away. The idle chatter falls away and the meaning of the thing itself comes to a harsh and rising crux, the things the ancient swordmasters spoke of. This is the idealism of it. This is what it means to not exist.
Maki's words fall away into the din as she screams towards him, his arm raising to catch her by the leg, deflecting the blow from the flat of his blade and bracing it by the flat of his hand to absorb the shock. He lets the force push him down (in this case up, given that he is standing upside down) the slope of the road, and unfortunately right into the embrace of the kunoichi seeking to take advantage of it. Frowning, he quickly levers his sword to prevent her from getting a tight grip on him, but it isn't enough.
The two twirl towards the lower pathways of the Mitsugamijutsu, leaving him only precious seconds to break the hold before she drills him into the iron paper, a blow that even his techniques couldn't fully recover from. In the end, he can only do so levering free with the flat of his blade, sliding sets of senbon down the length of the blade. Tumbling crazily and out of sync, he careens towards the paper in a cataclysmic impact. He has only one option. Swinging his blade wide, he throws off a broad arc of senbon, thrown in asemicircle around him, three below and three above, though the aim seems more haphazard than directed at any of the attacking party, exactly.
But one lands in the paper underneath him, and that's enough.
An instant later, Seishirou blows a hole through the paper, the senbon transcription technique turning the paper beneath him into a fortress-like pyre that attempts to violently separate Seishirou from any further following attacks via fire and explosion. He crashes through his own fortress of flame, trailing smoke as he twirls to reorient himself in the snow beneath the fuuin road, landing hard and fast.
It takes only seconfs for him to orient on the shinobi master in the snow with him as well, and assess the threat. He flips into a guard stance quickly, mentally releasing another mnemonic jutsu with the motion and seals across the back of his blade hilt.
From one of the anchor points of the fuukyuu, the paper drags wooden beams from the earth, sticks that were once bound up with the center of the jutsu--but now form the skeleton of a paper casket, multiple seals sticking to it and forming the walls to a box in very short order. Paper unrolls from around the wooden struts of the casket's skeleton, sealing scrolls that attempt to interlace aroud the meditating shinobi and drag him inside forcefully. If it can, the paper road will unseal from the casket's body, and the casket will melt its way into the earth.
And then detonate.
COMBATSYS: Mitsugami successfully hits Ryu Hayabusa with Hitsugi Shibari.
Glancing Blow
MITSUGAMI
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[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 1/----===/=======|
[ ||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|---====
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/-----==|==-----\-------\0 Maki
[NAGASE]
Nagase is more than a little irritated. This is the -second- tournament she had entered herself within to try and -find- the slippery bastard, and it turns out he'd not only been building, plotting, and scheming -- but that he'd done it right under her nose. How long had he been here, organizing this contraption? How on earth can he possibly be -triggering- it? These are all things she'd love to know.
But those thoughts are completely out of her mind, now that she's actually grabbed hold of the guy. He talks of history. She'll process those words later -- every iota is stored for posterity, and backed up on a slight time delay -- even if she valiantly sacrifices her life against the ninkougakujutsu master, it will be released on the internet for someone.
She smirks to herself as she whirls about. It'll probably be stuck with the Super Ninja. Does he even know how to check his e-mail?
But while her thoughts wander, muscle memory doing the work of plowing her opponent into the ground, she doesn't quite realize that the ninja is already working his way out. She scrambles for grip, but the Ghost is already breaking free -- and careens straight into the construct anyway.
She smiles for a moment -- momentum's a bitch.
Then the paper detonates in her face, the rush of superheated air stilling her own momentum and blasting her backwards.
Then senbon needle her in the shoulder and forearms -- the least armored places on the tech-ninja's body. She recoils backwards, a fine mist of crimson blood left in her wake as she hits part of the paper road hard.
Tumbling out of control, she careens for the edge of one of the paper strips, reaching out for a handhold before she tumbles to the rock.
Not enough time, Nagase concludes. Her hands flicker into motion as she looks skyward. The sealing gesture completes.
And the ninjette's form appears to fold into two dimensions, crossing the expanse to a spot on the far wall of the valley in the blink of an eye.
Clinging against the wall, relatively safe from the whistling rain of steel, she turns back to the Ghost, and his Mitsugami-jutsu. She winces at her partners -- but knows that her skills are insufficient next to those of any of the others.
She extends her left wrist, and pulls a small disc out of her sleeve. An access door opens from the drive on her wrist; into this, she places the disc.
And her eyeglasses light up with a steady stream of information, the patterns derived in real-time from the motions of the ninkougakusha. Patterns that will be analyzed... and precisely picked apart by the software of her stolen technology, still light-years ahead of anything available commercially.
COMBATSYS: Nagase calculates her next move.
MITSUGAMI
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[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 1/----===/=======|
[ ||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|---====
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/-----==|==-----\-------\0 Maki
[RYU HAYABUSA]
Just how do you find the weakness on a creation that is more than simple mechanical parts laced together? How can human eyes see the way Ninpo sends the power of chi flowing through so many reams of paper and infuses them into a simulacrum of life?
There is no simple answer, and even with his mastery of the ninja arts, even Ryu Hayabusa can feel the weight of the threat he now faces in battle. It's a power that has managed to withstand the Dragon Sword almost effortlessly. It attacks from all angles, with no body to truly restrain its movements.
And more importantly, it refuses to give up.
Unseen wood flies in around Hayabusa from all directions, crashing down on him before he can even react. In an instant a coffin has formed around him, claiming his doom. The papers start to bring about the final step, clenching everything into position as their explosive runes surge with power.
And then it's a flash of motion, a blur as wood is carved into splinters, the Dragon Ninja himself bursting free from his prison with his blade in hand, narrowly managing to leap free of his doom before the seals unleash hell.
While this paper may be able to hold back the mighty Ryuken, mere wood is nothing to the infamous blade.
With hardly a moment to recollect himself, Hayabusa launches back into the fray, throwing himself violently at the sections of paper that had most recently unleashed their fury attempting to cleave them with a short, rapid flurry of slashes.
[MAKI]
Watching as her attack is deflected away again, Maki scowls. "This is really ticking me off!" She says, wiping her forehead. "What is this guy on? Some kind of enhancement drugs or something?" The sarcasm in her voice combined with the cold weather seems to make for a unique type of speech pattern here. Regardless, Maki doesn't believe that her opponent is that tough. In fact, she's just been approaching the wrong way! She needs to get more powered up here. And she doesn't mean by using electricity or anything like that either! After all, she's not Blanka!
Instead, Maki plants her feet firmly in the snow, holds her tonfa in front of her with both hands, and closes her eyes. All around her, a flow of chi begins to form as it surges through her body, powering her like a second source of energy. She's more vulnerable here, but she's willing to take that risk if it means improving her chances of victory here.
COMBATSYS: Maki gathers her will.
MITSUGAMI
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0|---------------|------=========
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 1/----===/=======|
[ ||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|---====
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/-----==|======-\-------\0 Maki
COMBATSYS: Mitsugami endures Ryu Hayabusa's Crushing Strike.
MITSUGAMI
[ |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
0|---------------|-==============
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 1/----===/=======|
[ ||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|---====
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ///////////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/-----==|======-\-------\0 Maki
[SEISHIROU]
The roiling paper of the ninkou surges, weight shifting as the shinobi dismount for the time being. The length detached from the ground whips freely, causing the iron paper to sway in the wind. Hayabusa, breaking free of the katon hitsugi fuuinjutsu, never takes the decisive damage planned on when the technique was initially derived. The outcome is noted by the ninkougakusha with some note of irritation, but he's given a vital moment of breathing room. That is when the shinobi makes a move.
The blade slams into its sheath at his back. he needs both hands free for this. And, at about the time that Maki and Nagase prepare for their second round with him, Seishirou links together the seals tattooed on his hands, then, in a blyur of motion, rattles off an ominous array of seals.
"Ninkougaku: Chikuzou."
The other senbon he scattered with his prior blade swing were not so haphazard. Even twisting, in the middle of a chaotic freefall, he was able to place transcription senbon into bulls-eyes on the heads of at least four of the straw dummies suspended on ropes. The microseals written across their length deploy at Ryouhara's jutsu, unfurling across the length of the dummies, ink burning into them as they are imbued with energy. Slowly, the straw heaves, heat burning through their moorings, and dropping them to the ground around Nagase and Maki. Nagase's scanners suddenly detect heat as a dummy lurches into view, jangled motions causing it to lurch asymmetrically towards her. Ryouhara holds the technique for only a moment, as he attempts to jolt the rudimentary and newly made homing ninkou onto her and Maki. While the two are harassing one as a block, Ryouhara is making use of the other two to try and latch onto Maki. As the seals burn through the flammable straw quickly, and force the two to try and incinerate Maki where she stands.
Releasing a string of fire ninjutsu occurs broadly. As one burns through two dummies, andother set of jutsu entirely trigger, the mitsugami paper road that has occupied Hayabusa getting leaved into pieces at its ends, an attack to which it responds by trying to fireblast the master ninja out of existence.
COMBATSYS: Seishirou successfully hits Maki with Atari.
* Attack Of Opportunity! *
MITSUGAMI
[ |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
0|---------------|-==============
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 0/-------/---====|
[ ||||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|---====
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/-----==|=======\===----\1 Maki
COMBATSYS: Ryu Hayabusa blocks Mitsugami's Katon Matsuri.
MITSUGAMI
[ |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
1|--------------=|===============
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 0/-------/---====|
[ |||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|--=====
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/-----==|=======\===----\1 Maki
[MAKI]
The word 'Atari' is known as a word which means 'Danger' or more specifically 'Prepare to be attacked.' It is commonly used in the game of Go, when a player's stones are in danger. They are said to be in 'Atari,' or check if you will. For Maki, being in Atari means something far more serious than just losing a few stones off of a game board. No, her whole life is in Atari right now. Yet, she does nothing to avoid this potentially life-threatening situation whatsoever. She simply stands there, still clasping her tonfa, letting her power focus into her body, until finally the flames burn into her body. The chi flowing through her does nothing to shield her body, instead the flames catch onto her, and she falls to the ground as the flames catch her. She rolls around in the snow, the flames eventually extinguishing with a smoky aftermath, the snow melting under the flames.
The ninja now stands up again, albeit with burns and blisters on her body, her outfit now ragged with holes from the burns she sustained just now. Her breathing is deeper and more noticeable than before. She has taken quite a beating from Seishirou, but in return, her mental energies are more focused, meaning she has a more potentially dangerous attack ready. Or it could be that she's storing it up for another potentially dangerous attack, and this was just a way of throwing off her opponent. For Maki steps towards Seishirou yet again, but does nothing that looks like it's something extremely powerful.
Instead, gritting her teeth through the pain of the blisters and burns on her body, Maki plants her tonfa into the ground and begins to spin around and around like a human whirlwind, her leg outstretched and ready to strike Seishirou at a moment's notice. Despite the wind touching her burns and making them hurt more, Maki sucks it up as she launches her attack!
[NAGASE]
Nagase's face is still bright red from the burning (and maybe a little from embarassment as well), and the blood is still dripping heavily from her wounds, but she is determined to make this stand. It would be so easy to let Genryuusai and Hayabusa handle this, she thinks -- but the thought itself is interrupted as she sees the practice dummies she was training with earlier come -flying up to her-.
"You stupid little traitors..." she grouses, springing away from her sanctum in the shadow of the oncoming rainstorm of steel and water. As the fiery dummies home towards the nimble bumblebee, she flits across the air, leaping across the undulating river of iron paper with her arms trailing behind her. Whenever a dummy veers close to her, she leaps at the surface and rapidly veers off in a different direction. Moving like the wind, she does not glance back -- resting confident that the simple intelligence embedded within the ninkou would not be able to calculate her new trajectory. She leads away from her companions...
And then suddenly reverses direction yet again, thrusting herself backwards against Seishirou. It'd be folly, sheer idiocy to do this blindly...
But the tech-ninja is not blind; her camera technology still obeys her call. And she aims for the spot she expects the ninkougakusha to be at, in mid-air, should he evade the spinning kick that has spelled doom for so many of Maki's opponents in previous battles -- herself included.
Should her shoulderblade connect with the Ghost, she wouldn't just stay put -- she would roll like a tire across his body until she reaches point behind him. Saddling backwards upon his back, she'd lock her ankles about his midsection, holding on tight despite the rotation imparted onto the Ghost.. And she would ram her metal-shrouded fists across his derriere with a tympanic tantrum with barely-restrained fury, holding on tightly despite the rotational velocity imparted onto him. At a good opportunity, she would then vault off his back, bring both fists down onto his backside with a riotous explosion of chi powerful enough to launch him into the nearest hard surface -- testing the limits of that helmet of his!
[RYU HAYABUSA]
Finally, Hayabusa's blade is beginning to have an effect on the weapon, although in the instant, it becomes quite obvious that having an effect and being in a safe position are not the same thing at all. With the iron paper brought into so many pieces, it has all the more opportunity to strike from every direction around him.
And it would seem that destroying the seals unleashes whatever power they had left inside of them.
As the unrestrained chi bursts free of its prison in an attempt to claim the Dragon Ninja, he pulls back, drawing the Dragon Sword up in front of him as he twists his body to the side to limit what of the potent energy can reach him, as Ryuken itself absorbs most of the blow quite harmlessly, leaving Hayabusa only faintly singed.
Even if the ninja can continue to cleave his way through the paper fortress, he'll find himself torn to pieces by the sheer extent of power that has been contained within the device. In an effort to buy himself some more room to breathe, the ninja takes a quick hop back, his left hand darting down to one of the kunai strapped to his thigh and sending it flying with a flick of the wrist to one of the more aggressive sheets.
COMBATSYS: Maki successfully hits Seishirou with Bushin Senpuu Kyaku.
MITSUGAMI
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1|--------------=|===============
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 0/-------/---====|
[ ||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|--=====
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/----===|=======\====---\1 Maki
COMBATSYS: Seishirou blocks Nagase's Hunting Peach.
MITSUGAMI
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1|--------------=|===============
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 0/-------/---====|
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Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|--=====
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/---====|=======\====---\1 Maki
COMBATSYS: Mitsugami blocks Ryu Hayabusa's Thrown Weapon.
MITSUGAMI
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1|--------------=|===============
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 0/-------/---====|
[ ||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|-======
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/---====|=======\====---\1 Maki
[SEISHIROU]
A minor setback.
Ryouhara gets beaten pretty savagely by the whirling kicks let loose by Maki, his distraction in directing at least six elements at once having a deleterious effect on his defensive ability. Stupid. He should have had a jutsu prepared... Even so, Maki's leg cuts into his middle, cracking at least a rib and scattering the inside of his visor with blood, sending the shinobi flying like a ragdoll square into the Iga kunoichi's back. Ryouhara is barely aware in the spinning vertigo what exactly is happening.. because he is busy.
It turns out he has a defense prepared.
It takes just one handseal.
As she slams and twists into him, attempting to lock legs around him, she will hear a pop and a hiss, a huge sheaf of paper unfurling from a crafted ornament hanging from the ends of his haori, hardening into that same ironlike surface that the Mitsugami is composed out of. The sight block of the jade-colored square is emblazoned with the seal of the Ryouhara, nd anchors in place in the air for a moment. Then it careens away, and the shinobi has vanished. She felt the attack hit him, but...
"Enough."
In the next instant, the white ghost is underneath her and rising. He tries to catch her by the neck, in a fiery comet of chakra, space twisting in the sheer speed in which the ghost moves. Hayabusa, with his expanded distance from the road, might notice that while the young man was being attacked, the paper road on which they fight is still, offering only the barest shift in reaction to being attacked, iron surfaces shifting at odd angles to deal with the kunai, snapping them away as if deflecting them off of a tower shield. And so it stays, until Ryouhara tries to bodyslam Nagase into it, forcing the road to curl around her in a crushing, searing embrace. The ninja master will be able to tell exactly how it responds to his actions. It must be reactive, somehow. Perhaps not always directly to its
....It must be reactive, somehow. Perhaps not always directly to its master's commands, but it is not in itself, intelligent. Or so the evidence would seem to lead.
COMBATSYS: Nagase fails to counter Shunshin Ghost from Seishirou with Punishment Mode Assault and is struck by Mitsugami - Shunshin-rei Shibari from Mitsugami and Seishirou.
MITSUGAMI
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0|---------------|--=============
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 0/-------/---====|
[ ||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|-======
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/---====|=======\====---\1 Maki
In the meantime, the remaining straw dummies stare in stunned silence as they smoulder, standing at the ready.
[MAKI]
Maki watches and waits for Seishirou to come after her. But he never does. Instead, he chooses to focus on the others in one way or another, leaving her alone for the moment it seems. Unfortunately, this may turn out to be his downfall, since Maki's summoned enough of her chi to be able to launch one of her most powerful attacks at Seishirou. She takes a deep breath and blows it out, before letting her chi glow within her body, powering her like nothing else. At least not that anyone else has seen during the fight.
With a yell, Maki launches at Seishirou, attempting to deliver a flurry of strikes and kicks, followed by a jumping kick, and then finishing by leaping up, grabbing him by the neck, and throwing him into the ground. It's amazing what all that chi can do to one blonde-haired kunoichi!
[NAGASE]
The rising heat. The intense surge of chi. The warning signs were all there -- and conspicuously -off- the radar of her advanced Battle Disc System, lost in a haze of similar other signs. Together with the obvious -- of -course- the ninkougakusha will be surging with chi.
She was counting on him not having the liberty to target his chi effectively, though. Her shoulder should have been enough to knock him off-course, taking full advantage of the height. But when she saddles up, she finds a rigid shell beneath her.
Crap.
Nagase shoves the shell downwards with her hands, simultaneously ramming her knees into the shell. It's a distraction, she knows full well that the ghostly ninja is quick enough to take advantage of her confusion -- so she moves away, her hands smashing together in a flustered panic.
In her rush to complete her translocation seal, she loses sight of the ninkougakusha. Her Battle Disc System is blaring warnings at her, but she can't abide the interruption...
The decision is taken from her as the Ghost catches her by the throat. Her already-red face grows pale as the grip tightens on her throat -- but she doesn't have the luxury of experiencing just -one- form of pain, as the fiery chakra tears through her form, setting her bright yellow dress ablaze. The Battle Disc System is knocked offline, the thin acrylic lenses cracking from the sheer force of the rapidly expanding shockwave.
Needless to say, she doesn't finish her translocation.
"Ltttt gggggggggrnh!" she growls, moving to slam her fists against her captor.
That's when it hits her.
The mitsugami closes around her like an oyster shell that also happens to be filled with napalm. She would scream -- but even if it were, her voice would be muffled from the construct sealing the kunoichi off from the outside world. As the iron paper closes around her, the only sign that Nagase is still kicking... is the fact that her legs are, in fact, still kicking.
Though, considering the gout of flames rushing upward alongside said legs, searing holes in her designer clothing to reveal the burnt skin beneath... it remains to be seen how -long- she will be doing so.
[RYU HAYABUSA]
Perhaps if he were fighting the opposition alone, repositioning to gain some safe ground would be a viable tactic, but again Hayabusa is reminded that the ninjas he is fighting with are not from his clan, nor the Mugen Tenshin that he has known as allies. All three are unused to each other's styles, and as Hayabusa moves to reset, Nagase is trapped in close, turning the full attention of both the machine and its maker on the young ninja.
Every one of them knew the risks involved in fighting someone who had made it their mission to crippled ninja, having done so with such effectiveness that almost nothing had been known about them up until this moment.
But Ryu Hayabusa is a Ninja Master, compared to mere students of their art. He owes it to his allies to offer every bit of assistance he can, to get them out of this in one piece if possible.
As Seishirou and his creation are both occupied with their assault on the e-Shinobi, the Dragon Ninja wheels back into the fight, kicking himself into the air as he comes in from above, the Ryuken clasped in his hands as he drops down at the weapon with a brutal chop, aiming to cleave the tendrils wrapped around his ally.
COMBATSYS: Maki successfully hits Seishirou with Bushin Gou Rai Ha.
MITSUGAMI
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0|---------------|--=============
[ \\\\\\ <
Seishirou 0/-------/-======|
[ |||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|-======
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0 Maki
COMBATSYS: Mitsugami blocks Ryu Hayabusa's Fierce Strike.
MITSUGAMI
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0|---------------|===============
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Seishirou 0/-------/-======|
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Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|-======
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0 Maki
Crouching over the smouldering wrappings, the faceless shinobi makes a single gestural, interlaced fingers with extended pinkies, focusing his chakra down into the paper. A single touch to the criss-crossed seals over the exquisite paperwork locks down the wrapped shinobi to the hips like a gift Daruma doll for the moment, and frees him up to deal with the other shinobi. He has to move quickly...
By the time Hayabusa arrives, the shinobi is in mid-air with Maki, exchanging blows. The master ninja may notice it as an old form of shinobi warfare--capturing or injuring one member of a team forces the others to distract themselves dealing with them. He will notice it from the way the ninkou reflexively wraps more pages around Nagase as he slices into it, protective seals flashing in defiance. If it were any other substance, the Ryuken would have made short work of the wrappings. Even now, the master blade lances through layer after layer. But there is something kin to the masterwork blade at play here. 'An understanding of geometry' is in effect, and every time he cuts into the shinobi-made miracle, it's never quite an exact hit. Never swift, never sure. Like cutting into setting glue.
The ninja legend may even realize that there are several of these types of 'capture' seals, not including the casket-types that anchor the seals. A sickening thought. While the ninkou may function as a distraction now, it certainly has a greater purpose. Does the faceless aggressor mean to live-capture the entire team? It seems as if the answer is written on the scrolls right in front of you..if one only knew how to read them.
Stars flood his vision.
The Bushin kunoichi's brutal attack chain cuts into the white ghost in mid-air, driving him back and causing whirls of blood to stain the young man's white haori as he unfurls in mid-air, a lotus in full bloom. It's a little hard to get a good grip on the shinobi's neck past his helmet, but even so, throwing him into the ground sends sprays of blood through the air. He slams into the ground, his body crumpling like a tin can. An instant after impact, the white of his haori flickers white, and shatters into eighty shards of paper, folded into shuriken. Careening towards Maki, these shuriken spin and arc past her, leaving contrails of heat chakra behind them. From the center of those contrails, the white ghost bursts out, haori flying in the wind, blade drawn and ready to cut through Maki.
But it's just an afterimage, a deadly reproduction of the real shinobi. Even the slightest touch from the image's vicious blade will leave a targetting mark on Maki... allowing each of the folded paper blades to turn in mid-air and home in on her from behind.
In the meantime, the actual Ryouhara cartwheels his arms, landing on the road of paper far above Nagase's anchoring point and Maki's skirmish. Only a few moments. Only ever a few moments to do what must be done. Three seconds til midnight. He slicks his blood across a set of seals, activating the emergency seals. A defensive technique. This time, the paper road shifts, carrying him away from the opposing shinobi. It allows him to recover, puts distance between them all, and lets him dismantle the chakra within the seals, preparing for his next offensive.
[NAGASE]
Suffocation is a real threat to those who find themselves abruptly entombed without warning. Moreso when the pulp-polymer substrate is surging and pulsing like a real, living creature, filling up every nook and cranny with minimal regard to the living human being within.
There are some bright spots to being anchored within reams of paper. Sure, there's the lack of breathable air -- but that also means a marked lack of oxygen, which happens to be a reagant for the fire which had claimed the extremities of the (un?)fashionable kunoichi's dress. In short: while tongues of flames continue to lick away at her leggings, the fire within the coffin was choked out.
Small comfort.
Nagase draws in what breath she can, her range of motion abbreviated by the intense pressure. Her arms buckle inward from the weight of the weight of the paper construct as it creaks and flexes under its master's command. It's a blessing in disguise -- for as her hands brush together, the Iga-ryu ninja realizes she has the space available to make a handseal. Her hands flicker into predetermined motions, redirecting the flow of her chi within and through the paper, heedless of the boundaries imposed upon her physical body.
A moment later, in brazen defiance of Euclidean geometry, a Nagase-sized gap is left behind in the paper. An instant after that, the vacuum left in the wake of Nagase's translocation reminds the paper road of its need for structural integrity. A shudder ripples its way through the road of paper, likely unnoticeable to anyone else.
Now airborne, the disoriented kunoichi definitely appreciates the regained freedom. The ancient ninjutsu technique had propelled her out of the tomb like a mortar round... A very un-aerodynamic mortar round that wobbles and flips about in midair once it's free. Nagase is barely able to right herself in time to land in a three-point stance upon the smooth valley rocks, her lungs rapidly filling with breath as she reacquaints herself with the results of the past few moments. She sees the Ghost through the cracked lens of her Battle Disc System eyeglasses: irritated, she verbally disarms the malfunctioning system before it can mislead her further.
After all, she has seen that the man who's sown so much destruction can, in fact, bleed.
A quick patdown of her leggings stills the flames; she's definitely not so -yellow- now, what with the flames having scorched most of the shiny fabric to a dull tan at best. The fire claimed part of the dress covering her midriff, leaving bare some of the thin armor plating beneath. The upper and lower hems of her dress are tattered, the burning having transformed some of the fabric to charcoal, but barring another close encounter with a sharp edge, her attire is intact enough to pass without undue scrutiny from the morality police.
As if considering that exact possibility, Nagase leaps to her left quickly, just in time for a rainshower of senbon to drive into the rock beside her. She maintains passive awareness of the steel rain, but her focus is still narrowed upon the as she narrows her eyes at the ninkougakusha. Nostrils flare as she draws in another lifegiving breath. With a stiffened upper lip, she vaults off the rock, a small circular seal forming at the ball of her toes.
Taking her allies into account, Nagase flickers forward. Still out of breath, she doesn't get fancy this time, focusing her chi into projecting herself forward yet again to clear the increased gap.
One moment, she's by the rocks.
The next moment, she's over top of Seishirou's head, an unsheathed katana slashing downward across his torso, live steel threatening to draw even more blood. The bespectacled kunoichi is no longer sassing -- she's deadly serious.
[RYU HAYABUSA]
While this fight is no simple task, at the least, Hayabusa has witnessed that his allies are competent. With the two of them focused on the Ghost, they seem to have managed to obtain the upperhand despite their injuries.
That leaves the Ghost's construct to the Dragon Ninja. For all that he has managed to accomplish with Ryuken, the Mitsugami has shown no sign of damage enough to remove it's potential from the fight. Still it moves with the ebb and flow of the Ghost's wishes, and no core to its potency has been discovered by any of Hayabusa's blows.
Perhaps the best strategy is simply to attack in all directions at once.
Ryuken, as a physical blades, has its limits in this restrained form. It's true potency is so great as to be a threat to the balance of the world, even in the hands of one who has trained body, mind, and soul to perfection in order to wield it in his duties.
The other option is Ninpo. Ancient techniques to manipulate chi into impossible deeds. The secrets that had made ninjas feared by those in power for generations. The very tool by which the Ghost must be controlling this creation.
With a clean motion, the Dragon Sword glides into its sheath as Hayabusa takes in a deep breath, placing a closed fist against an open palm while closing his eyes.
Focus.
Find the center.
Time itself feels as though it slows as the Master Ninja begins the process of unlocking the chi within him, borrowing his own potential in a drawn out process that, to the outside observer, lasts barely longer than it takes for his eyes to drift close.
And then they burst open as he launches into the air, hands already blazing through a series of intricate motions to complete the process. The air around him begins to buzz, trilling with excitement as the Ninpo bends reality to the shinobi's will.
As Hayabusa passes over the apparent midsection of the iron paper road, the air itself becomes his weapon. His allies safely out of reach, the wind begins to strike out as if it were an army of blades. Each blade strikes with relentless abandon, cleaving deep gouges in the ground nearby as they attempt to shred the mystic paper.
There is no care for precision, yet each gash strikes so clean as to threaten to tear the Mitsugami apart with each motion it makes.
COMBATSYS: Maki dodges Seishirou's Shunshin Mirage.
MITSUGAMI
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0|---------------|===============
[ \\\\\ <
Seishirou 1/-------/=======|
[ ||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|----===
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0 Maki
[MAKI]
A clever trick that's aimed for Maki, but not good enough. For even though she's taken her share of beatings throughout the fight and mistimed her defenses, THIS time she's not so bumbling! Instead of being hit and knocked down, Maki cleverly estimates the timing of the incoming projectile, and at the last minute ducks down and rolls out of the way, landing in a crouched position. "Ooops, looks like you missed me!" Maki says with a sly, sarcastic smirk. "Too bad, that could've worked quite well for you!" The smirk then disappears. "Although I doubt by this time, there's anything left for you to do to save your skin!"
Maki lifts her shoe up to wipe snow off the sole of it with her tonfa before using a nearby rock to wipe the rest off, then sighs as she feels several burns acting up again. "Honestly, I highly doubt you stand a chance against us! But since you won't give up, we're going to have to make you give up!" Maki spins around twice before bringing up her tonfa to strike to strike Seishirou in the side with it.
COMBATSYS: Mitsugami successfully aids Seishirou with Hyourengawa.
MITSUGAMI
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1|--------------=|===============
[ \\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 1/-------/=======|
[ ||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|----===
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0 Maki
COMBATSYS: Mitsugami blocks Maki's Medium Strike.
MITSUGAMI
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1|--------------=|===============
[ \\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 1/-------/=======|
[ ||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|----===
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0 Maki
COMBATSYS: Nagase successfully hits Mitsugami with Tricky Rounder.
-+- CALCULATED HIT -+-
MITSUGAMI
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1|-------------==|===============
[ \\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 1/-------/=======|
[ ||||||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|----===
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/--=====|-------\-------\0 Maki
COMBATSYS: Mitsugami endures Ryu Hayabusa's Art of the Wind Blades.
MITSUGAMI
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1|---------======|===============
[ \\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 1/-------/=======|
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Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|----===
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/--=====|-------\-------\0 Maki
[SEISHIROU]
"Simpleminded jutsu," the shinobi hisses, the respirator clicking. As near as he can tell through periphery observation, the effort from the legendary shinobi shaved off just enough layers that the capture ninkou wasn't complete. That allowed the Iga enough room to escape, though even someone from the Ryouhara clan would need more direct observation to determine exactly how. Palms flat across the seal he enjoins, the nameless shinobi recovers the stored chakra within the seal. It wasn't much--not useful for prolonged use, but enough to continue his plan.
However, he was not just sitting idle waiting for his enemies to surround and attack him. As Maki attempts to club him and Nagase slips in to slice him in half, he slowly rotates his palms on the flat of the paper he stands on, his right clockwise and his left counter. Pressing hard into the paper until it gives for him and him alone, he gives a brief bark of effort, distended by the mechanized respirator built in his bloodstained, damaged helmet. As if the space itself lengthens between his attackers, the paper road stretches far away from his assailants, a great warp in the road knocking away both club and sword as if a tree branch lost to a giant paper river.
"You speak as if you know the future," the white ghost observes of Maki, the sleeves of his haori hanging loose at his side. "In fact, you speak as if you know anything at all. Don't misunderstand your thin simpleton success as reason enough to open your mouth in the court of history. You have miles and years ahead of you before you earn that right."
"As a shinobi, you're simply second rate."
Turning away from the two kunoichi, the white ghost's attention is drawn by a stray gust of wind that catches the tails of his haori, bringing keen focus to the swirling whirlwind at the center of his paper road. While watching it, Hayabusa can notice that the construct does not actually have a noticeable central weakpoint, no center to strike to unravel the whole affair. It is a construct of time, labor and genius, through which no shortcuts were taken. Even so, the paper road begins to shred across its lengths. And what Hayabusa might actually notice amongst the howling winds that confirms that thought is that the only places taking any noticeable damage are the areas where previous protective jutsus were used. The important fact is this: the ninkou, no matter how seemingly endless and impervious, has a finite number of seals inscribed on it.
"It seems," the ghost considers thoughtfully, "that I will need to make use of 'it' sooner than expected."
"I've toyed around long enough."
The voices do not come from the same source. As the Mitsugami twists and unravels against the wind burst techniques, a seal flares. And in perfect accordance with this, a projection of the shinobi flickers into view, attempting to plunge a sword into the middle of Hayabusa's back. The attack comes quick and brutal, potentially inflicting crippling damage. Only fast eyes would be able to notice that the projection is just a distraction, trying to force Hayabusa to fall still near the projection's origin on the paper, a circle that now strangles movement in the feet. It's not even a second's worth of impediment for a master shinobi.
But even a second is like an aeon to the white ghost, who strikes in eyeblinks. He closes the distance between himself and Hayabusa as if there were no intermediary space, and executes a single nagi-harai with a simple wood pole, no longer than Maki's tonfa. But the pole is marked up and down its length with seals, and serves as the focal point for a 'shiver' in the air, a displacement in which the air is superheated to an incredible degree, until even steel is like air. Using the chakra he siphoned from Mitsugami, he executes only one stroke, right down Hayabusa's centerline. One stroke from the ideological 'formless' prototype ninkou intended to bring a swift end to legends.
One stroke, and then a great wave of rending fire cuts through the cliffs of Manji, bringing flaming ice careening down into the valley, following the arc of the ghost's single stroke.
COMBATSYS: Mitsugami successfully hits Ryu Hayabusa with Senridou Assassination.
MITSUGAMI
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0|---------------|------------===
[ \\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 0/-------/-------|
[ |||||||||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|--=====
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/--=====|-------\-------\0 Maki
COMBATSYS: Seishirou successfully hits Ryu Hayabusa with Howling Aria of the Ryouhara.
- Power hit! -
MITSUGAMI
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0|---------------|------------===
[ \\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 0/-------/-------|
[ |||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 1|-------|=======
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/--=====|-------\-------\0 Maki
[RYU HAYABUSA]
A vital aspect of Ninjutsu is understanding the flow of danger around you and being able to account for it. For the young ninja this is accomplished by reading body language and studying how most behave in a battle.
For the Master, it is possible to feel the flow of chi itself.
Outside of the body, Chi is a simple part of nature that reacts according to the natural order. Inside the body, it flows as life force, acting in much the same way for almost every living person. Through the mastery of the body, a martial artist can control the flow of the chi within their own body, and through mastering that art they can use their chi to change the natural chi of the world outside.
In a battle such as this, a great deal of chi begins to flow. Like tea leaves in a blender, even the most talented fortune teller would struggle to gain a complete understanding, and it's such that while Hayabusa can feel the surge of chi, both that being released from the Ghost and his infernal creation.
Directed toward the Dragon Ninja himself.
With mere instants to react, and the Dragon Sword still sheathed on his back, Hayabusa is only given enough time to pull forth a last vestige of the summoned chi, drawing his arms in upon himself and sending a surge of power to his muscles. In this moment he is as much iron as the paper road.
With little time left to react, the Master Ninja strikes decisively as his attacker aims to ambush him, lashing out with the back of his hand as he twists about to face his foe and knock aside the blade before it hits his mark.
...but Hayabusa acted in haste, the assailant an illusion of potent distruction. With no body to the blade itself, it twists about the Dragon Ninja's fingers and finds clear purchase in his side. It is only through virtue of his momentary protection that it does not bury deep enough for lethal harm.
And yet it still succeeds at its true task, pinning the famed ninja in place as the true Ghost takes advantage of the injured and distracted Hayabusa. A weapon of lethal intent, perfectly positioned to land the killing blow, even as Ryu struggles in an effort to hold back this new threat to no avail.
It is a pain that Hayabusa has not felt since the day his village was assault, the Dark Dragon Sword taken by a Greater Fiend and used to nearly cleave the Dragon Ninja in two. Left for dead from a mortal blow.
And just like that day, Hayabusa does not truly fall.
Surviving the vital attempt to end him, Hayabusa is fully aware for the true location of the white ghost, his eyes locking on to his target as all thought of pain is banished from his mind. The drive that has withstood inevitable defeat and dragged victory from it's grasp strikes as one.
Suddenly surging toward the Ryouharu shinobi, Hayabusa lashes out with a single brutal blow, with force enough to send the ghost rocketing into the sky. In an instant, the Dragon Ninja vanishes from the ground, appearing just above the peak in Seishirou's arc, lashing out to catch him about the waist and putting the two of them into a crashing death spiral, careening down with no respite.
The two fall, aimed not at the iron paper road, but the now bare any rocky floor of the valley itself, the blanket of snow pulled away by the ghost's own heat wave.
As the two reach the ground, the full impact is imparted into the ghost as Hayabusa himself slips away at the final instant.
[NAGASE]
The sharpness of a katana is proven by the number of bodies through which it can cut. Nagase's ninjato may be a smaller, straighter cousin of the katana, but suffice to say, it was meant to cut through a lot more than paper. With the tributary of paper rippling up to absorb the slice from her ninjato, Nagase wisely decides to slacken her grip on the weapon to keep it from snapping her armored wrist in two like a dry twig. As its owner draws up her feet for an escape, the blade returns to its home in the scabbard hanging upon Nagase's back. Lucky for her, the scabbard was attached not to the silken yellow fabric of her dress -- currently a scorched mess riddled with tattered holes -- but to the camisole-like layer of red composite armor beneath. Each motion stretches and tears the already-beleagured leggings and sleeves; formerly black and grey, the thinning fabric reveals traces of the enameled yellow armor segments beneath.
The flame-haired kunoichi squints back at the words of her blonde teammate. She had a front-row seat to the windstorm of origami shuriken that had threatened to skewer her alive -- 'would have worked quite well' is an understatement worth smirking at. And Nagase certainly does so while springing backwards to a fair distance, trying to recap exactly -what- made the paper appear in such a fashion. An illusion, or an intricate prefabrication...
She notices the great number of seals along the length of the Mitsugami, but without actually knowing the -full- nature of the ninkougakujutsu seals, she opts against disabling the measures individually. Given the explosions, that could cause to a literal backfire that would threaten to entomb the sprightly shinobi once again. No thank you!
The bespectacled kunoichi's attention is demanded upward with a loud report; with a frown, she notes the avalanche that verges on flooding the valley whole.
As the haunting melody of ice and fire begins to crash down, something else occurs to Nagase. Her confidence in her ninjutsu skills flagging in the face of such overwhelming evidence, she nonetheless made the connection between the motions of the Mitsugami and the now-inert practice dummies. The engineer and his machines can attack multiple targets, she realizes -- but the -serious- attacks appear to demand the full cooperation of both man and machine.
In her estimation, the White Ghost is an elaborate puppeteer -- a deft artisan able to interweave chi and technology. And yet, for that technology to serve its purpose it must rely on an elaborate network of chi-powered signals, allowing the wielder an unprecedented level of control. As she can figure it, this flexibility comes with a significant drawback: the need for active guidance.
The Iga-ryu ninja leaps towards the nearest rock face, inverting in mid-air so that she can slam the sole of one boot against it. She left a few surprises of her own in this would-be training ground, after all, and this shaped charge is one of them, triggered by a small code word from the flame-haired ninja.
The resultant detonation from the rock face isn't a powerful one -- it was meant only as a distraction, after all. But it is nonetheless powerful enough to propel the slim kunoichi forward at a high rate of speed, as she curls her fist by her hip.
As her body skates across the paper surface, she sweeps her palm across its length, unleashing a blossom of bright orange flame. Steel may only nick the paper, but her potent Iga-ryu fire may be able to wreak debilitating havoc. She only slides past the automaton, her palm propagating the flames in a lateral stripe across the length of the road. The purpose is not to disarm any of the existing seals, but rather to make them more difficult to use by severing the Mitsugami into two. It's not questioned that the paper remains just as potent, but may, she feel, divide the automaton into a more conquerable challenge.
[MAKI]
Maki looks as the avalanche and falling snow come down towards her and the others, disregarding for now the fact that Seishirou's weapon seemed to absorb her attack instead of Seishirou being hit by it. "Oh shit," Maki curses loudly, trying to figure out what direction to move in to avoid being caught in the snow. "Of all the times!" She shakes her head and begins to survey the area again, before shifting quickly and beginning to use her agility to try to avoid being caught in the falling snow. "I should've brought a Saint Bernard with me!" Maki comments to herself, albeit sarcastically.
As Maki continues to move, she glances towards Seishirou and smirks a little. "This gives me an idea!" She leaps into the air and, as she falls towards the ground, away from the avalanche, she brings up her tonfa in an attempt to strike at Seishirou before landing and rolling away. At least that's what her intention is, assuming all goes to plan.
COMBATSYS: Mitsugami just-defends Nagase's Fierce Punch!!
MITSUGAMI
[ ||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
0|---------------|------------===
[ \\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 0/-------/-------|
[ |||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|-------
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0 Maki
COMBATSYS: Seishirou dodges Maki's Weapon Jab.
MITSUGAMI
[ ||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
0|---------------|------------===
[ \\\\\\\\\ <
Seishirou 0/-------/-------|
[ |||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|-------
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0 Maki
COMBATSYS: Ryu Hayabusa successfully hits Seishirou with Izuna Otoshi.
MITSUGAMI
[ ||||||||||||||||||||||||| ]
0|---------------|------------===
[ <
Seishirou 0/-------/-------|
[ |||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|-------
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0 Maki
[SEISHIROU]
"An admirable defense. If you hadn't changed the position of your chakra at the last moment...."
The shinobi lowers the hellish blade, the chakra bleeding off of the disconnected blade in great waves, dissipating with the last of the marshalled energy the shinobi was able to recover. Faceless, he was able to determine the extra layer in Hayabusa's defense not by any particular sensory astuteness he has, but in the way the distortion of his ninkou changed when it struck him. Even so, he won't be able to use it again until he can charge it.
And furthermore, he has little time to finish his thought. The attackers still mount their assault.
Maki's thrust leaves little to the imagination, and to that end, he steps to one side easily, the affair of an instant. "Your situational awareness is next to nothing," he surmises openly of the Bushin. "A frontal assault is your idea? You're an insult to my ninkougakujutsu. As a result, I will eliminate you."
He's convinced Maki's attention deficit will be the end of her. And he's attempting to prove it now--because the shinobi has already replaced himself with a suicidal duplicate, while he busies himself with other matters. That Seishirou lifts one hand in response. If it even has a moment to lay purchase on Maki's tonfa, the shinobi-copy will explode violently, attempting to throwing her into the pyre surrounding the Mitsugami ninkou, whose burning surface rushes up to meet the Bushin kunoichi with sickening speed.
The pyre? That seems to be what's going on. As Nagase moves to cut the paper road in half to disrupt all of its seals, she will find the line of Iga fire she uses much less amenable to cutting the road. Instead, trails of repulsion seals activate along its length, forcing the road to raise and spin as the kunoichi flies across it. Flames burst into being all around it, making the dash perilous, flames licking at her heels. All around Nagase, her Iga fire sets off a bloom--only it is Ryouhara fire that blooms, not Iga.
Against the Mgen Tenshin, Ryouhara seems to have much less tactical superiority. In a way, he expected Hayabusa to recover--just his calculations were a millisecond or two shy of meeting the real Hayabusa's capacity. The famed ninja recovers from his reaping, and then comes for the faceless ninja, and in an instant, the shinobi finds himself in a vertiginous spiral that drives him, helmet-first, into the ground, a sound like a thundercrack filling the valley.
The last thing Ryouhara hears is a voice, faraway.
'Is this the limit of your ability?'
The helmet surrounding his head is as much a protective ninkou as it is a mask. But even it has its limits, and when Ryouhara stands to rise in the depths of the crater surrounding him, his stance is quavering, weak. Easily the most damage he's sustained throughout the battle. "....looks like," he breathes, "I'll have to bring stronger preparations to defeat you lot," he labors, drawing out a small scroll from his haori, unsealing it. The window to capture him is closing just as fast as the window to his consciousness wanes.
"We'll have to continue our battle later..."
COMBATSYS: Seishirou has reached second wind!
MITSUGAMI
[ ||||||||||||||||||||| ]
0|---------------|-----------====
[ \\\\\\ <
Seishirou 0/-------/-------|
[ |||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|-------
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0 Maki
COMBATSYS: Seishirou successfully hits Maki with Bunshin Suicide.
* Attack Of Opportunity! *
COMBATSYS: Maki blocks Mitsugami's Katon Matsuri.
MITSUGAMI
[ ||||||||||||||||||||| ]
0|---------------|-----------====
[ \\\\\\ <
Seishirou 0/-------/-------|
[ |||||||||| ]
Ryu Hayabusa 0|-------|-------
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////////// ]
Nagase 0/-------/---====|====---\-------\0 Maki
[MAKI]
There's too much coming at once for Maki to comprehend. She tries to defend herself but ends up only partially successful. The attacks land, although not without some effort from Maki to protect herself. Nevertheless, the attacks cause her to drop to one knee and then the other. She gasps for air as she tries to keep herself from passing out, and then, in a burst of light literally, Maki finds the energy to keep herself from going down! She gets back up, albeit with wobbly knees since her body and mind aren't exactly agreeing with one another. She looks around and makes sure the coast is clear before she takes off running.
[NAGASE]
Nagase hears explosions. She hears a rain of steel thundering down. She hears half a mountain's worth of snow, slush, and fire rushing down into the valley with the intent to flood it utterly.
But she has her hands full as it is. As soon as her first burst of flame blossomed outward, she saw the unfamiliar seal blaze into existence beneath it. She may not have had time to read and precisely analyze the seal, but she instinctively and reflexively knows exactly what it is.
It's fighting back, is what it is. If it weren't for her precise -fear- that this would happen, and the constant forward velocity she'd employed to counteract it, the sprightly Iga-ryu kunoichi might have been caught in the blast. As it happens, though, she pulls her hand back even as the gout of flame rushes outwards, threatening to burn her fingers up even though their protective armor. Panic contorts her face into a rictus mask of fear as she withdraws her hand, the soles of her boots finally forced to make contact with the surface of the Mitsugami. Driven by her paranoia towards the crafted wards, she expertly manipulates the flow of chi around her feet, lightening her weight to that of a feather so as not to inadvertently trigger the other carefully-laid traps.
Five feather-light steps later is all it takes to regain equilibrium.
Nagase risks one full-weight impact, vaulting high into the sky. Her lightweight form is silhouetted by the hauntingly beautiful conflagration that erupts behind her, a deadly orchestra of oranges and reds roiling about in search of its target.
The silhouette's hands are no longer seen, as the crafty kunoichi takes advantage of her hard-fought breathing room. As the fire rushes ever closer, the ninjette queries her next-generation surveillance suite. She ascertains the location of the headstrong Bushin-ryu, Maki. She obtains the location of the Mugen Tenshin. But most importantly, she uncovers a wealth of information in the process.
One of the ghostly mirages is a fake.
And one is not.
Nagase winks out of view, leaving behind a pale shadow of herself.
And a heartbeat later, she appears above the crater. A wink is spared to her team leader, the Super Ninja himself, as her positionally-shifted momentum is transferred laterally without a break: gravity will pull her to the ground just as much here as it would have had she been caught in the explosion some dozens of yards away.
Gravity, and her own fiery might, will pull her red-hilted ninjato blade downward onto the White Ghost's shoulder.
"I'm not a fan of unfinished business!"
Fire wreaths her blade as she aims to put an end to whatever plan the ninkougakusha has awaiting.
[RYU HAYABUSA]
Having finally separated the White Ghost from his construct, Ryu Hayabusa rises slowly from his position on the ground just outside of the crater. After everything that this battle has put him through, his body is on the edge of surrender, held together by years of rigorous training and sheer, honed will. Pain and weariness are no match for determination.
Not when the goal is so close at hand.
Compared to his previous speed, the way that the Dragon Ninja works his way up to the edge of the crater to see the results of his assault could be considered almost glacial.
A faint jog in the face of an airplane.
Perhaps if he'd been more hasty in his motion, he would have made it to the ridge before the Ghost had drawn out his last ditch effort. He might have even been in position before the young techno-shinobi had launched herself into action.
Instead, for this moment, the only option available to the Dragon Ninja is to react, quickly. With Nagase taking the lead, he is at least given the opportunity of a distraction to work with, leaping into the air as his hands move to his thighs, catching the hoops at the end of each kunai's handle on his finger tips as he sends a flurry of the blades at Seishirou with remarkable precision.
Some of the kunai seem to hold no intention of striking their target unless it dares to get out of the way, but the core of them strike for crucial targets along the Ghost's limbs, with one of the throwing weapons aimed to pierce clean through the center of the scroll in his hands.
COMBATSYS: Seishirou dodges Ryu Hayabusa's Four Rings.
COMBATSYS: Nagase successfully hits Seishirou with Tricky Rounder.
[SEISHIROU]
At this point, it seems that the ghost shinobi may, for all of the punishment he's absorbed, actually be more ghost than man. Truthfully, for all of the weapons and clothes he wears, there's not really much to him physically. So to think that he could withstand a full on blow from one of the gods of shinobi.... is that really a human thing to do?
The ghost presses onward. Nagase does not trigger any preparations in the length of the paper road she steps, perhaps because of her own countertechniques, or perhaps because the shinobi simply does not notice. Either way, when she takes to the sky, the faceless one notices that there is no confusion, no hesitation in either the flame haired kunoichi or the god ninja's response. The Bushin left to deal with the conflagration triggered by Nagase for the moment, Ryouhara is left precious few options with which to respond.
He is cut into by Nagase, a bright red spray of blood and fire in turn cutting between them. Her deadly Iga fire seems hotter for just a moment. For one instant, her analytical systems are blinded by the unintentional ferocity of her own attack. In an instant, she will understand--Ryouhara tampered with her flame somehow, made it hotter, made it worse. And then he disappeared.
To that end, the Ryouhara that is riddled with deadly kunai rips away from Nagase's blade, wild movements getting battered to bits by the weight of the throwing daggers, only barely avoiding being disarmed long enough to throw the scroll wide, the length of it unfurling a full 360 degrees around him (and because of proximity, Nagase) and linking with its tail end, forming a floating shinobi hoop. It's strange though. Even though the elaborate sealwork looks like a control rubric, Ryouhara makes no pains to activate any of the seals. That is because several are already active.
Because the real ghost is already gone.
In the end, it takes only one seal, one signature technique perfected by the Ryouhara clan, placed in a specific cross-section of the paper road's sealing network. In the end, all it takes is one technique, one somatic command to completely dismantle everything.
One technique to cut the Mitsugami into fragments. One command to reveal that the knife-riddled ghost was just one of the straw dummies in disguise, limply attempting to cuddle Nagase. One command to disappear. One command to force everything touched by the ninkougakusha to fall to pieces in a matrix of white lines, as if diced a long time ago and just now realizing.
One jutsu to fill the valley with a thousand exploding notes.
COMBATSYS: Ryu Hayabusa blocks Mitsugami's Kibakuzai Rain.
[RYU HAYABUSA]
He hadn't seen it coming. Not quickly enough, at least.
The Dragon Ninja's perception is legendary, having achieved near the pinnacle of the ninja arts, and yet the White Ghost took perfect advantage of the confusion and chaos to deceive him. As Nagase is suddenly pulled into the trap, and the mighty weapon is torn into thousands of deadly pieces, there is so very little time to respond with the valley turning into a complete kill zone.
And Hayabusa's failure to see the truth of this battlefield may well end up getting his allies killed.
Now surging with every store of energy he can muster, the Master Ninja springs into action without hesitation or apparent concern for himself. Barreling down on Nagase, he draws the Dragon Sword and cleaves it down through the wrappings trapping the younger ninja in place, dropping with such complete precision that a hair's breadth in the wrong direction would have given an uncomfortable shave to the stylish young woman.
In another burst of energy, Hayabusa wraps his left arm around the girl, holding her tight as he leaps toward his other ally, sheathing Ryuken moments before he reaches her, freeing his right arm to catching the blonde shinobi out of the air and carry her with him as he flies toward the only cover that might offer any protection; one of the largest boulders still remaining in the valley.
As he crashing through the air, explosions and debris nip at his heels, tearing open exposed skin, shredding even through parts of his armor. And yet throughout the violence, there is no cry of pain, no shrieking or shouting as every bit of his mind and body act as one to ensure his allies reach safety.
All of it goes by in a matter of seconds.
The heat of explosions is noticable even beneath the Dragon Ninja's body as he craddles the two shinobi while he suffers in the destruction.
And then the initial wave passes.
And yet Hayabusa does not move from his postion over his charges. Despite the intensity in his eyes, the blood that oozes down his back shows the price that he's paid. Certainly he could recover in time.
But as the mountain's assault nears the center of the valley as one final wave of revenge, time is a luxury that Hayabusa does not have.
[NAGASE]
Time -was- a luxury that Nagase had, prior to inviting Maki Genryuusai and Ryu Hayabusa out to play. In addition to copious notes passed down from a predecessor, the Iga-ryu kunoichi had made her own meticulous surveys of the surrounding rock faces. The many crags and holes within the rock faces of the valley had long avoided the destructive kiss that had sanded down the edges below, affording a number of blind corners within which to secret away her low-tech gunpowder explosives. Each explosive was not meant to injure -- that high up, it would be hard to injure much anyone. But they were meant to distract.
They have served limited use in this confrontation, naturally. But her surveys came with an additional benefit.
The thought is hardly in the young shinobi's mind though, as yet again her attempt at striking down the White Ghost and sealing the dark chapter in her life is met with frustration. And fire. Oh, so much fire. Yet -again- her flames only beget more flames, as the kunoichi shrieks out in agony. Her metal blade is superheated instantly, a searing pain that she can feel even moreso the heat metal gauntlets, tempered only slightly by the cloth linings within. She flinches, and starts to withdraw -- when she is unfortunately when she realizes that the 'White Ghost' she had attacked actually goes by the name Sackboy and he gives great hugs, the best hugs. The -hottest- hugs.
She screams again, this time when her would-be escape is cut short by the scroll rapidly encircling her.
For several agonizing breaths, Nagase experiences something that very few her age would.
Fear of an inevitable death. Constricted thusly, she can't even maneuver about to use her handseals. The roar of the flames and white noise from the avalanche is too much for her Battle Disc System's audio processor to recognize any verbal commands.
Her entire time planning this gambit, and willfully misleading her companions into aiding and abetting her in its execution, amounted to a grand total of =nil= if the White Ghost were to escape.
Nagase would ignite with rage, if that wouldn't actually hurt her further.
Instead, she convulses. Because she's never had to zig and zag so many times in such quick succession before. Why did she even do this, she questions herself...
And then, when she's already committed to the inevitable...
It stops. And her arms are free for an instant, only for the strong arm of a man not far from her own age to curl about her.
Is it... the White Ghost? It's hard to tell.
Wait, no, it can't be. That'd just be crazy.
The next thing she knows, she's curling down, bracing for impact beside Maki. Her muscles moved all by themselves -- an instinctive response to suddenly being placed in a new location. Her face is streamed with tears -- apparently that happened all by itself as well, without her calling them forth.
The wave passes. And even as harried as she is, she can tell -- it wasn't through her own skill.
Fingers wiggle. Her damaged Battle Disc System responds, within her ear.
"We need to get to high ground!" she shouts, extending two fingers to point upwards. "There's an outcropping up there..."
But her voice is tentative. Nervous. As talented as the Iga-ryu ninja is, there are limits to her ability. She looks up at the peak. It's... awfully high. And as much paper as she's been crushed by...
"I've got an idea," she says, pointing to a completely -different- point on the wall, a small lateral distance away from the objective, but about halfway up the sheer rock face.
She slips her arms about her two companions. "Just hold on tight. And jump towards that point, on the count of three."
One.
Two.
Three. With the combined strength of each, Nagase is able to guide the team in vaulting to the rock face. And once there, a slight course adjustment is made.
Nagase's reinforced boots hit the rock face, and with a sudden detonation, the trio flies upwards in an altogether different trajectory.
Moments later, the trio is at their destination -- and at roughly the same time, the valley beneath them is buried in a white void. In under a minute, the rushing avalanche will have completely effaced all their tracks -- any evidence that a fight had even taken place.
And Nagase's strength ebbs, the diminutive kunoichi exhaling a stressed groan as she sinks to the rocky ledge, exhausted.
Next time.
[MAKI]
Despite her unsteady legs and her uneven pace, Maki finally makes her escape and it's not until she's a safe distance away that she finally collapses with a sigh. "I can't believe that happened," She says to herself. "That had to be the biggest test of my ninja skills that I've ever had to put up with..." She pushes herself up with her tonfa and starts to limp away, the burns on her body acting up again while her legs still wobble. "But still, the one who attacked us... they're not behind the disappearances, are they really?" She shakes her head then stops. "What if it IS true?" She grits her teeth and narrows her eyes. "No, I can't let myself focus on that right now. I have to get away, find the others, and recover..." She starts on her way again, putting the injuries she's sustained out of her mind.
As she gets closer to a safer spot to rest at, Maki smiles a little. "At least I learned that the best allies can come when you least expect it. Perhaps again we'll meet... under more desirable circumstances?" She smiles a little more. "Maybe chat over some tapioca?" Now Maki chuckles a little at this. "But for now, time to get these wounds tended to..."
COMBATSYS: Mitsugami barely endures Seishirou's Ryuuouin.
[SEISHIROU]
The Ryouhara clan is known to be remarkably thurough.
By the time the dismantling seal completes, raining destructive paper down from the sky, there's very little left for analysis--the explosives were, while an amiable measure to keep the opposing team busy long enough that an escape could be mounted, also had the secondary purpose of making sure there wasn't enough left of the paper road to everse engineer the ninjutsu involved in creating it.
One final remaining straw dummy on the ground lifts head, insensate to its targets but orienting on the chakra blooming above it automatically. It even does this as the senbon in the center of its head burns out, catching the straw on fire. It slowly goes limp, and then its buried.
As explosions tear through the valley, Nagase's own charges bury the field in snow, dumping and mixing with the prior detonations to leave nothing but pure white. Pure white, and the crushing silence endemic to sudden, merciless peace. Only the acrid scent of smoke remains.
Log created on 19:58:22 06/15/2016 by Nagase, and last modified on 23:16:37 06/25/2016.