Match of the Millennium

Description: "Finally, the budget committee has come to their unenviably tragic senses. An excellent and gruesomely imagined German dissertation on the art, beauty and danger of 18th-century parfumery taken to its most evil and logical conclusion. Interestingly, the original story by Suskind was rumored to not actually be a fiction, and that the existence of certain scents and aromas capable of controlling the minds of those who scent it actually do exist. It just so happens that I know of a few items in Professional Fighting Worldwide's collections that would fit neatly in just such a wheelhouse, perfect as the focus for a battle in a French perfume shop. We can bill it as the actual real scent that Jean-Baptiste created. What do you mean that people will pay money to see such a thing stolen? Please, don't disengage me from my moment of cinematic triumph with pointless trivialities. Listen--hire the most dangerous looking fighter on the card to be a guard if you want to middle about risk!! Don't insult Hoffman's artistry!"

[AZUMI]
This is a stupid job. This is a stupid job, given to her by stupid people, regarding a subject her recent transformation made all but the most friggen intolerable. Perfumes, to those with a strong sense in the olfactory, was one of the worst items in existence. A liquid specifically designed to smell good to humans by combing various chemicals, aromas and whatever the crap else they could come up with. And for Azumi, this crap was UNBEARABLE. It was like a pair of diamond tipped jackhammers blasting away at her nose at all times.

The night has grown long in France and despite the werewolf's wishes, it is perfectly clear with very few clouds obscuring the brilliance of the moon. It's the realm of the night owls now, with just about anyone and everyone with a job to do in the morning having long since passed out. The job was simple. Azumi was to sneak into a shop called My Precious, search the safe and abscond with the potent vial to a drop off point all the way across the city. Seemed easy enough, even if lock picking was more of a job for a Thief more than a Ninja.

The shop in question is a small own in the heart of Paris, a place that looks like it's been there since the city was founded. It was sandwiched in between many other stores on the same road, each one apart of the same building and designed to have a large glass front to both advertise and to be inviting to customers. Azumi's on the roof of this place and after double checking that this tiny air vent indeed belonged to the perfume shop, she brings out thick pin to hem her nose shut and dives in. It takes a few minutes of very, very, very careful climbing through the vent, but she eventually comes out on the top floor inside of the building, her form just lithe enough to snake in there. The owner of the shop lived here, a fairly petite man with blonde hair. He was passed out in the room adjacent to the one Azumi carefully lowered herself down into.

Utilizing her stealth, Azumi steps lightly through the small apartment, heading from the hallway and stopping just before she left the place all together. According to the mission, the shop had no electronic security and the safe was not a tumble combination but rather a lock and key variety. After listening to the placid snores of the shop owner to ensure that he heard nothing, Azumi makes her way down to the shop, a fancy looking place with plenty of iron leaves and tiny frilly things meant to coerce the feminine into spending money. However, as soon as she stepped into the place, the poor werewolf's eyes begin to water.

So many effing terrible scents, all stockpiled into one place and all burning their way through the pin in her nose with amazing accuracy. The ninja steels herself and hops over the counter, careful not to disturb any of the glass vials in the process. Upon coming on the safe underneath the counter, Azumi unsheathes the claw on her pointer finger and gnaws on it for a moment to file it down to a razor thin point. She then shoves that into the keyhole and starts the process of lockpicking. It'd been awhile since the last time she was required to do this and she had the bonus benefit of not needing to worry about broken lockpicks anymore. She presses her head against the small safe, her ears hearing every click of every minute gear of the lock.

With a minute or two of effort the safe pops open and the ninja looks inside, finding the vial, gems and plenty of cash. Taking only the vial of rancid purple perfume, she stores it inside of her hoodie and closes the safe back and prepares to make her escape. If nothing stupid happened now, this would be over in a flash and she'd be out of this house of olfactory pain.

[RUST]
Azumi, human or otherwise, is a professional in her craft. A mere perfume store and just about any mundane means in which to deter, detect, or destroy those who follow the way of the ninja could not stop her. The counter could not count on stopping the count of one vial of putrid purple perfume from falling to zero. It's clockwork. Go in, go out, leave no trace until it's too late.
Azumi won't find it a challenge to take it or store it in her hoodie. The only odd thing about the entire picture is... how much it weighs. A vial shouldn't be... this heavy? When she closes the safe, it doesn't quite get all the way closed. Owing to its impeccable upkeep by a store owner who at least has complete faith in this safety mechanism, the hinges do not squeak nor squeal. More subtler sounds start to hit the ears.
They're not the light sound of mice, or insects scurrying across the floors. Cash hits the floor.
Something that'd show up in the corner of her eye, as light glints off of gems that turn, tumble, and now start to litter the ground. Should her eyes start to follow, there is one long strain of thin, shimmering light within what illumination the storefront allows. If she keeps moving, the sense of added weight just grows... more cumbersome. That vial is not carrying super-dense material. What's--
"Ow." A silence is broken.
If Azumi looks back towards the safe, she can see a certain man of overweight build lying sprawled on the floor, pointing a finger at her? Is she caught?! When did he--
"Didn't think that would work with," he murmurs as if holding back chuckling as he flexes the pointing finger - it's now clear.
This guy, whoever he is, appeared to have tied the vial to a length of string, terminating around his (gloved? It seems gloved) finger on the other end, and now Azumi was poised to drag him out.
"Oh!" He waves his free hand. "I remember you. Yep. How've you been?" He speaks far too casually for the situation, as if blissfully unaware that he is now at the heart of a stupid thing that just happened. He sounds an awful lot like...
That idiot back in Majigen, on the bridge....

[AZUMI]
Azumi is not amused. She's the furthest from amused she could possibly be. This was supposed to be simple. Stupid but simple. Only a few steps above a smash and grab. A sneak and steal. No mess, no fuss, no muss. According to what she'd been told, the guy didn't even know what he had. It should have been easy. And looking at the overweight man somehow tied to her prize, this was probably about to be something else entirely.

She'd all but forgotten his presence on the bridge that day and even more, now was not the time for her to be visiting a guest. She unsheathes a non-gnawed on claw to begin the process of cutting through the string, in case there was something special about it that would make it a little harder to cut then necessary. She growls lightly at Rust's sudden appearance, shaking her head towards him. Her voice is barely above a raspy whisper.

"Fine. Listen. Why the hell are you attached to this? Better question, why are you -here- right now?"

[RUST]
It's a little tough to get a good grip on the string. It's so slippery! Azumi, nonetheless, will ultimately prevail thanks to her natural claw. One of the perks of her altered form, to be sure.
In the process of her attempts to cut herself free, the seemingly overweight guy - he is clad heavily in a similar sweater, aside from the addition of skin-tight tights on his legs (ew) and matching sandals. Somehow, the pattern of colors on it just match so well with the surroundings that he himself might've been hard to see. He idly kicks aside an expensive(?) gem(?) or two, as paper crinkles underneath one of his sandals.
Where Azumi is growling, he seems all too at peace with the situation, the other hand going into... a pocket? There's a length of something there. A club, maybe?
"Ah... sorry, I don't like throwing questions back in others' faces like this," he says in a more casual tone of voice, the movements of his eyes speaking of amusement as much as curiosity - like he's unafraid of the fact the owner is still here, if sound asleep.
"I mean, why the hey are you attached to it? Let alone here?" Those are good questions regardless, no matter who's asking the other. Maybe one of them will answ--
"It's my job tonight," he says as if a matter of pride, "did you like the false safe? The play money? The glass gems?" A visible smile starts to widen. "It wasn't easy getting all that in here so soon, eh? But, you know--"
In theory, very little would stop Azumi from just cutting and running right here, instead of suffering another wasted breath from this guy.

[AZUMI]
As a werewolf, one might experience a plethora of urges. An urge to steal food. An urge to growl. An urge to gnaw on a bone. Currently, the only urge in Azumi's system is to punch Rust directly in the face and only personal satisfaction will dictate when that punching would stop.

As she pulls off the vial from the string she looks back down at Rust, looking confused. Fake safe? Glass gems? She had no interest in stealing anything else. It'd be unprofessional on top of being entirely rude. She was here for the vial and nothing else. Werewolf or Ninja, she's not a bad person, at least as far as she could tell. Still though, Rust's words rile her tangibly, the wolf getting back to her feet and holding the vial between a forefinger and thumb. Her voice escalates to an angry whisper.

"I asked you first. I don't know why in the holy hell anyone would hire you to do something so stupid, but I'll make this easy. Tell me where the real vial is jackass."

[RUST]
Azumi is also a monster. Given the legends that surround werewolves, the panic that has been brought upon Metro City when Majigen was a thing... the way more than a few lives were altered irrevocably forever... fear should naturally rule, in the mind of a human being with any sort of sense of self-preservation.
Here we are, this guy standing before a would-be thief - what is his deal here, anyway? - who seems almost perfectly content with everything going on in front of him. How aware is this man of his situation, the person ahead of him, the surrounding environs, and what's at stake?
"Aw. Take it easy!" He says, pushing the buttons of all carefully honed sense and understanding of stealth everywhere with the use of that exclamation point. Is he trying to...
"All right. I could show you where the real one is usually put," he says, extending a hand as if to accept back the apparent prank vial and in apparent surrender, "I thought the whole thing was pretty funny. Ah, sorry for the trouble."
If Azumi hands back the vial, he slowly pushes open a door elsewhere to the shop - a place where much of the perfume ingredients are stored, mixed, and collected.

[AZUMI]
Azumi trusted this guy about as far as she could throw him. Which was likely pretty far but not the point. She flattens her ears temporarily when he raises his voice, the werewolf gritting her teeth at the obliteration of the near silence they had. She looks over the vial she had in her hand and seems to ponder it for a second.

While this was a job, not a mission, several things were similar. One of which being protocol in a botched situation like this. The area had been compromised and she had little recourse to fix it. Someone had tipped him and his employers off about her and her job. And the threat of having her cover blown was going to become a reality if she spent more time with Rust, who brazenly seemed to not care about it. And on second thought, why would they? He was a human. She was a monster. Visuals alone would get her shot at by the local authorities immediately, even if they were both in the wrong. The thought simmers in her head for a moment, the wolf shaking her head in immediate disgust.

Looking back towards Rust , she pockets the vial and takes a step away from him. She reaches into her hoodie and draws out a smoke bomb. She tosses it down into the ground and the area explodes with a smoke meant to conceal, not choke, although some difficulties were expected to be had. Moving about as quickly as she could manage, she reaches down to grab one of the glass gems and hops over the counter. She then rolls it hard against the ground and aimed at the front door, as if she were going to try to escape that way. Instead, she books it back upstairs, the smoke not quite making it to the stair well. She climbs up on top of the banister as quickly as she can, not even bothering with the stairs for the sake of speed.

[RUST]
Azumi's textbook escape and brilliant ruse should raise no problems. Manipulating sight and sound to cover her movement, she should be completely free of that guy - why was he there? How did he know? What made him seem so easy-going about everything going on? So many questions, almost no time to answer. Maybe the questions just weren't worth answering...
Swiftly, with almost unparalleled agility, Azumi escapes back on up the stairs.
Heavy snoring continues. Is the man even aware there's anything going on...? He must be having such a wonderful dream not to allow the disturbances of reality to rouse him to action.
...
She doesn't hear anything from that strange guy. Did she lose him? Did he fall for the ruse and go right for the front door? It all seems too easy. Maybe, for once, it is, and she can get away clean with the vial of interest. A strange blip on the radar, and nothing more. Right?
Little appears to stop her from just leaping on out into the night, but...

[AZUMI]
Azumi had no qualms about leaving. The mission was a botch from the start and it's in her best interest to not be caught. Going back up into the vents was not something she could do without making more noise, so she settles for a window. Prying it open, she slips out of it, careful to close it back a moment later. Thanks to the surprisingly robust external architecture, she had plenty of footholds to hang onto and instead of dropping down, she turns upwards, clambering up the back of the building. Before long, she's back up on the roof, where this whole caper started. She looks down after herself to see if that human had followed her up here somehow. Because if he did, this would probably turn into a fight and to be honest...she did kinda want to punch him.

She looks over the vial once again and unpins her nose, the werewolf taking a nice deep breath of the pleasant night air. Fresh, sweet, sweet air.

[RUST]
The smell of the open urban air - arguably nowhere near as sweet as the scents within the shop, by most standards - is soon turned a little more sour by the stench of... no, sound. The sound of...
"I thought you wanted to see where it was kept?" Yes, there he is. Right there, behind her, as she takes in that deep breath. "I don't think anyone's ever kept perfume on a roof about," he adds, casually droning on and on as he rubs the back of his head. That's... that's quite a ginormous hair-net he's got on his person. Almost like some kind of lunch lady...
"If you were there for just the vial you got right now, well, I could see. Yep." He casually lets slip that her little job is just one skip, hop, and a jump away from completion pretty much out of sheer incompetence. It has to be. Nobody would be that stupid. "The engravings on the rack, though, the wood it's made out of. You got to see it before you go... that's, uh, right next to the bottle of pure alcohol though, s--"
The universe, at this point, gives whatever signal it may to the hounded hound-woman to go about punching this guy in the face, in whatever form such is communicated or received.

COMBATSYS: Rust has started a fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  <
Rust             0/-------/-------|

COMBATSYS: Azumi has joined the fight here.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Rust             0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0            Azumi

[AZUMI]
Azumi had a feeling. Had a crappy, crappy feeling. If he was smart enough to rig that safe, he'd be able to follow her up here. Naturally. She bristles at his approach, the werewolf turning around to bore directly at Rust's form. What was the deal here? She tried to leave. And here he was again, just...to what? Antagonize her? Did someone pay him to do that specifically or was this some sort of test? Probably not either, thinking about it.

Even so, she places her hands together and concentrates. She cuts him off as soon as she's able to, her ears furrowing into an aggressive positions.

"...Shut up. Just bloody shut up. I'm giving you to the count of three to get the hell out of my sight. You weren't supposed to be here and I don't care what your reasoning is. Just shut up and go. One. Two..."

COMBATSYS: Azumi focuses on her next action.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Rust             0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0            Azumi

[RUST]
Underneath the gleaming moon, Azumi eloquently cuts off and threatens the man before her. His gaze does seem to shift up... and down. Up, and down. He brings a hand to his chin, as though certain things that ought to be understood on an instinctual level have to go through a time-consuming, red tape-choked vetting process before he can agree with what basic instinct ought to have decided upon at least five minutes before.
When a werewolf is snarling and threatening at someone underneath a moon that is almost full, nobody should be standing within earshot of one of them. That's just... common sense, by what understanding of the situation the average human populace ought to have, as she counts to three.
Needless to say, he doesn't vanish before the count of three.
"You put your hands together like that? I tend to put 'em together like--" He clasps them together uenvenly, sticking out two fingers at the end of his left hand in something that should be considered a gesture, but has no likeness in recoded documentation of being anything of worth, as he raises his left knee up high as if in preparation for a kick, tilting his head to the left and shifting his body weight so far it almost seems to defy gravity.
It is a ridiculously stupid pose. It may or may not be a secret conduit for power. There's no way something this stupid would ever be willingly assumed.
"You ought to try. Good for the neck. Boy. My neck... I was in that safe a long time. Never thought I'd mov--"

COMBATSYS: Rust gathers his will.

[\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Rust             0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0            Azumi

[AZUMI]
"...Three."

Azumi vanishes from sight entirely at the end of her counting, her previous form slowly melting away into nothingness. She appears behind him and attempts to wrap an arm around the crook his neck. If successful, she then sweeps a foot out to catch him in the ankles, attempting to trip him over backwards. The werewolf then thrusts his head down while using her other arm to toss him into the air with a lazy backflip. And just as he makes one full rotation, she places a hand onto the small of his back and blasts a solid gust of wind, simply intending to blow him off of the side of the building.

"I warned you moron."

COMBATSYS: Rust blocks Azumi's Charged Combo.

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////////////////]
Rust             0/-------/--=====|-------\-------\0            Azumi

[RUST]
Azumi's aggression may yet speak louder than words. To put bite behind the bark of her threats, she gets a grip on his tilted neck...
Yet, his one standing leg holds strong enough against the ankle sweep, hardly managing to do much other than just violently jerk and bend him around. His sandal-clad feet aren't even hooked into anything. There's no reason she shouldn't have been able to heft him up, or to blow him off and away as the gust of wind instead provides little more than a dramatic breeze.
None of this makes sense, but yet, the bizarre posture of no real notable true iconography or seeming purpose holds strong!!
"Mmfhl." He grunts as he straightens himself out, his back /still turned to Azumi/. "Thanks, shoulder needed that in it." When both legs are on the ground, the one he'd been standing on is shaken out - that much seemed to at least sting.
Meanwhile, in a nearby hotel, a doting father dressed like it's the 18th century - a pillar of the community aside from being a bit out of time - looks upon the werewolf's attack upon... that... other guy. He looks to his truly beautiful daughter, sighs, and starts to heft a whole pile of exaggerated restraints as he, moments later, slams wooden planks across the open window and starts to hammer it.
...That's all someone else's story, though. It doesn't have any bearing on what's going on here.
What does, is the number of... things, looking upon them. Fake crows. Weather vanes. They all have little hidden cameras on them, so well-concealed that just about any dead give-away (reflection of light) is far too easy to miss. It's like someone set this all up with expectation of what would be going down...
"Ahh, I was hoping to just say 'hi.' Been a long time," he says, as he still keeps his back faced to Azumi, "but that's okay. I know what the job's like."
Even under continued threat and duress, he is remarkably polite - is it out of simply being thick-headed?
Without facing Azumi, he scratches at one of his legs. This is either a ruse... or the beginning of a tragedy as one of the fake glass gems rolls out of his hand and down towards her feet, threatening her balance upon the roof if it manages to get under her toes.

COMBATSYS: Azumi blocks Rust's Small Thrown Object.

[  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////////////////// ]
Rust             0/-------/-======|-------\-------\0            Azumi

[AZUMI]
The werewolf grumbles as the force she'd mustered was not enough to make the man move further. Was it some sort of..magical interference? She's moved far bigger things than him, so this just didn't make sense. Nothing with this guy made sense. He was a walking pandora's box coincidences, stupidity and luck. Even so, he refuses to budge from her attempts, so it'd be better to think of something else.

At just the same time, a glass gem appears underneath her foot. Thanks to her digitigrade feet and paw pads, the gem doesn't corrupt her ability to walk, but they do interrupt her for a second. Wasting little time, she boots the damn thing off of the roof before turning back to her opponent.

"Listening isn't your strong suit, is it?"

In a fluid motion, the ninja pushes off of him, leaps into the air and channels a small burst of wind to send her forward again. She comes straight at him with a flying axe kick, intending to drop her hell on Rust's head.

COMBATSYS: Azumi successfully hits Rust with Heaven's Claw.

[      \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Rust             1/-------/=======|==-----\-------\0            Azumi

[RUST]
Coincidences, stupidity, luck... could that be all? (It probably is. One hopes.)
Listening and thinking may not be /any/ sort of suit for him, given the pieces of the puzzle laid bare before him. (Or rather, his back.)
Wordlessly, he moves with a certain decisiveness whose main fault is that he does so too late. Azumi's axe kick misses the scalp but instead nails him in the upper back, knocking him flat against the roof with an audible 'whump' and the liberation of tiling and who knows how much grime this rooftop has accumulated from the elements and smaller creatures as his knees comically bend his legs upwards and inward for effect.
It takes some doing for him to pry his face out from the roof. Inside his mouth is an array of splintered tile arranged in such fashion as to come off as a horrendous overbite as he slowly turns to take a look towards Azumi.
He snaps a finger, as if finally figuring ou--
"Oh, that's a Red Cloud kick!" The voice is muffled. Is he afraid? Is he impressed? Is h-- wait, are any of those questions that ought to be asked in wake of that exclamation?! Just saying it like that...
At long last, that weapon at his hip is drawn clean with his left hand - a length of piping. This is Howard Rust, Jr. - he's famous for the use of a pipe, admittedly, so her recognizing this in turn probably wouldn't be a surprise to anyone involved.
"That says a lot in with," he murmurs as the debris fall out of his mouth, but he doesn't sound aggravated or... anything particularly bad about what anything says, within those rusty, barely-moving gears of this man's mind, "so... uh, if I can say one thing," on top of every other stupid thing?
He stays low as he turns his body almost 180 with the pipe out in a wide swing that, given elevation differences between the two, would probably land roughly about hip level for Azumi if it connects.
"You don't need to be scared!" So he says, when the two could well be fighting for their lives and/or freedom if this escalates any further than it already has.

COMBATSYS: Azumi parries Rust's Foundation Layer!

[       \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Rust             0/-------/=======|===----\-------\0            Azumi

[AZUMI]
Don't be scared?

Of what? Him? Her life? What would happen if this escalated much further? In a different context, this might not have been so bad. Maybe they could have talked. Maybe they could have walked away from each other. But now was not this time. In fact, he seemed oblivious to the danger he was in. Oblivious and unorthodox, judging by his speed and his general abilities. His knowledge of the Red Cloud certainly gets an additional eyebrow raise.

The pipe was a surprise for certain, as most people, sans a particular well known mayor, didn't prefer to pummel their opponents with pilfered plumbing. But for it's unusual nature, a pipe isn't the best weapon against the supernatural opponent, even more so against a well trained one like her. As the pipe comes into her side, the ninja steps back and to the side, using two fingers guide the pipe away from her and force him to over extend his hand.

"I'd suggest not mocking me for your sake."

Taking this opportunity she just created for herself, she comes around to his back with a vicious roundhouse kick, followed by a flash kick. Both hits utilizing the werewolf's extended foot-claws to slice through his defenses.

COMBATSYS: Rust blocks Azumi's Double Dust Kick EX.

[         \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ////////////////////////////  ]
Rust             1/-------/=======|===----\-------\0            Azumi

[RUST]
The two of them both appear to have wildly different ideas as to how much danger they're in - which one's correct? Under what grounds does this man - of his life experiences, perceptions of the world around him, and the great physical, emotional, and social duress that Azumi has suffered - have to say not to be too scared?
"Huh," is his next response, his gaze somewhat unfocused, as she expertly maneuvers around the swung pipe. His free hand comes up, awkwardly positioned as it is, with two fingers pointed upwards as the first roundhouse kick goes for him. Swinging his arm up to stop it, it gets struck in the forearm. The flash kick gets it a bit lower, turning his upper body with the struck arm in a somewhat painful spiral but far more preferrable a result to what would've happened if it hit clean as another gust of wind blows over him.
"Ahh... I suppose it's all right," he sounds vaguely resigned. This is, potentially, an improvement as he turns onto his back. He closes his eyes and takes in a deep breath as he lies sprawled upon the rooftop in the wake of her vicious two-kick combo...
And proceeds to heft himself up with a bit of upper body strength using the pipe as something of a crutch, swinging outward wide with one of his oddly thin legs, following it up with a single straight kick that seems to somehow push him backwards in the air - it's even weirder in this case if Azumi avoids it entirely. How does one bend their body in that direction while striking that way, anyway...?

COMBATSYS: Rust successfully hits Azumi with Girder Sway.

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Rust             1/-----==/=======|======-\-------\0            Azumi

[AZUMI]
Azumi didn't know. She figured it out less when he manages to kick her in such a nonsensical way. It hurt, but she's dealt with worse, the attack ranking lowly against some of the other's she's dealt with that rattled her bones. She slides back a few feet, managing to remain upright for it and simply stares at Rust. His form is garbage, his speed is uncanny and his movement unusual...yet familiar. She had forgotten what he'd done on the bridge, so the familiarity wasn't from that but...what could it be from? Watching him a bit more would perhaps reveal more clues. Nevertheless, she had to put him down without rousing too much suspicion. Hand-to-hand only if she could manage it.

She rushes straight back at him before he gets too much time to think about his position, her hands balled into tight fists. Rather than trying to manipulate her visuals or movement, she goes straight for it, swinging a wide fist at him, aiming to clock him right square in the jaw, if only to see how he'd evade it.

COMBATSYS: Rust dodges Azumi's Strong Punch.

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Rust             1/-----==/=======|======-\-------\0            Azumi

[RUST]
Just about anyone with an educated eye would call foul on a number of this man's choice of movements, of actions, of a whole lot of things. Yet, it's hard to strictly call it amateur when it appears to /work/. Roughly a decade ago, this man was about as bold an adventurer as anyone could aspire to be. Worldly, strong, capable. His father is - or was, perhaps, as his continued existence is a mystery - a whole tier above even that.
Nowadays, be it age, or some other circumstance, this man should be well done. He's not in peak physical condition any more. He has a family. Somehow, he managed to win the title of World Champion... and yet would soon be embarrassed against Craig Marduk, or that first round of King of Fighters. A lot about the picture in front of Azumi doesn't make sense, all the way down to his apparent actions.
...Let's get back to the present.
Landing against a steeper angle of the roof thanks to the new space between them, his feet start to shuffle as he comes short of slipping off. Azumi's choice to try and keep things up close and personal should bear fruit. Just one clean hit, he'd be out of her hair (...fur). The wind-clad fist swings up towards his chin--
Thanks to this shuffling upon the roof, he ducks underneath the high-angled fist! Was this intentional, or just another one of those blasted incidents of circumstance and luck? He can't possibly be coasting entirely upon this...
Thanks to the way the weight settles where they stand, Azumi's own footing may soon be compromised if she stays on that part of the roof. Whether Rust Jr. himself seems to realize that or n--
"Whoop!" This particular section of roof slides out from underneath his feet. With uncharacteristic quick thinking on his part, he stabs the pipe into a nearby vent which would provide a temporary hold at best, as he swings his right elbow inward into Azumi's abdomen before swinging outward again with his right hand in what might be an ambiguous shove but might register more as a one-two blow to the gut, as if to try and shove her back as he teeters on the edge of...
Well, not oblivion, but an inconvenient fall that would probably smart...

COMBATSYS: Rust successfully hits Azumi with Random Strike.

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Rust             1/-----==/=======|=======\=------\1            Azumi

[AZUMI]
Azumi lowers her gaze as she expected to miss that one. He had something though. Some uncanny dodging capability that went above and beyond his body type. The man is skilled, despite being a buffoon. It usually wasn't her thing to pick a fight but if she ran too much more, he'd draw too much attention. And further complications were not worth the pay. What she expected next was another strike, so she had her pulled hand ready to deal with him. But in true unorthodox fashion, she wasn't quite ready for what he actually did. She sneaks a hand over her pocket to protect the glass cargo while she takes the elbow and the shove, intentionally hopping into the air so that it could push her back a decent amount. She growls as she's back at an disadvantage again, her anger at this man stubbornly being both annoying and in her way getting the better of her.

She stands up straight now and draws both of her hands out into the open and begins doing a series of hand signs. On the last sign she charges together a burst of blue wind energy. She throws it at Rust, aiming for his chest to hopefully end this fight a little bit faster so she could depart.

COMBATSYS: Rust reflects Gust Shock from Azumi with Drywall Palm.
-* WILD HIT! *-

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Rust             1/-----==/=======|=======\=------\1            Azumi

[RUST]
"You all right?" He calls, as if out of concern when he manages to all but bludgeon her back. One of his legs dangle in the open air, the other clinging tenuously to the roof as the vent he has managed to stab the pipe into starts to creak under his weight. For anyone short of trained fighters - or ninja, as they are - this is a deadly situation on his part. He is actually at a far greater disadvantage than Azumi is, as he clings to his hold on the roof for... well, if not his life, at least his apparent stake in all this, whatever it may be.
A blue light of Azumi's trademark powers of wind form, which may or may not be interpreted in Universal Ninja Sign Language as 'yes, but I'm going to kill you.' If such a thing exits. If he speaks the dialect of common sense. Which he does not.
A burst of wind blows towards him, and his body shifts back about as far as it can given how he barely stays upon the roof...
"That's a yes." His right hand draws back, bending his wrist as to straighten the palm upwards... the Drywall Palm. One of his famed techniques, having honed himself extensively against the elements, to take upon the very character of any given number of man-made creations against erosion and wear.
The howling wind that blows threatens unto itself to scrape off and shed the structure underneath as it screams towards him. It is met with this training this silly man has taken upon itself in a form most befitting for a well-refined force of nature given form by Azumi's own grasp of the underlying elements of the world.
It gets high-fived.
A high-five that completely turns the wind in the opposite direction. It is not met with a gentle stop, nor a dispersion around whatever resists the force of wind. It could almost be seen as an act of pure violence against the wind.
A mere forward slap of the hand with such power that the wind itself doubles back noticeably faster, creating a somewhat larger vacuum about it as it screams back towards Azumi as a few more roof tiles shear free underneath it.
"You all right?" He asks again. "Sorry, didn't want you to fall without--- whoapsydaisy," he finally gets both feet on the roof to start trying to pull himself back up.
It might give Azumi the opening she needs to lay something more decisive, if she can deal with the wind now blowing against her. (It is an eastern wind, now.)

COMBATSYS: Rust successfully hits Azumi with Reflected Gust Shock.

[           \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////                 ]
Rust             1/----===/=======|=======\====---\1            Azumi

[AZUMI]
What a humbling experience.

This man, who somehow shouldn't be up here, who shouldn't have known how to find her, who shouldn't know what a red cloud ninja is, who shouldn't have survived the encounter on the bridge, is up here fighting her, combating a wind technique that he shouldn't have any knowledge of how to redirect. And yet, here we are, with a ball of chi-infused wind flying straight towards her.

One part of her wanted to bolt. To flee. This was the kind of guy that normal methods would not work on. This was the kind of guy who just -knew-. Who was inside of your head hard enough to where he was paying rent on a high rise apartment in your cerebral cortex. This was a guy who rended your skill moot, your morals bankrupt and your arrogance taxed like it was Great Britain in its colonization days.

But on the other hand. She was mad at this guy. She was unbelievably angry at this man. This singular, overweight, overbearing, obnoxious, loud man. She'd have a word with her employer later, under threat of claw and fang. But this guy got to have the business up front and center. Using her still chi-charged hands she holds slams both of her hands down around her own projectile and snuffs it, the energy exploding across herself and cutting through cloth and fur alike. The impact left her hands buzzing with pain, but that was just more motivation.

Unsheathing her claws, she goes straight for Rust and just starts swinging at him rapidly. Her claws tore through the air, eager to rend anything that belonged to his person, every single hit intending to inflict pain. Anything...ANYTHING to shut his mouth. She's throwing her entire upper body into each hit, so that even blocking would still sting quite a bit. The chi she'd gathered also lends it's aid by essentially following up each swing with a blast of wind for more damage.

It'd be easy to classify this as an attempted mauling, but even after a dozen or so swings, she's not letting up.

COMBATSYS: Azumi successfully hits Rust with Cyclone Slash.

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Rust             2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0            Azumi

[RUST]
Is he inside Azumi's head, or has she instead placed him in her head? This man does not appear to play with the same set of rules of reality that almost everyone else does. Whatever this man's intents, whatever this man's character... for someone so publically known, for how much information really is out in the open, how exactly do all the puzzle pieces come together?
Azumi has done nothing but express anger and hatred, and yet he seems to take it all a little too much in stride. The Red Cloud is a name feared by the creatures of the night, and their arts should be seen as equally fearful to an ordinary human being. (Is he one, even?)
He might... just be that stupid. Occam's razor should rule the day here, to whatever extent someone like him warrants that much thought.
He may have his feet back on the ground, but he is by no means in a position to truly defend himself. His voiced concern might actually have been genuine, given that as she comes rushing in with claws swingin'...
For what period of time he may not have been in clear sight, he could've set any number of traps like the glass gem thing (was it one?). One good slip could've seen her hit the floor. Instead, she truly catches him in a moment of weakness, sucking him into the tornado of rage. Her claws part the air asunder that only void is left in their wake. To be more specific about individual hits undersells the sheer brutality of what happens between them, but even a whiffed swing of her strikes could slice things in twain.
The Cyclone Slash is without an eye, and Azumi would witness the overweight international man of chicanery. At some points in the rampage he is less being sliced and more being tossed around in a blender, exchanging roles between 'scratching post' and 'windswept debris' with equal believability that he lands atop the very center of the roof. The peak is sharp enough that it does awful things to one's back on impact.
His awesome stealth suit is ripped to shreds, leaving a bruised, bloodied husk of man in his regular get-up (half-serviceman, half-tourist, all-twiggy-frog-legs) sprawled out on his back.
"Ow." The same 'ow' from when he got dragged out of that fake safe, which might be more comical in spite of the same... volume, intonation, stress, the same 'ow' that signaled the beginnings of Azumi's fears and frustrations about the job.
He doesn't pull himself back up to anything resembling a fighting stance, or really much at all. Yet. Is it a ruse? His eyes remain unfocused.
His mouth, aside from the 'ow,' mercifully quiet.
Now what will Azumi do, next? She could probably kill him like this, if she were so inclined. There aren't any physical witnesses to speak of, as far as anyone knows...

COMBATSYS: Rust takes no action.

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Rust             2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0            Azumi

[AZUMI]
Just as Rust pulls himself back up, he is gripped by the collar and held away from Azumi. She could kill him. Easily. A good toss off of the roof, a solid hand through his midsection, or something as simple as just running a claw over his throat. No more talking. Just silence and quiet.

While she was certainly infuriated with him, she's no murderer. For as long as it took her to consider further actions, she drops him back down to the ground. Her ears furrow back up, her fur softens and her lips uncurl. She's certainly still highly annoyed, but she's not nearing livid like she was.

"This isn't a game. I warned you. So you have nobody else but yourself to blame. I spared you just now. Don't make me regret that. If you know what's good for you, you will stay out of my way. You've already given me enough trouble for one evening."

With that she backs away from him, but facing him at the same time. The ninja keeps her eyes locked onto Rust's own, knowing far better than to turn away from an unpredictable enemy.

COMBATSYS: Azumi takes no action.

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Rust             2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0            Azumi

[RUST]
The man makes a silly face when he's yanked up by his collar, and his body leans awful close to hers - a little too close, but there's no aggressive, damaging gesture to be had. His tongue pokes out between clenched teeth... by some sorcery. Did he just bite it in two? (Lack of blood from the mouth suggests otherwise, so new questions remain on the floor for discussion!!)
He is dropped down limply about as soon as he's picked up. Oddly, the hand lower to the ground - his right hand - is the last one to hit it when he's released, the closest part of him to her body until she drops him. It clenches noticeably more tightly as he lies on the ground while he's scolded, as Azumi exerts the superiority of her situation. His thumb runs over the top of it.
The werewolf ninja doesn't mince words as she backs away to give them space. He coughs a few times, as though something got into his lungs.
"Okay." Okay? Is that a surrender? He puts his right hand over his chest, still clenched tight. "I'll stay out of your way. Yep," almost enthusiastic. Not... fearful? "Cross my heart. See? Got my right hand all over my heart. Civilised way to give out." Give up, probably what he means, as he raises the balled up fist that he seems to be insistent on keeping clenched, for some reason, waving it around all strangely triumphantly for being spared and on the seeming losing end.
"My back is wrecked. So." He looks up with a knowing smile. "Why don't you just go on ahead. Not much more business being here, eh?" He waves the balled-up right fist. "You don't need to be so afraid now."
He lowers the hand against the ground, then holds it a bit more tightly to himself as he simply lays there, grinning all stupid. Moreso than usual. "Good luck with whoever sent you, all right?"
...
Is there a trick?

COMBATSYS: Rust takes no action.

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Rust             2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0            Azumi

[AZUMI]
She might have just considered leaving just again, if only he wasn't laying it on so thick. He seemed to misunderstand exactly what the hell was happening and she thought momentarily about making sure he knew, but the more rational side of her head suggested otherwise. What else was the deal? He wasn't hurt too badly judging by how much he was talking, but...there had to be a reason. Was it her job? Maybe he'd gotten her vial while they were close or while she was ripping him to shreds? That...might be it. Was he that fast?

...He followed her up here didn't he? Despite it being unexplained how the hell he did that. She lowers her hands to her sides and takes a deep breath to regain some composure.

"Uh...huh. Well to just tell you again. So we're crystal clear. Before I leave, I'm going to check my pockets. I told you not to make me regret it. But I'm just letting you know, that's what's going to happen. So let's go ahead and check shall we?"

She draws her hands inside of her hoodie pocket to check to see if the vial was still in her possession.

COMBATSYS: Azumi takes no action.

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Rust             2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|===----\-------\0            Azumi

[RUST]
Azumi finds something vial-shaped in there, aside from a far narrower long protrusion at one en--
It's a screwdriver. Given the number of them on his toolbelt (...wait, he has THAT many, and not a single sound has been made from them? No clinking, clanging, nothing?!)...
Putting two and two together, it's not that hard to figure it out!!
"Well... I'm not getting in your way," he says with a goofy look on his face. He opens up his right hand to reveal... nothing?! (Azumi is a ninja, a discipline not that far removed from a stage magician, and can reasonably assume that he is trying to be clever by having slipped it down that long sleeve of his. This text in this specific set of parenthesis is legitimate truth! -Editor's note)
That is a smile that is absolutely not going to be returned on Azumi's end, by any measure, no matter how humorous he appears to see this as he pulls himself back up with a pained groan, resting his left hand - still holding the pipe - awkwardly up against his back. (He appears to be largely truthful about his back in terms of being in pain.)
"So here, I'll let you have a head start, won't even see where you go," he says as he sudd-- when the hell did a large tarp get up here?
The ninja thrives in deception, in darkness. The tarp blots out the waxing gibbous moon, casting the lycanthrope into a space without light.
There are sounds. They are muffled. What could possibly be happening behind them?!
This must be an awful trick. This must be the precursor for something to punish Azumi for her mercy. This man must be some sort of masterful manipulator of sight and emotion.
This man must be a ninja, who deal in deception and death. There must be something awful forthcoming from this very tarp, to punish Azumi in her moment of weakness...!
Now clad completely in the shroud of darkness, what will Azumi do? What can Azumi do?
What is exactly coming after this tarp, no doubt a set-up for something far more nefarious?!

COMBATSYS: Azumi parries Rust's Thrown Object!

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Rust             2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|====---\-------\0            Azumi

...Nothing else happens beyond the tarp being thrown. He's still standing exactly where he was on the other side of it.

[AZUMI]
Welp. Azumi tried to do this the calm way. Azumi tried to do this the peaceful way. But people just didn't learn. People just didn't want to listen. Azumi already knew Rust didn't seem to like to listen. Just talk. And talk. And do. And talk. Just as she pulls the screwdriver out of her pocket, she tosses it off of the roof and starts to speak. She is immediately interrupted by his own talking...and then a tarp.

And then it hits her (not unlike a wrecking ball).

He was using ninjitsu.

It was unrefined, tacky, cheap and all together unpleasant to watch, but this was ninjitsu. The speed, the slight of hand, the misdirection. It was all mockery. He might actually know enough to be able to keep up with her but it was a forgery at best.

And now she was mad. Insult her, insult her clan, her stupid wolf face, fur, whatever. You could make fun of all of that. But making a mockery of ninjas? Those are fightin words.

Just as soon as the tarp appears, Azumi's claws unsheathe as far as she could make them, the werewolf officially at patience's end. In the matter of a solid second, she rips her claws through the plastic covering so many times that by the time she's done, the tarp is in so many pieces it could rightly be called spaghettified.

She vanishes from Rust's immediate sight and reappears at his side. She riles up her teeth, putting the dental work on display for the hidden audience. She attempts to clamp her pearly sharp whites around the entirety of his side, her teeth sinking in deep. Azumi then begins to shake, like a dog with a toy, intending on prying loose every stupid gag, trick, tool and accessory he had. She doesn't do this for long though, knowing full well that he might have something nasty waiting for her in surprise.

At that point, she wrenches him into the air and lets him go, intentionally doing it so that it'd be hard to land. But while he's thinking about how to not fall on something other than his back, the werewolf drives home a heavy punch meant to strike him in the mouth and hopefully bounce him off of the rough roofing.

COMBATSYS: Rust manages to escape Azumi's Fang Over Fist EX!

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Rust             2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|====---\-------\0            Azumi

[RUST]
A pale imitation, it may seem. And yet, this is the World Champion (increasingly dubious as the holder's worth for this title may yet seem). And yet, he has virtually kept up with her, surprised her, and thrown her off her game. And yet... the strangeness continues on.
The world outside of being one of the hunting zealots of the Red Cloud may yet be far more vast than Azumi may grasp, but that's neither here nor there. There is a raging werewolf, who gets a brief sideglance as they disappear and reappear next to him with teeth bared. (Looks like she doesn't get quite out of his range of sight.)
His eyes visibly widen, a stride unmistakably broken as he shifts his weight visibly to his right with a raised hand, all fingers bent in except for the two expected for that stereotypical ninja gesture while she bites into the pipe. (That might hurt?)
This doesn't stop her from going about most the rest of her routine in terms of the motions, shaking him violently as he struggles to keep up with her primal, supernatural strength bestowed upon her by her curse. She actually even lifts him up outright and shakes him all about, all around! That, or he just intentionally puts himself up into the air as a potential means of escape...?
There's some impressive gymnastics on display as he keeps hold of the pipe in one hand and flexes his joints within however much allowance his physical body allows him to do - given his advancing age, it's nowhere near as much as one might like. At one point, when she holds her head up high, he's even doing a one-armed handstand to stay on top of it.
The violent shaking still continues. There is still no sound from all those screwdrivers and who knows what else in that toolbelt. How tightly are they packed? Or... is it something else? HOW CAN THEY NOT MAKE A SINGLE SOUND?!
"Sorry, but... I can't stay out of your way if you're going to keep doing tha--"
He remains polite and even apologetic in the face of mortal danger or worse. One last violent jerk into the air, he's flung free. As is... something else. The vial in his right sleeve escapes free, flying through the night air with a twinkling gleam that will catch the eyes of both combatants in question.
The cork flies free of its own volition. The purple, pugent perfume sprays EVERYWHERE. Everywhere. It gets everywhere. There seems to be far more perfume in there than that vial should have ever actually held. How much of it escapes?
His landing is a bit rough, hitting his knee against an uprooted tile with another weird look on his face. The pipe, chewed into a neat half as to now be almost useless, is dropped to left rolling down the roof as he violently coughs, withdrawing a clothespin over his nose as he draws something else cyllindrical from his toolbelt.
It looks like a...
"Take it easy! Down. Down." He swats the thing down towards the werewolf's nose.
A newspaper, a little silly newspaper, swung with all the sincerity and force of a blade. Given his successes against Azumi with earlier strikes, it might be prudent not to assume or treat it as much of a joke as it probably deserves to be.
"We, uh... we broke it," he says, voice muffled by the clothespin over his nostrils, "it smells... kinda strong..."

COMBATSYS: Azumi blocks Rust's Small Random Weapon.

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Rust             2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=====--\-------\0            Azumi

[AZUMI]
Azumi couldn't physically shake him much harder without risking a counter attack or damaging him further than she wanted to. Just as she went in for the punch, she looks to the side and sees the vial going flying. She couldn't catch it, not with the cork off like that. The scent hits her nose like a brick freight train, prompting her cough terribly as soon as she could smell it. It was *ALL* she could smell now. Everything involving her nose and mouth were immediately shot.

She stands up and starts to back away, using her hands to wave away the smell. As she did, she spots the newspaper from Rust, the werewolf reaching up to block the attack with a forearm. Anger boiled in her eyes and her heart. So maybe we lied before. Maybe insulting her visage also angers her. It's a sensitive topic after all.

"I am not a dog you IDIOT." She says with a raspy voice, eager to not be any more intoxicated by the perfume than she was. Her voice raises in tone and intensity as she charges him again, this time driving a foot into his chin, intending to send him into the sky. She vanishes from sight and appears above him, her form pulled into a tight, frontflipping ball.

"I AM NOT-"

She unfurls herself, grabbing Rust by the shoulders and pulling him into the same frontflip, albeit him by sheer force. The two don't stay up there long as she turns him loose, bodily throwing him straight at the roof.

"-A DOG. YOU IDIOT!"

COMBATSYS: Rust blocks Azumi's Azumi Drop.

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Rust             2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=====--\-------\0            Azumi

[RUST]
"Huh? I didn't say-- oh." Rust Jr. looks a little sheepish. "Thought you wen--"
What he thinks does not matter, as his right hand moves up to catch the foot to the chin which still jabs him through it and makes him unsteady. He doesn't make it into the air, but he's staggering enough that she could still just heft him up, and...
Down through the roof he goes. Well, almost. He gets caught in a serious wedgie by a protruding piece of framing. It's not very flattering, as he's left for a moment to dangle helplessly.
The smell... it stirs certain, deep emotions. They're overpowering. Given Azumi's incredible sense of smell, one might assume she'd take some extra means to ensure it doesn't get in there any further. It's overwhelming... something would compel Azumi, through her willpower and distaste for perfume, to immediately find some way to block it, most likely. (It's strongly recommended!! Given the following paragraphs. Sorry, I almost spoiled you. This won't happen again. -Editor)
Now dangling about like a pinata waiting to be busted open with the entire storage area below, Rust Jr. looks up to the raging wolf-woman with a raised hand.
"Oh... okay. That was a mistep. I don't mean anything about that with," he drops the newspaper as he coughs again, looking ever more ragged with every passing moment, "here, here's... um. This?"
He holds up a very hefty-looking wrench. "This won't offend you, will it?"
Elsewhere around the area, the homeless, the downtrodden, the otherwise innocent passers-by at this time of night all take in a whiff. Their faces start to grow flush. Soon, more gather out of curiosity... more catch a scent. The beginnings of an unlikely flash mob at this hour start to stir, but there is no intelligent conversation to be had between them as they all press up against the shop.
They begin to scrape at it. Tear it. There's something about this they... desire. They HAVE to have it! They love it so much they want it! All of it! Bit by bit, piece by piece, the outer walls start to fall apart...
Wait, what about the owner?
...
...
...Apparently there was never a proper owner. Someone just left a tape of a repetitive snore sound. Huh...
Back above...
"If I hit you with this, I won't... I won't be implying anything about you being a dog, right?" Given the impending violence, he seems genuinely upset - by Rust Jr. standards, as that's not often seen from him - and seems to desire to make things right.
"So, you know, I'm sorry." With that, he starts swinging the wrench in Azumi's vague direction. He really can just reach out and bop her in the face with this, he has just enough wingspan from his compromised position to do this, as his body twists and turns from where he remains suspended.
Surely, Azumi would instead prefer to be hit by a wrench instead of a newspaper!

COMBATSYS: Azumi blocks Rust's Light Random Weapon.

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Rust             2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\-------\0            Azumi

[AZUMI]
Azumi's sinuses are in a state of disarray at the moment. The perfume is everywhere and overwhelming. Her eyes water, her nose burns and her tongue boils in it's own saliva. If she wanted to handle this buffoon, she'd need to clear the air, but she didn't have enough energy to do so. So it was time for plan B.

She performs two hand signs and forms a very, very small part of the wind technique she'd done earlier. She holds it right in front of her face and lets it siphon away most of the perfume in that space before taking a deep breath...and holding it there. While it didn't fix her watering eyes, it at least kept her nose and mouth in the clear for now. Still though, this would have to do until she got the energy to clear the perfume away.

Now for Rust. She violently smacks the wrench out of the air with a hand, the tool hurting a smidge, but not much. She wanted to growl at him, but doing that exposed her teeth, which would let the perfume seep in again. Can't be having that. She needed some way to reach him down there that would let her have the upper hand. He'd been making use of random items, maybe she could as well? What was up here? The ninja looks around through cloud of perfume and her tears. Air Conditioning unit? Maybe. Big though. Exhaust pipe? Nope. Not big enough? Chimney?

Chimney! Yes Chimney! That'd do nicely!

She moves over towards it and drives a foot through the bottom quarter of the brick smoke stack. The old brick shatters fairly easily, and even broken, the artistry on it is exquisite. Still though, she catches it before it falls and returns to Rust, holding it high over her head. She swings it down like a baseball bat, intending on smashing Rust to the building if at all possible, the 5 ft long brick club certainly more than capable of doing that if it hit.

COMBATSYS: Rust auto-guards Azumi's Large Random Weapon.

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Rust             2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\-------\0            Azumi

[RUST]
The chimney is held up on high, her mastery of the wind helping keep leverage as Rust Jr. still pathetically swings about like a pinata. The wrench is well out of his grasp, clattering to the ground to join the rest of the growing pile of rubble. The removed chimney... that's going to make the footing on the roof all the more precarious as the two of them continue to prance about and destroy just about everything.
The walls begin their collapsing as the first of the horde arrives, grasping up towards the Rust-pinata with their grabby hands. Azumi might catch glimpse of it in her desire to completely crush this man like a tiny bug. Guests.
She will hear them climbing up the sides. They smell it. They smell it on them. They /want/ them. The wild looks in their eyes, eyes much like a lover in bliss. No, something... beyond. What got released was intoxicating beyond all measure.
"Uh oh." NOW he truly acknowledges there's trouble?! He looks up to the raised chimney, raising his hands upward and nodding vigorously. It is not Azumi's intent to help in the least, as the chimney comes down...
The framing that held Rust Jr. up disappears down towards ground level, but... he's not there.
Jr. scrambles up the side of the brick structure and leaps off onto the ever-more precarious, collapsing roof, exhaling loudly.
"Thanks for the help," she was totally not helping him, "needed to pry me loose when..."
The hordes advance all around. Hands extend about, ready to grasp. Ready to /take/. There is zero telling as to what they might do with either of them as they get a hold...
"So, uh, we got off on the wrong foot," Rust Jr. says as he begins to back away, "no hard feelings, eh?" That might depend, given how easily Azumi has let anger get the better of her in their match.
If /this man/, whom seemed oblivious to Azumi's outright threats and aggression now seems riled up...
"So, um, just want to say, you should probably duck. By which I mean... bend knees. Crouch. Not that I'm calling you a duck," he offers, as he steps back from a younger woman that leans forward in an attempt to grab him by the ankles.
"Okay?" He gives a thumbs up to Azumi, but doesn't look back to her for her approval as he takes one good step upon the highest surviving point of the roof next to her, jumps up to the sky...
The hairnet falls off, revealing a great untamed mess of black (actually, it kind of looks purple in the moonlight? But they say it's black, so it's black) hair as he flips into the sky. He turns inverted, bringing both hands to the toolbelt as he withdraws... screwdrivers.
One handful after another, they're all thrown about. There is a startling precision to be seen, uncanny, even, as each and every one of them moves to pin an article of clothing among the horde to where they are.
Azumi might feel so many screwdrivers whiz by her like kunai, left and right and all around. Casting such a huge net, it would seem too easy for him to just nail her with a whole crap-ton of them.
There is a sense that he is, indeed, deliberately doing his best not to hit her. Even if she violently jerks one side or the other, the way he throws the screwdrivers about, it's...
It's like the sign of someone knowing what they're doing.
For all the torrential downpour of kunai-like tools around, Azumi would have to deliberately throw herself into harm's way to get caught up into it... barring an unforseen act of God.
It might also be another opportunity to voice her displeasure, to take advantage of the chaos he seems to be taking rare proactive steps to reconcile.

COMBATSYS: Azumi dodges Rust's Hard Day's Work.

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Rust             1/-------/<<<<<<<|=======\-------\0            Azumi

[AZUMI]
Azumi's chimney bat didn't work. Because of course it didn't. The mortal column smashes against the spot where he was and shatters, rendering itself useless both out of spite and structural integrity. And it's about at that point where her breath begins to run out. Breathing any more of that junk in would be a terrible idea, and it was hard to see as it was. As soon as she gets visual on Rust yet again, she turns to look at him, seemingly ready to claw him to shreds again. When it became clear what he was going to do as soon as he jumped into the sky, Azumi just...bails.

The ninja quickly performs a few hand signs before blasting a torrent of wind at the ground beneath her. She leaps with it, sending her sailing off of the roofs of the strip-mallish building and across the street. From a certain angle, one might recall a famous silhouette of a boy and his bike against the moon. Azumi would look like that, except she was sort of flailing against the sky. It was pretty in an imminently tragic sort of way.

What was supposed to be a nice landing on a similar building across the street ended up being a botch as she overshoots, hitting the roof at nearly it's back edge. Her claws dig into the shingles as she tries to gain some traction, but she fails, sliding off of it. She falls a few stories and into an open dumpster, though the landing was quite soft and filled with...white frilly stuff?

Now that she was essentially grounded, she wipes her eyes free of tears she'd gathered and finally exhales, her chest sputtering for more air. Even then, it was clear that the stench had wormed their way into her clothes and her fur. And while a bath was out of the question, she could probably find something to change into.

Inspecting her soft landing, she pulls up a price tag. It read "Bridal Demoiselle: 95 percent off!" Bridal? Azumi looks underneath her and brings up the clothes she'd landed on. The dumpster is completely full of unsold wedding dresses. She had landed in the trash of a bridal store. She grumbles to herself. Well they -were- going to be tossed away and she DID need to change clothes. With a hugely begrudging sigh, the werewolf disrobes and digs through the dumpster, eventually finding a white wedding dress that did fit her her well enough. She makes a small adjustment for her tail by carving out a hole in it, making it far more comfortable. It was still stiff on her, as these kinds of garments were and all in all...it looked ridiculous, to say the least. From her pants and her hoodie, she draws out her spare kunai and smoke bombs, equipping the former and stuffing the latter inside of the waist-sash of the dress.

Despite fixing the problem, she felt entirely stupid. But the mission was over now. Mass hysteria by the perfume that was destroyed by Rust. There was little room to hang out here anymore and despite her current will to rip Rust into a thousand bloody strips, she was not going to fight him in a wedding dress.

She would murder him in a wedding dress, but not fight him.

She steps out from the back of the alleyway, looking across the street to see how that building was holding up.

COMBATSYS: Azumi takes no action.

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Rust             1/-------/<<<<<<<|=======\-------\0            Azumi

[RUST]
The rain of tools comes to an end, and he should stick a cool landi--
He does not! The strange man hits the edge of a hole in the roof and proceeds to tumble all the way to the ground. Azumi might get herself a laugh out of watching the man show some great moment of shame and idiocy, if she's that type. Heck, that might've actually taken him out compl--
Nope, there he goes, pulling himself out of the rubble, all bloodied and beaten, but upright. The interesting thing is...
His body is the only one to suffer this.
Everywhere she looks in proximity of the site of this emergence of, uh, enthusiasm... anyone who possibly could've been in a place to fall and hurt themselves (or worse) are neatly pinned. Not a single missed article of clothing. That display batted a thousand, far as her eyes could see. So far as the building integrity holds up, the lot of them should be okay until it wears off (can it? Probably, if it's completely scent-based).
Was that a sign of what could have happened to her, right then and there, in her arrogance and dismissal of who or what this man is and what he's capable of? It had to just be a random fluke in the right direction... right? Some random older guy, name dropping the Red Cloud and almost toying with her to an inch of her consciousness. Did he really mean all those gestures of goodwill?
Standing with his back turned to Azumi, he stands now in the street and considers the hordes that still try and reach out from where they're all pinned. He picks up a random shaft in one hand, a fire extinguisher in another... puts the random shaft under his right arm and picks up a rubber chicken...
Whatever idea he has next, it's probably so stupid that it's not worth sticking around to see, but... maybe he has a handle on all this, in his own little way, and Azumi could probably safely disengage without further issue from him--
Without even looking at her, he waves a hand up as if to say 'bye,' as he disappears into the building within a dangerous state of disrepair. Thus, would draw to a close the Story of a Murderer (of Azumi's patience).

COMBATSYS: Rust takes no action.

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Rust             1/-------/=======|=======\-------\0            Azumi

[AZUMI]
Azumi normally isn't terribly self conscious, but wearing a wedding dress in the middle of a cool night like this, while not being able to move all that well is some cause for concern. She looks down at the restrictive garment and sighs. Fuck it. It's not like she was gonna keep it. SHe takes her kunai and slashes open the sides of her dress, allowing her some freedom of movement.

Passing a glance over towards Rust she growls yet again, clearly still upset with his total mockery of her and her character, but what else could she do? They potentially destablized a building and unknowingly got alot of people hurt. Sticking around was a bad idea. Also staying on the ground floor is a bad idea. So as much as she wanted to wear a necklace of Rust's teeth, the best idea now was to retreat. She rolls her eyes at his wave, the werewolf turning towards the wall and scaling the building. Getting off of the ground floor was a fantastic idea. Once back on the roof she starts to sprint, leaping from rooftop to rooftop to make her escape. She totally...totally wasn't going to get paid for this. And after incidentally passing one of the 'hidden' cameras staring at her, she facepalms.

Now nobody was going to forget this either.

Goddamnit Rust.

COMBATSYS: Azumi takes no action.

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Rust             1/-------/=======|=======\-------\0            Azumi

Log created on 16:36:44 08/14/2016 by Rust, and last modified on 04:15:11 08/15/2016.