Match of the Millennium

Description: Eiji tests another candidate, an assassin known only as Christie. Might prove interesting.

[CHRISTIE]
A rough looking man in a pinstripe suit with partially bared chest, he sits mulling over whether to call or fold with a middling to strong hand. His glass of whiskey barely touched and mood turning foul and blackening along with a run of bad luck. A strikingly tall and beautiful white haired woman seating herself at his elbow with her hip in the chair, massaging at his shoulders was a small consolation. She'd arrived with him to this backroom high-stakes table and had remained silent throughout contenting herself with refilling and serving drinks to all the players at the table.

A short Bluish-black cocktail dress with a floral pattern near the straps, a snowflake necklace that seemed suitable to the cool air the surrounds her, a bangle on her left wrist. The necklace dangling free when she bends over that players are free to... 'appreciate' it and charms of the woman doing so as she serves drinks. The most fixating thing that keeps drawing eyes was a lace garter which carries a small knife, worn on the inside of her thigh where it wasn't in any part concealed from view.

She was a distraction, possibly to make up for a lack of skill on the part of the new guy who was steadily losing his money and his calm. Lascivious smiles and licking of lips were telling signs they were enjoying taking everything the younger man had, including her.

The final round passes and it's yet another loss for her 'date' the man is almost on the verge of murder at this point. He wasn't a fool and knew he was being cheated somehow, but hadn't seen how it was happening. Chrisite picks herself up her seat leaning against the side of his chair and before anyone fully realized what she was doing the knife thunks noisily down into the table, piercing the suit sleeve of the player to her clients right.

The now terrifying arm-candy slides the knife away from her as though she were slitting a fish open. Edge upwards it carves a track into the table's surface and parts sleeve and shirt alike with a rasp, cards spilling onto the table. A sophisticated method of cheating that required skill and misdirection rather than easily detectable gadgets.

Her client stands up with such force the table shifts and bounces, chips rattle and scatter, the players surround it paling.

Morons.

Christie walks out of the room with a deliberate and measured pace just as the pleading and bargaining starts. Not violence yet, he was savouring their fear and letting them bargain, what cost did they think they could pay to extinguish that fury. The guards in tailored suits outside making no move to prevent her leaving nor respond to the screams. More sensible people knew not to try and cheat the illuminati. Christie was done!! It was incredibly boring to silently watch, and largely she was starting to fall asleep during that game. She was a predator, not a shepard.

Her cold grey eyes brightened and measurably increased in intensity when she decided to sit there and begin counting out and imagining methods and fun ways she could kill individual targets at the table. Poisoning the drinks would surely have been the most effective and easiest to escape after doing. Her thoughts were dark and twisted things that would have chilled those hungry eyes and smiles to know about. The cowards never even met her eyes.

Her walk back towards the VIP parking to retrieve her cute little Alfa Romeo has her reach up to brush at a feathery fringe and continue with in silence but for a disappointed sigh. She was missing out on all the fun contract work for this.

COMBATSYS: Eiji has started a fight here.

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Eiji             0/-------/-------|

[EIJI]
Eiji Kisaragi had been watching the sport the entire time. Had seen how Christie had endured and waited for her moment. It was, almost, a thing to behold. Almost. Still, he'd been sent to... interview this person. And by "interview," Krauser meant "beat the crap out of this person." And possibly "prove they have no business in the World Warrior Tournament."

Either way, Eiji had tailed Christie back to her car. It tended to be a good place to attack folks; people tended to relax a bit when getting into a car. Which is dumb, in Eiji's opinion. Cars could be trapped, lethally even. And they make for great places for ambushes. Like so.

Eiji finds a good line of sight, and then flings a kunai aimed at clipping the woman's charm bracelet to the car. Or open some veins on the wrist. One of the two; either is fine by Eiji, really.

COMBATSYS: Christie has joined the fight here.

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Eiji             0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0         Christie

COMBATSYS: Christie blocks Eiji's Kagenui.

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Eiji             0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0         Christie

[CHRISTIE]
The solid metal bracelet fares well against the point of the blade, the wider edge of the kunai scratching her arm despite the speed at which she retracts her arm the falls back to take low cover against the vehicle parked next to hers. A Shelby GT500 in blue with the vertical white striping. Large American made trash she was grateful for as cover!

The wound on her arm stung and was beginning to well and bead with blood, sharp impliment. The wound is nothing more than a scratch, no depth to it and nothing important opened up. The attacking instrument, her eyes perceivably narrow their focus and direction on the thrown blade. Still embedded in her car door. Kunai, a Japanese throwing knife. Mugen Tenshin or someone with an agenda against her current employer? japanese or American It didn't matter overmuch but it was some indicator of who she was up against.

Was it Kasumi out there in the darkness somewhere? Was she holding a grudge still?

Theres a faint clip clopping of her high heels and she makes to stand and slowly makes her way down the length of the covering Shelby. Hunched over and just slightly elevating her head enough to peer over the contour of hood and bonnet and sweeping the area to locate her opponent. Moving to toward the hood of the car and having a wall at her back.

This was someone who'd fought someone stealthy or a sniper before, first you located their position and then you hunted them.

Let the better predator win.

COMBATSYS: Christie focuses on her next action.

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Eiji             0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0         Christie

[EIJI]
Eiji grins a bit under his mask. This was a game he good play. It is, in fact, one of the games Krauser hired him /to/ play, in fact. Kisaragi lurked around some cars, having seen where Christie had taken refuge. She was good, but Eiji was just a bit better.

The flash of pale white hair, the flicker of fair skin, these were enough to give away her position. The ninja blurs across one opening between cars, then another. His original position was useful information, but ultimately irrelevant as the ninja springs lightly onto the roof of the GT500.

"Greetings," is all he says, before lashing out at the woman's head with a sweeping foot!

COMBATSYS: Christie counters Medium Kick from Eiji with Ryutsui Ren Kyaku.

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Eiji             0/-------/----===|==-----\-------\0         Christie

[CHRISTIE]
Her ears prick at the way the Shelby groans, a squeaking rock on its suspension as the ninja lands on top of the Shelby. A typically silent landing from a ninja! On inferior quality materials that would give him away. Painted lips stretch into a smile, she was both glad to see the attack and that he introduced himself finally. A man! Preferable to it being Kasumi come looking for revenge of some kind.

Wordlessly she grabs the incoming kick aimed at her head, smiling with gleaming silvery eyes which capture the light she holds fast, the inside of her elbow curling around and over to top of his foot. She Christie kicks herself into sudden forward somersault, with a flutter of purples skirts and black panties both her legs guillotine through the air into a horizontal swipe of kicks across Eiji's masked face. Her height and reach now a major factor in her appeal but also her style of fighting.

The momentum carries him rolling down toward the bonnet of the where she continues to advance alongside the car, gradually tweaking and adding even more tension to that captured leg. Driving forward with a clattering of heels she suddenly wrenches hard in an unnatural direction and against the limbs range of movement.

". . ."

Against an opponent who relied on mobility and stealth, she'd remove options from him by taking a limb. The fact that she performs this act of brutality mechanically and clinically while without speaking a word one of the more unsettling things about her.

[EIJI]
Eiji does not seem to mind the silence, oddly enough. He lets out a grunt of pain, but he manages to roll with the force, allowing her to cause pain but not enough damage as to ruin the leg. He kind of /needs/ that mobility.

He slides the leg free, rolling and then springing off of his hands to gain the cover of a Porsche. The landing also helps him test the leg. It hurts, but it will still function. Eiji will simply have to endure the pain.

He slips and skirts around vehicles, keeping his senses focused on Christie while waiting to see what she will do next...

COMBATSYS: Eiji focuses on his next action.

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Eiji             0/-------/----===|==-----\-------\0         Christie

[CHRISTIE]
Christie turns to run instead of pursuit.

There's a shriek of metal from the other side of the car, a jimmying and plunk as Christie dashes toward the other end of the vehicle. Not trusting to go over the Shelby after her prey or spending time going around it to get to him, she takes a longer path, running near the full length of the car and back towards the open and exposed parking lot.

Her footsteps slow and the noise occur when she passes by her cars door.

Where she does emerge back into his line of side she's clearly armed with the Kunai thrown earlier. She winds up into an underarm toss to flick it at him, ridge hand of her own held vertically ad shading her eyes after the toss, as she watches for his reaction. She was specifically aiming for the thigh of the leg she'd already tweaked. As her other arm drifts into sight she'd holding a second knife!!

Her own and one she was more familiar with using, held by the blade and weighing it carefully as she judges distance and movement and then tosses it straight after. She was trying to predict which way he'll attempt to evade base on his movement regarding the Kunai attack.

COMBATSYS: Eiji fails to reflect Large Thrown Object from Christie with Ryuu Kagejin.
- Power fail! -

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Eiji             0/-------/--=====|====---\-------\0         Christie

[EIJI]
Evasion or blocking were not the plan. Eiji reaches back over his right shoulder, as if grasping for a weapon that is not there. He swings anyway, bringing forth a blade of ki that slashes towards the incoming knives.

Mis-timing the attack was not in the plan either, but that also apparently happens as both blades jam into the already injured leg. Blood flows, and Eiji takes a knee. With a snarl, he rips both knives free from the injury before flinging them aside.

He is starting to get, well, not angry. Irritated would be an excellent word for it actually.

[CHRISTIE]
No respite!!

The grating as she slides sideways to a halt, asphalt and the heels of her stilettos protesting the treatment. Still uncoiling from her throw, she pauses as if giving herself time to relish the moment as Eiji falls to one knee.

Whilst he moves to extract the thrown blades she is already dashing in upon the wounded ninja. This was one predator spurred to action when she scented blood.

She lunges in and grabs for a firm hold on both shoulders, tangling fingers up in a rough grip on the blue gi her eyes also drift down his torso, mesh shift and a lot of visible muscle.

Hopping one into a standing rising knee with her bared leg and thigh visible, flashing the now empty garter she spikes up at the underside of his jaw. All to drive him back onto his feet, in a fast one-two combination she then springs into a flying knee with the other leg to catch beneath the chin and knock him away into the air!!

COMBATSYS: Eiji blocks Christie's Ren Chositsu EX.

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Eiji             0/-------/-======|====---\-------\0         Christie

[EIJI]
Eiji snaps both hands up, shoving up and away with force to deflect the grab. Some of the gi tears away pretty much confirming what Christie sees there. Torso mesh, and a lot of muscle. The close quarters allows Eiji to snap a palm strike directly at the woman's jawline.

If the strike lands, he takes a couple of steps to get clear of the woman.

COMBATSYS: Christie parries Eiji's Medium Punch!

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Eiji             0/-------/-======|====---\-------\0         Christie

[CHRISTIE]
Christie's 'jaws' filled with trophies she had torn off her opponent she settles back after being pushed, her prey wouldn't escape them for long. Arms flicking out to either side to discard the shredded fabric she leaves herself open. That delicate jawline beckoning the strike, her footing unstable on stiletto heels and yet a confidence a thousand times more than it should be.

Her hands are quick, as the strike starts to press toward her jaw her arms are already striking back toward the blow itself, placing themselves higher and now balanced on the back of his fist. The woman once more leaping into the air. She should be thrown plenty far away and that buy him the room needed to manoeuvre. Instead she turns a forward flip in the air, supported by Eiji she rolls over and above his body, skirt flowering around her like a petal and almost up to her navel as she drops in behind him.

Grabbing at the long ponytail she attempts to grab and wrench him around to face toward her the same time she has a spinning back elbow speeding toward his face.

COMBATSYS: Eiji full-parries Christie's Sanja Haishu EX!!

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Eiji             1/-------/=======|====---\-------\0         Christie

[EIJI]
Eiji whirls like a top, batting the woman's hand away from his ponytail. There is a smirk under the mask as he reaches for Christie's throat. The plan is simple: Grab the throat. Jump. Slam her to the ground while in the air.

There may be kicking and stomping while she is down. Hard to say at this point, but Eiji is tired of playing games now. Time to put the bitch in her place.

COMBATSYS: Christie blocks Eiji's Kuuchuu Ippan Seoi EX.

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Eiji             1/-------/=======|=====--\-------\0         Christie

[CHRISTIE]
The hand around her throat was painfully digging fingers into bare unprotected flesh. The smile was mostly absent and head tiled back in a way that hurt. Her one arm had the wrist with the palm lying flat atop Eiji's at a 90 degrees flat was coiled over his elbow, preventing it straitening or being lifted upward any further. Her other arm was pinching at pressure points on the inside of the arm closer the wrist. Her knees were bent to lower her profile and the toes of one of her high heels. She was standing on and pressing down on Eiji's own lead foot to prevent the leap.

She chokes out something soft and barely heard because of the restriction around her throat.

"--ough with the forepl--"

But the way her eyes flare she's seems to be getting into the tussle and more fired up by the minute.

Lifting her foot from Eiji's, Christie displays a cruel streak a mile wide by stamping out at that more injured leg, with the flat of her foot and stiletto heel.

He had no right to complain did he! He started this little fight.

COMBATSYS: Eiji blocks Christie's Medium Kick.

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Eiji             1/------=/=======|======-\-------\0         Christie

[EIJI]
Eiji sees the kick coming. After all, if the situation were reversed he would probably do the same thing. He twists slightly the second he realizes that the throw was not going to happen, catching the kick not in the wound but in the meat of the thigh. It still hurts, it's a freaking stiletto heel.

Eiji shoves roughly before bobbing and dashing forward. The chi blade is drawn once more, aimed at Christie's flank as he pashes and dashes away!

COMBATSYS: Eiji successfully hits Christie with Kage Utsushi.

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Eiji             1/----===/=======|=======\=------\1         Christie

[CHRISTIE]
The blade scores across her flank and prompts a flinch and then wobbling forward stagger. He'd hurt her, and escaped with a dash right past her, a new hole opened in the back of her sexy little dress, now hanging open to expose a more consistent view of the underwear she's already been flashing with all these acrobatics.

When the woman turn back around to face him she starts back at him at a modest walking pace, raising a solitary finger and waving it back and forth as if chastising him for the sudden spurt of energy and a clucking with her tongue accompanying each swing of the metronome.

He was rushing instead of savouring the meal, and if he finished before her so very badly. He wouldn't want women to feel that about him would they!

Dropping into her own stance she finally unveils her style and stance with the serpent hood curved hands and sharp hands that inflicted painful blows. She makes it abundantly clear she has every intent of inflicting pain and damage in equal measure. Not because it was efficient or practical to work someone over like this. She was loving it!

Her lunge and stabbing hands make for a constant charge and beat down of blows, stepping in and pressing forward with each hit hands a blur with each sharp and stinging thrust and the last a fiercer and harder blow than all before it.

COMBATSYS: Christie successfully hits Eiji with Jakei Renbu EX.

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Eiji             1/--=====/=======|=======\=------\1         Christie

[EIJI]
Eiji gets pummeled. But still is he smirking despite the bleeding cuts and darkening bruises. He stumbles away a couple of steps to get his bearings.

Then he charges again, reaching for the woman's neck!

COMBATSYS: Eiji successfully hits Christie with Yami Kari.
- Power hit! -

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Eiji             0/-------/-----==|>>>>>>>\>>>>>>>\2         Christie

Eiji takes the woman by the neck again, leaping skyward. About six feet in the air, he releases her and all but disappears from her field of view. A slash in the back. One in each arm, just inside the shoulder. Inside each thigh, aimed more at cutting veins and arteries than to deal any kind of insult. Then just under the ribcage on both sides. Each of the blades are real. Each of them flaring with bright red chi. Eiji reappears just above her, driving each of the paired knives directly down into Christie's collarbone before shoving off of her back with his feet.

He turns an almost lazy backflip, perching on the hood of Christie's Alfa Romero. "Stay down," is all the ninja says as he regards his work. "You will need to recover if you are to suceed in what you have been selected for."

[CHRISTIE]
The white haired woman drops to the ground and bounces on the asphalt in a veritble rain of red, raggedy purple and a bloody red pool barely starting to gather and seep out around her. She was barely conscious, assuredly without treatment to stem the bleeding she might actually die from wounds line this.

Manicured nails rake and scratch at the ground as she half tightens her hand and relaxes it, seeing if her body will still listen to her. A partial success as girl coils up and then begins the laborious task of climbing back to her feet. Arms and legs savaged she can't even move them to their fullest, but it's enough to stand.

She gives absolutely and no shits about what the ninja wants to select her for. She'd seen the kinds of things people got 'selected for' ..Kasumi, or Hayate. She had no intention of being fodder or material for anyone's aspirations but her own.

When she charges at him and vaults of the Shelby to fly at the ninja perched on the hood of her leased car it's with additional blood fountaining form the wounds in her body and a ferocious look in her eyes. Life was too short to belong to someone, she would live and die doing what she wanted to. Even if that end was now!
Surging forward into a strong snake hand strike to stagger opponent, while they're off balance, deliver a growling and wordless flurry of strikes to stomach and chest.

COMBATSYS: Christie successfully hits Eiji with Dokuja Rengashu.
Grazing Hit
-+- CALCULATED HIT -+-

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Eiji             0/-------/--=====|-------\-------\0         Christie

She was moving too slow, her wounds holding her back. She could barely touch him.. usually an opponent would crumple and open themselves up for a finishing blow. The hand she would use to lift them to their feet and by the underside of their jaw or neck.. she instead turns the hand sideways, flat wide palm ... and passes it in front of his face, obscuring her final strike as she aims her last blow more by prediction than aim or reflex. A force that could usually send someone rolling away and she would be lucky to penetrate all those muscles.

[EIJI]
Eiji rocks with the first couple of strikes, using the moment to drop some smokebombs before launching away. Christie /feels/ every stirke hit, but she can tell that something is /just/ a little off.

When the smoke clears, Eiji is gone. In his place is a log with something tacked to it with a kunai and something taped to it as well. The tacked item turns out to be an invitation to the World Warrior Tournament at Castle Strolheim.

The taped thing is ticking ominously...

COMBATSYS: Eiji can no longer fight.

[                         \\\\\  <
Christie         0/-------/-------|

COMBATSYS: Christie dodges Eiji's Huge Thrown Object.

[                         \\\\\  <
Christie         0/-------/-------|

[CHRISTIE]
Christie slumps where she stands, honestly.. a stupid ninja decoy technique and while she was almost dead on her feet. The log dropping into place on the hood of her car with a hollow bang she chastises herself and starts looking around for the ninja. From what direction will he attack nex--t.

The first tick reaches her ears and she freezes, amblified by the cavirty beneath the hood. By the time the second reaches her she is diving and stretching out to splash down spread eagled across the hood of the Shelby and pulling herself the rest of her way with her hands. A black smear of her blood across the blue and white striped hood and she falls into the gap between it and the next car. The explosion is enough to bounce the husk of the Alfa into the air and instantly start a fire that should bring the medical attention she needs.

Picking herself up she leans against the tyre of a car and remains seated there, her wounds were still freely bleeding and there wasn't enough really left of her dress to even tear into bandages. The more she exerted herself, the sooner she would die from bloodloss.

'Sweet! merciful! -- Christie! Hey! H-ey!'

She raises a hand to brush his stubbly cheek but instead jambs her thumb above his Adams apple to stop the talking. If he spoke over her when she was this weak he might miss something important.

"Max. Shut up and listen closely..."

Three days later and she was healing nicely and starting to think about getting back to work, something nice like a little low impact sniping to ease herself back in. When Max returns to the room to show her the Kunai he'd found embedded in the pillow next to her head as she slept... that's chilling, the invitation she sits up to turn over in her hands and have a good read.

"So, that's what he meant by selected!"

She was flattered, He could have mentioned it was an audition for something fun!

"I'm in."

COMBATSYS: Christie has ended the fight here.

Log created on 17:47:52 01/14/2018 by Eiji, and last modified on 13:37:16 01/16/2018.