Match of the Millennium

Description: To meet enemies and rivals long thought lost in history, the World Warrior tournament has surfaced many exemplary and long-lost talents. However, the only way to truly realize the intensity of true fighting blood is to embrace those talents at the extreme schism between life and death. Leo Whitefang, the Second King, has had his transport taken down over hostile territory. There, he faces a ghost who has slept for far too long.

[SEISHIROU]
The tongues of flame burn, reaching almost as high as the building itself.

The wreckage of the tournament transport lay gutted like a gazelle in the savannah, twisted aluminum gaping open as the faint beat of twin rotors still beat the air in slow counterrotation. It happened entirely too quickly, the blast forcing down the bird over NOL territory. While it didn't exactly crash, the blaze is intense, enough to cast chaotic shadows over the scorched concrete garden, elegant statues glowing with the fire that sticks to it. It's an unnatural blaze, sticking to everything, and the heat of chakra is bold in the air.

The NOL were experienced warlocks, and it wouldn't take them long to neutralize the firestorm. But in the meantime, the heat of the blaze buys him room to do what needs to be done.

It didn't take much to divert the paperwork for the transport pattern from site 'A' to a falsified site 'B', which would take them right through the heart of an NOL controlled territory. The group would slaver at the chance to snap up one of their bounties cheaply -- and in so doing, impose a stringent time limit on their battle. It's important, because his target -- like many in the tournament -- is a threat eclipsing reasonable measure.

The hiss and click of a brass ball, only a size larger than a basketball, rolls into view from the conflagration. Red energy seeps from exposed seams as its parts shift and reconfigure, twisting and reorienting plates until it shuts seamlessly. The source of the blast, a cryptic weapon. It rolls into the shadows cast by him.

A tiny figure, willowy and nigh forgettable is in the midst of the hellscape. A young man(?) wearing a shinobi shozoku, and a haori the color of freshly fallen snow. Attachments and armored elements are hidden by the drape of that haori, bracers and hilts tucked away neatly into his sash. Dark, sharp eyes are lit by the flicker of a small device attached to his temple, flickering with red chakra. Then, he slips the helmet onto his face, and the smooth featureless design hisses as it clicks into place, reconfiguring around the vicious oni mask it mimicks, sealing with an ominous pop and several clicks, as he pulls his hood over the helm.

"Mission limit... eleven minutes, forty two seconds before redline," he calculates, the raw serpentine hiss of a synthetic voice constrictor tightening his voice into a concentrated flange. "Beginning."

[LEO WHITEFANG]
A few days ago, within the magitech empowered command center of Illyria's Castle.

"Are you sure this is absolutely necessary. I am swamped with paperwork and there's simply not enough hours in the day!"

"King Leo, it was at your--request--that we did the research and then offered our willingness to participate in World Warrior. You were just expressing the need for Illyria's capabilities and independence to be more--

"Yes I know what I said but I didn't mean right -now-! Or maybe I didn't realize it'd be so soon. Do you know how hard it was to track down Liu Kang? I need to focus on crafting this joint venture. Defense of the Earth from outside forces should be priority!"

"King Ky has signed up and already departed."

".....My bags are already packed. When will the car be ready to take me to the airport."

Right Now:

Flames and chaos. Not exactly something he's not used to experiencing, it's just the sort of thing he'd rather deal with on his own terms. Being forced down here, of all places, doesn't exactly qualify. Still - a forced landing is a forced landing - even if it wasn't a true full on crash it was still severe enough to jar him, bruise him and batter him and it takes a second for him to recover his wits well enough to begin to move. first recovering the unconscious body of the pilot and dragging him to safety and then turning to truly take in his location.

"You're joking.." he says to the uncaring but perhaps still mildly amused hand of fate as he recognizes the architecture and then spies the approach of their first responders. Early scouts and guards coming to check on the status of the downed ship and its passengers before reinforcements arrive. A crackle of chi and sorcery..and his iron crosses have wrapped about his hands and extended into massive twin greatswords, easily gripped by his large hands. Silhouetted by the flames, he turns and begins an approach towards the incoming men. Framed by the light, his figure seems like a humanoid lion at first. They think they even hear the sound of a beasts roar..and then the slashing ripping flashing lights of gold and silver fills the air as he dashes upon them like a launched missile, dust and fire dragging in his wake as he strikes first. As far as he's concerned the shots had already been fired.

In the flurry of these movements, he remains blissfully unaware of the approaching shadow.

COMBATSYS: Leo Whitefang has started a fight here.

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Leo Whitefang    0/-------/-------|

COMBATSYS: Seishirou has joined the fight here.

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Leo Whitefang    0/-------/-------|======-\-------\0        Seishirou

[SEISHIROU]
The fearsome blazing twin crosses of that leonine king cast a muted reflection in the curved surface of even the matte black of a transparent visor, a muted sheen meant to prevent the very thing it is forced to behold, the transition to massive man-slaying greatswords noted somewhere in a peripheral thought as a potentially lethal threat. A detail, absently filed away.

There is something strange, fey and alien about the man positively swimming in clothing and varying trinkets, the baling heat dragging a slow song from his haori's sleeves as he rests a tabi on the brass contrivance beneath his foot. The ripple of leonine chakra with all of the force and power of a king drags on his body, far more than enough to crumple the breath of a genin in the chest, and even his physicality is not entirely capable of withstanding the beast when he goes wild, scattering his attackers in the distance like tenpins. Many would turn away from the sheer force of intensity radiating from the wild beast ahead of him. But 'Ryouhara' is a name that does not know that sort of surrender. There are only flames at his back, and the ground yawns for him alone.

The boy moves at will, stepping off of the brass ball faster than a whisper, and barely heavier. The sphere jostles nary an inch as he approaches, hunting down the great and grizzly man with nothing more than the sotto voce crack of silk in the air, the wind stirring with the motion. Leo will see his approach as a disjointed set of images, as if he were moving too fast for the camera frame, a white flash of motion, easily mistaken for the shreds of one of those same first responders. One of the men disappears beneath his massive cross, dashed to the earth beneath a brutal blow. But in the instant it takes for the man to reorient, to shift targets smoothly from one to the next, there is a constellation of irregularies across his peripheral vision. The struck man's silhouette bounces off of the ground, shattered as another man attacks him from behind. From behind, the shinobi's hand darts forward, and a whirling red ring spears from his wrist, a metal hunting ring shot with force from point blank range, as the boy reaches to the hilt at his hip -- and disappears entirely.

Time slows to a standstill for true warriors. Slowly, the coalescence of irregularity on the edges of the king's notice becomes clear. The comet ring will hit his mid-back with the force of a fire-limned sledgehammer, whirling fast. But the angle on which it approaches is exact, coming down more from one side to the other. And then the man defeated only an eyeblink ago by the king rises, bouncing off of the ground to recover, curling his knees in as he draws a full-length katana from his hip, the gleam reflecting off of the fire's cast.

Of course, it is no hard task to replace one of the lion's defeated attackers, to slip an agent loose of their uniform tabard and then hide in its shadow. But to do so in the middle of attacking is another matter entirely. The faceless agent that attacks Leo now easily appears to be in more than one place at the same time, his disguised assault only revealed at the very last second, when he unsheathes a katana and attempts to follow a line dead through the king's midsection, rocketing into him like a missile. Incidentally, the lines he follows -- and the timing -- will cause the shinobi's blade to spear right through the flaming ring bearing down behind the lion, an eerily coordinated, blisteringly fast assault from a faceless adversary.

COMBATSYS: Seishirou successfully hits Leo Whitefang with Shunshin Mirage.

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Leo Whitefang    0/-------/----===|=======\=------\1        Seishirou

[LEO WHITEFANG]
He has been, in his time, caught by the edges of a gamma ray blast, swiped by swords capable of shearing trains in twain, struck by magic wielded by mad faery queens...

That doesn't make being run through by a katana -any- less debilitating and horrendous.

He never saw it coming. Instinct alone led to a subtle shift in body position and tightening of his body just enough to guide the blade such that nothing vital was struck to instantly lay him low but strike it did and Leo's teeth grit in agony, fury and frustration.

That..should not have happened. He had the measure of the attacking NOL soldiers, knew their capabilities well, even with this ambush occurring, he was well in control and in command with all of his effective brutality. Now this.

In the back of his mind, in a haze of macabre humor, he manages to think that he hopes World Warrior is somehow getting good footage out of this....

"The Lion will never yield to such treachery! Now fall to me!" Leo's voice thunders with force that contrasts the wound he just received. Blood spreads along his white tunic and splatters on his long coat, but he swings, bringing his great swords wildly around in search for his assailant. Sheer animal instinct and power surging through him as he seeks the body of his attacker. His iron cross great swords flash bright silver, dragging jagged edges behind them as they sweep out and around. Sparks flying as they rip through twisted metal and bear down on his assassin for a lightning fast thunderous attack.

And a second swing to follow as should the first land he attempts to deliberately draw this demon of shadows closer to him, caught by the blades and dragged in as a lion seeks to drag forth its prey.

COMBATSYS: Leo Whitefang successfully hits Seishirou with Klingenetz.

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Leo Whitefang    0/-------/--=====|=======\=------\1        Seishirou

[SEISHIROU]
Somewhat annoyingly, the man moves quite fast. Fast enough that the cameras, in retrospect, might have trouble keeping track of him, beyond the roar of flame and lion alike, beyond the harsh clash of steel and the crack of flesh. The shinobi's pincer attack works -- to a degree, the ring shrieking against heated steel as the young man catches it on the curve of his blade, conveniently pierced all the way through the king. The katana's blade guides the ring right down the barrel of its spine, to neutralize the boy's forward momentum with a sawing meteor blade of impact. However, there is much more danger to being bound in the hide of a lion yet unslain.

The thundering force of the lion-king's voice is enough on its own to blast the edges of the ninja's haori back, the masked agent enduring ripples along his frame of the man's sheer force of spirit. Even struck so, the booming man is unyielding and stroke, all but ragdolling the shinobi off of his feet with the arc of his movement. Though fast, the ninja cannot move for a second, two, as the man brings his swords to bear upon him.

It is enough.

The one listed in the tournament rosters only as 'Ryouhara' is bit by a score of fangs, the flared ends of those steel crosses hooking past linen and silks alike to bite rich blood, running thick on the broad flat of the blade as the air is violently smashed from his lungs, filling his helmet with condensation and a spatter of raw red, muffling the osund from within. But the ninja is tenacious, and his grip tightens on the hilt of his blade, still buried in the man's middle. Two fingers -- the index and the middle -- smash hard into his hilt, popping loose two mekugi -- the fitting pins that anchors his steel to his hilt. With the weight of the man's rage, the boy hauls hard on the hilt until it slips loose of the steel entirely, leaving only the leaved symbol of a clan protruding from the wound. The mekugi are caught in his sword hand, the younger man swapping grips as he slowly inverts beneath the man's weight, flicking the short iron pins into the air in an arc over the king.

A moment, an instant later, the boy twists, rolling his side over the flat of the man's blades, over his wrist, flicking himself into the air as he rolls over the king, unable to drag himself loose fast enough so merely commiting -entirely- to the motion. The two mekugi pins glow in the air with a single gesture as the shinobi rolls into the lion's spinning momentum. And then dart open into full-length javelins.

What follows next is a brutal kind of dance, as the ninja moves to try and extract himself from the king's vicious vaccuum. Not one, nor two, but three blades drop. The first two asre the javelins spawned from apparently nowhere, the razor-tipped spears 'Bankoushou' made and hidden in the fitting pins of his katana, dismantled in an instant. The second is the sword itself, as the shinobi flicks himself into a roll over the king, only to catch the other end of the blade on the hilt, the wrapping loose as he pinches the tip in the split of the wood beneath a thumb. He uses this makeshift grip to pluck the curved steel all the way through the thing, with such force that the captive ring is set -spinning- anew, the heat chakra bleeding from it like a sawblade as the boy tries to flank Leo. In an instant, the dance fills the space around them with steel and fire.

An instant, a second, and Leo's shoulders will be filled with the iron of javelins.
A blink, a twitch, and the ghost will have the heat ring striking him a second time, to fill lhis senses with fire.
A breath, a sound, and the ghost will have his sword flipped, tied into its hilt anew, and moving to harpoon the man's bicep.

COMBATSYS: Seishirou successfully hits Leo Whitefang with Tsurugi Festival.

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Leo Whitefang    1/-------/=======|=======\====---\1        Seishirou

[LEO WHITEFANG]
Why did he agree to this again? There was a stack of paperwork. A hot pot of tea. The comfort of Illyria Castle. Why is he here?

Ah yes. Boredom. The search for the memory of battle and the most intense of Sacred Order missions and desperate battles of life and death. Even battles to preserve the entire world. Battles nobody but those within the Order will ever know of. He's here because if Ky can remember that and recalls the importance of that feeling and that presence, so must he.

But.it's been a long, long time since he's been battered like this. Perhaps the last time was when that command Gear assaulted Illyria Castle. Perhaps this is worse.

A fountain of blood erupts from his torso and shoulders. His mane like blond hair now dyed red. His magically reinforced garments shredded from this violence.

The lion roars again:

"I TOLD YOU! FALL TO ME! To your KNEES BEFORE ME!!"

The violent, desperate, furious desperate efforts to, it would seem, literally kill this man, have summoned the beast and called forth a wrath that sees only red from both the blood draining down his face and from the inferno that is in his heart. Leo Whitefang, a man who prides himself on his great command and force of personality and elevated opinion of himself and all he represents can indeed lose his temper.

His blades arc in a failed attempt to deflect the rain of metals, thus taking them all in full force but his momentum continues in wild abandon that lunges violently for his oppressor with a lunging assault in pursuit of his foe. His massive frame blurring faster and faster as lunging kick spins out from him and is then followed by both twin swords slashing violently for the shadow with chi raking the air and ripping apart the earth.

Faster and faster now. A blurred vision of gold, reds, silvers and browns, he lunges again. Leaping skywards now and dragging his blades behind him..a soaring blooded pincushion now as he pinwheels his berserker assault into the man gashes that rend stone, earth and air in his rising arc.

"EISEN STURM!"

COMBATSYS: Leo Whitefang blitzes into action and acts again!

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Leo Whitefang    1/-------/=======|=======\====---\1        Seishirou

COMBATSYS: Seishirou blocks Leo Whitefang's Blitzschlag.

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Leo Whitefang    1/-------/=======|=======\====---\1        Seishirou

COMBATSYS: Leo Whitefang successfully hits Seishirou with Eisen Sturm.

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Leo Whitefang    1/-----==/=======|=======\====---\1        Seishirou

[SEISHIROU]
There is a cost to staring down a lion.
It takes only instants for the shinobi dance to reach its whirling steel crescendo, the Bankoushou sticking from the whirling beast king like an absurdly dangerous pincushion animate as the ghost makes a flashing steel example of drawing him in so close, little more than flickering arcs of light around the massive man as he moves, catching the ring at the tsuba of his blade, the heated iron clattering and whirling, calmed by the press of the young man's finger to the metal, pinching it between the edge of his handguard and the pad of his thumb, smoke curling from the marked metal. He slips back quickly as the beast roars, ghostlike images slipping backin his wake.

There is no time to respond, the roar of the beast already culminating in the bloodied waterfall of whirling steel dwarfing the shinobi. Thoughts are fluid and fast in that one twisting vertiginous moment. An idle hand stresses the blade against the ground, testing the fit of the new mekugi pegs resecuring the hilt to the blade. The wrapping's come undone slightly, a length of double-folded linen left dangling from the sword's hilt, left to curl about his wrist. There is very little time to react to the attack, and most assailants would have none at all.

A gesture, two fingers raised, as the boy leans back into the springy steel of his sword. The folded paper jewels hanging on the ends of his haori both snap loose at the young man's will, breaking loose and exploding open. Unfurling, massive sheets of paper broader than a man's torso flicker into iridescent blue squares intervening between the two, the king's weight colliding like a falling guillotine against it. The Shikoushu was a paper jewel ninkou that unfurled and rooted in space wherever it was unsealed. And to hit it is like hitting a steel wall, the paper crumpling only slightly, and turning the rush of blades aside as if it were an all out shield. In normal circumstances, this would be enough to deflect even the pikes of mounted men on horses. But against a rampaging lion, it would not be enough.

The first layer breaks slowly, as a sword shears through it, and by the time the following blade comes, the chakra that enervates the paper is fully expended in eyeblinks. The momentum of the king carries him on a meteoric path through the dual layers of defense and right on into the man behind it, smashing into him, with the defense just barely able to keep his head attached to his shoulders.

The ninja -- by now there is no mistaking that is what he truly is -- is thrown hard into the ground, rolling fiercely across the dirt, with the headquarters in the distance witness to the brutal handling of the slender figure almost cut in half or quarters at the neck, waist or whatever other appendage shows itself. He just barely manages to land on his feet, tabi skidding and the boy's body spinning in the dust as he falls into a wide, agonizingly defensive stance, one arm limply holding onto his blade. His haori, formerly pristine, is coated with wide arcs of scarlet, as if he'd been attacked by the cyclone itself, and his breath comes in harsh, even sound, even over the defensive curl of that helmet. Intense calculations are made. No time to hold back. "You're not my ultimate target," Ryouhara breathes, slowly standing. His blade lifts, the point orienting on Whitefang.

"...but the roudoushakaikyuu will never kneel."

He cocks an arm back, the blade's curve at his ear before he thrusts, a red dart of light shooting dead out from his blade. Ryouhara is barely standing for a moment, maybe two before he is at motion again. The ghostlike heat shimmer crawling from his figure is an aftereffect of the speed that he darts down towards the lion with. It's not hard to cast the haze of his chakra across the javelins piercing into the king's hide, almost an aftereffect of his suicidal dash. His blade is aimed right about where the king would expect it to be -- right at his neck, ostensibly to finish the assassination he started with. But the attack is direct, honest, -fast-. Entirely too direct to ever land. But the shinobi's sword's wrappings trail behind his thrusting attack with speed. He aims not for the king's neck, but to outpace his own projectile, reaching the king -far- in advance of the whistling ring. Because he's going to use his sword to try and run through the man's arm with one blade, and the wrapping from the sword to hook the other fast to it, sealing the man's deadly whirling swords for just one moment, ostensibly to throw all of his weight into pulling the king to one side.

To open his guard to be hit square in the skull by a iron ring missile filled with heat chakra, seeking the space between those javelins that are acting as homing beacons.

COMBATSYS: Seishirou successfully hits Leo Whitefang with Principles of "Ninkougakujutsu".

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Leo Whitefang    1/--=====/=======|===----\-------\0        Seishirou

[LEO WHITEFANG]
A bloodied mess-in more ways than one. In pretty much all the ways, really.

He's bravado. He's power. He's the king...but even kings have their limits and the rush of fury and adrenaline has a peak.

It would seem this shadow...this demon...this ninja may have found it for Leo's roar is ripped from him and transformed into a strangling cry of pain and distress as the defiant words carry with them an attack of blistering ruin that sends him ultimately crashing backwards towards the ground, trailing flames behind him from scorched flesh and ignited hair.

A last minute twist enables him to avoid landing squarely onto the arm that was so impaled and onto the shoulders so pincushioned and damaged but only -just-. In doing so he avoids complete loss of limb but to say he is now hampered beyond consideration would be putting it mildly.

But he doesn't have time to simply yield. Consciousness is still with him and with it comes a moment of clarity. Rage doesn't matter anymore. Only victory and survival.

"Do -not- kneel then..." he manages while pushing impossibly to his feet once more, on arm barely dragging the incredible weight of the bloodied iron cross blades and the other using the second blade to brace himself.

"Stand tall..and face your fate like the warrior you clearly are!"

Iron chi blazes about him, reinforcing his body and surging new strength as if a bonfire was lit within and without. He raises the grievously injured arm upwards and brings the other blade up as well, standing tall with tattered garments and flesh.

"For a lion always hunts with one hundred percent of his strength..!"

He slams the swords together, the metal molten now as it begins warping and shifting, transforming into a great lance.

"Your very games remember that terror!"

The lance ripples, bursting with spiraling energy as the furthest end of it forms into a roaring lion's head.

"Every human knows in their soul to run in fear...!"

Leo springs forward, thundering at the shadow like a comet. Spiraling and spinning and then seeking to rush into and pass beyond the ninja as another roar ripples through the entire landscape.

"When the lion bears his fangs! WINDRAD DES WELTRAUM!"

COMBATSYS: Leo Whitefang knocks away Seishirou with Windrad des Weltraum.
- Power hit! -

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Leo Whitefang    0/-------/------=|=======\-------\0        Seishirou

[SEISHIROU]
This is the world of steel, the place on the raw edge between life and death where every man performs to his utmost limit. This is the place where he needs to be, where his senses are operating 'at peak efficiency.' It's the only place where he stands a chance of knowing, of finding what he needs. Ages stacked upon ages of meditation, of research and training have thus far yielded nothing. It is this space, where man roars with the strength of an entire army that awakens his blood. Pain and the mayhem of the battlefield are what is needed now, and it's the only thing that makes the dark blood surge in his veins.

A bloodstained haori drapes loosely around his figure as he stands. Dimly he's aware of it -- the heat haze in the air around him, making his form indistinct, the awkening of that ill-fortuned blood. It is the power of being a 'weapon of history,' the ability to be so close to death and continue thinking only of the goal.
Of replacing that which is missing.

Sharp instinct simmering behind a detached sentimentality drawn to the bold words of the king. But as the chakra -- chi -- flares about that man, stifling any attempt to even form a cogent thought, the man in the oni helmet is pressingly aware there is hardly at all enough time to reply. An alert, triggered by a rubric inside of his helmet, triggers with the completion of a class S killing weapon in front of him, the lines of chakra outlined and only partially obscured by his own blood. "An impossible level of weaponcraft," he notices, as the light from a massive lion's head slowly bleaches out the dark colors of his shozoku. Time is up.

There isn't a defense in the world that could make light of that massive molten spear, and the boy's sword, even in all of its quality, shatters in the wake of its unyielding thrust like glass struck by a thrown boulder. The young man is not just battered, but blown through like a great wind, knocked head over heels by the bull rush that all put impales and then -tramples- through him, sending the man smashing into the ground on his helmet, and kicking up a dust plume that almost goes as high as the flames with his knock down, drag-out sprawl. And for a time, that is that.

"I, Ryouhara Seishirou, acknowledge your skill in craft..."

It takes nearly everything for the bloodied and ruined shinobi, whose crimson veil coats a full half of his haori now, as he struggles to his knees, one blooded hand shaking as it rests on the hilt of his blade, the remnant of his blade used to balance his stance, struggling for more than one knee. "A powerful, honest disposition," the young man coughs, wicked and wet. "And a fearsome strength. You would have made an incredible soldier."

"....but this is not the end of the shadow war."

A single tabi sets onto the brass weapon. He is there, exactly where he was only minutes ago, resting on the brass bomb that took down the king's transport. His hands cannot be seen, the bloodstained haori draped over his shoulders. Unlike the image conjured apparent before the king's audience, the shinobi that stands behind the king now is standing, with all of the force of pure obsession that drives eyes never visible behind that mask. There are two of them now, one ninja standing, and another kneeling. Instead of the ruined sword -- the only thing that kept him from being torn clear in half by that spear -- the young man holds a wickedly curved knife, with a dark blade just barely visible past his sleeves. His blood runs down the edge of that razor curve, and the haze around it intensifies.

"And fear is for men. Not lions, nor ghosts."
An instant later, the boy on the ground beneath the king, the pretty little illusion of surrender, explodes.

COMBATSYS: Seishirou can no longer fight.

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Leo Whitefang    0/-------/------=|

COMBATSYS: Seishirou successfully hits Leo Whitefang with Bunshin Suicide.
! VENGEANCE !

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Leo Whitefang    0/-------/---====|

[LEO WHITEFANG]
He has the passion and the spirit. The reserve of strength still but his body..his body can do no more.

Leo ends his assault by nearly driving himself straight into the ground and barely, just barely, manages to pull back to his feet though his strength saps away rapidly as the full scope of his injuries begin to once more catch up to him. There's no more fury or rage. Just pain. Lots of it.

And a yet defiant warrior of shadows.

"You.." begins Leo..turning to face the warrior once again. Many questions rise up now. Who..and more importantly..why? Why has he done this, this way.

"This did not have to be this way..." he declares, taking a few heavy steps forward only to be stopped in his tracks as he hears and watches what unfolds in front of him.

"Shadow war.." he repeats.

His guard drops. The illusion of surrender swamping over his hazy mind and battered senses.

It's far, far, to late when he realizes the deception and the vulnerability of his position.

"WAIT"! roars Leo, reaching down, only for his whole world to be engulfed in flame. The explosion billows upward in a majestic fire flower that blossoms into roiling fire and blackened smoke. A shockwave ripples out violently and the region fills with the echo of the blast mixed in with the roar of the Second King.

An instant later and he's tumbling out of the dust cloud, airborne and sailing the distance over towards the wreckage of the transport. Violently and with finality, he slams into the side of the ship and rebounds from it to tumble back towards the ground, back where this all started and seized by the haze of darkness as unconsciousness finally takes him. He may recover quickly. Quickly enough to try and use the destruction and confusion to venture further away and summon help and retrieval but for now..for now the lion's hunt has come to an end more ignoble then he had hoped for.

COMBATSYS: Leo Whitefang takes no action.


COMBATSYS: Leo Whitefang can no longer fight.


[SEISHIROU]
The shinobi takes a single step after the king, the smouldering flames from his clone's explosion still licking at the crater left in its wake. "The tenacity of 'human nature' must be pressed to its limit," he says, long after Leo's question, long after he would hear it. Slowly, the blade of 'Kinha' is tucked away, sheathed slowly in his belt as the shinobi realizes there's no one left to cut with it, the blade making a muted, audible sound as it slips between layers of linen.

"Mission complete."
And then a moment later, Ryouhara drops on the floor, leaving a grisly red splatter across the dirt.

Every nerve in his body is numb, failing after being hit with a god-forged spear a hare's breath prior and held together only by sheer will. Eyes, dim and unfazed by the fact he can't move any of his limbs, watch the technological part of his ninkou helm count down the remaining minutes estimated until a more organized NOL response arrives. Part of the plan to escape in the event of Leo's victory was to rely on the NOL's notoriously organized military efforts. Unfortunately, that same time works against him now. "Damn."

If he can just reach his release seals in time..
Seven minutes and counting..

Log created on 21:56:45 09/09/2023 by Seishirou, and last modified on 10:08:12 09/10/2023.