Description: Tenma runs into a semi-lost Miu Kurosaki, and demonstrates his usual social graces in provoking a fight. ROCKS FALL, EVERYONE DIES.
What doesn't belong?
It's a clever game to play to some, staring at a normal, peaceful scene-- or even chaotic-- and picking out the one oddity, finding the one thing that makes the moment unusual, noteworthy. For the good majority of the day, the downtown area has yet to experience a moment quite like this. Students and gang members mull around, people walk from business to business, drivers blaze down the streets in cars, and the occasional shifty-eye individual stands at the mouth of an alley.
Ultimately a normal, albeit cloudy afternoon in Southtown.
But like most things, there's always an "until..."
In this instance, it's the rather short girl wearing her own modified take on the uniform worn at Seijyun Girls Academy. A girl with a long side-set ponytail, a girl with a blank, neutral expression. Miu Kurosaki shifts the nice-looking pack that hangs from her shoulder while rustling through the contents, moving papers, notebooks, and personal effects around with minimal regard as to where she's going-- little more than passive glances upward. Her movements are a bit stiff-- sore from yesterday's meeting with Eva, no doubt. But then her hands come to a halt, pulling up something:
A chunk of her broken walkman.
Shoving it back into the bag and closing it with a zipper, Miu's subtle reminder of things she needs to eventually buy comes back to kick her in the head. "I wonder how much a new one will cost, anyway..." she murmurs, only now seeming to realize how far she's walked in the last half-hour. Looking up to street signs and at what intersection she's at, the girl takes pause. at the corner of Gedo Street? Talk about out of the way...
Yeah, Seijyun Princesses are pretty much completely out of their element when they're down by Gedo Street, now aren't they? Hardly the place for a proper young lady to be walking around. Of course, that really depends on what one believes about the students of Gedo High, whether they're really vigilantes, or just as bad as the other scum that haunt the streets of Southtown.
So when Miu pauses by the corner of Gedo Street, it's probably no surprise that at least /somebody/ takes notice of her, in the form of one of the school's many colourful attendees; standing not far away from the corner is the tall, lean figure of Tenma Kiryuu, with his cloth-bundled bokken slung over his shoulders, both arms casually resting over the ends to keep it in place. Of course, he notices the spooky girl, and of course, he speaks up. Tenma being Tenma, what he says isn't exactly friendly.
"Hey, Princess, you oughta run along," the gruff boy says. "Place like this ain't safe for the likes of you, huh? Maybe y'oughta scurry along home before somebody unsavoury notices you."
'If I'm at Gedo Street, then then I could get on the bus at--'
Her train of thought is cut short by the thuggish voice that sounds out nearby, catching the slim girl's attention and turning her head toward the source. Though Miu keeps her expression relatively neutral, the quirk of her eyebrow and the suspicious stare would easily lead one to peer into her head and tell what she's thinking-- isn't -he- someone unsavory? Hands lowering to her side, though masked by the bulk of the bag that hangs down at her hip, the crow girl of Seijyun begins to draw her focus into her hand, a barely-practiced manuver that keeps her just ready enough to make sure she has an effective counter prepared with her powers-- that is, if he's as unsavory as he looks.
"I don't scurry," Miu says, narrowing her dark purple eyes, "And I don't think I have to worry about my safety if you are all this end of town has to offer."
How on Earth could anyone think of Tenma as being unsavoury? Just because... Oh, right. At least she doesn't say it though, right? Because words can hurt. For example, what Miu /actually says/. "Ohhh...? Well, maybe you should start scurryin', since you're obviously such a bad judge of character," the apparent street thug says, tapping his foot in mild irritation. "Besides, there's way worse people 'round here than me." All sorts of them! Unfortunately, he's all too aware that he's not at the top of the heap in Southtown. In fact, he's pretty close to the bottom!
She's met with her own share of people worse than this guy likely is-- Yagami, the man with the bladed cape... and lord only knows how many others there are out there that make this guy look like the drumming monkey at the carnival. Still, Miu shows a bit of irritation in her expression as the bag-toting Gedo student retorts-- and insulting her ability to judge.
Closing her eyes, Miu breathes in deep and exhales hard-- all an attempt to calm herself and to keep from acting out of her own usual character. An unseen aura flows about her, a strange energy that's hard to put one's finger on immediately as her hand lifts. Her eyes open as her open hand balls into a fist, black feathers bursting out from between her fingers like she were holding throwing knives. "Believe me. I can take care of myself. Not everyone that attends Seijyun is a fragile flower that needs your protection." The point is punctuated by a flick of the wrist, casting the feathers at the ground and creating a small burst of light as each rains on the concrete. "If you have a problem with that, then go crawl back to your hole and leave the rest of us alone."
Luc goes somewhere else.
That's right, Tenma is casting aspersions on Miu's ability to discern the skills of others. It's a thing he does, it's called 'being a big jerk'. Still, his curiousity is piqued when those black feathers appear and are then tossed to the ground... Where they explode? "Well... Ain't that neat," Tenma says, sounding impressed, as a slow grin crosses his face. "And here I thought today was gonna be boring." Uh oh.
Unslinging the bundle from his shoulders, he holds it in one hand, before suddenly lunging forward at Miu, aiming to jab her right in the gut with the end of the thing. Why? Because she seems like she's worth fighting, with her crazy exploding feather power and all that.
COMBATSYS: Tenma has started a fight here.
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Tenma 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Miu has joined the fight here.
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Miu 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Tenma
COMBATSYS: Tenma successfully hits Miu with Random Weapon.
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Miu 0/-------/-----==|-------\-------\0 Tenma
Somehow, it turns into a moment like from an anime-- Miu can clearly see the Gedo student with the bundle, shifting it off his shoulder. Likewise, she can see the sudden lunge and the thrust of the bagged bundle. Stepping back as if to leap out of his range, Tenma's force is misjudged-- and the clothed bundle strikes square and direct in her gut. Eyes go wide and the wind rushes out of her with a pointedly painful gasp, skidding backward on the sidewalk and grinding dust and dirt under the soles of her shoes.
Breathing heavily for a moment's time, Miu unshoulders her bag and casts it to the side-- between the pair, just a bit off to the side, to keep it at least a little bit in her range of vision. "You--" she hisses, eyes taking a dangerous glint to them. The girl's next action takes advantage of the bit of space provided to the pair as her arm whips out in a swift swing, casting one of those glowing black feathers at the thug with a grunt-- spinning back around to cast a second from the same hand.
COMBATSYS: Miu successfully hits Tenma with Kakure Amagakeri.
- Power hit! -
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Miu 0/-------/---====|=====--\-------\0 Tenma
"Heh," laughs Tenma as he gets a good solid hit in on Miu, knocking her back like that. He's just starting to untie the cloth sheath when the Crow Girl hurls those feathers his way, and naturally he tries to do the sensible thing and get the hell out of the way... Unforuntately, it doesn't really pan out, and instead he gets struck by both, hard, and blasted back. Ow. That hurt a little bit.
Pushing the cloth off of his wooden sword, Tenma drops the 'sheath' to the ground, grinning a little bit. "I dunno what the hell that was, but you've got some good power there," the Gedo student says, before biting through the skin of his thumb. "This should be pretty interestin'..." And he draws his bleeding thumb along the bokken, forming the chi link between himself and the weapon, which is now surrounded by a misty red glow. So maybe he's got a few tricks up his sleeve as well?
COMBATSYS: Tenma gains composure.
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Miu 0/-------/---====|===----\-------\0 Tenma
A compliment on her power-- sure, now that he's had to experience it for himself. But Miu's curiosity as to the contents of the cloth bundle ends in disappointment as it only seems to be a regular wooden sword. Regular-- until he bites his thumb until it bleeds, then drags his thumb along the length. Miu's face is lit with surprise, her so-called stance stiffened into place as she tries to figure it out-- the trick to the glow, and what it could herald for her in the near future.
Only one way to find out.
Her legs spread a bit and her knees bend. Miu sprints forward with her arms trailed at her sides and moving with swift, wide steps to zig-zag in and hopefully lower the Gedo student's ability to anticipate the coming attack. But just in front of Tenma, she -springs-, arcing into the air just over his head and at a tight angle. Should she get that far, the small, impossibly light girl will land on his back with a broad white feather bleeding from her knuckles-- and slammed right into the back of the sword-thug's head.
COMBATSYS: Tenma interrupts Psi-Launcher from Miu with Initial Breaker.
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Miu 0/-------/--=====|====---\-------\0 Tenma
How troublesome this might be, as Miu dashes towards Tenma like that. Whatever she's got planned is probably going to hurt, if she throws more of those feathers at him... But he's rather surprised when she instead chooses to vault right over him like that. If she wants to be /behind/ him, she can't have anything good on her mind. And suddenly, there's that hand aiming right for the back of his head...
Tenma whirls around at the last moment, his stance shifting briefly as he does, holding his bokken horizontally, before thrusting it out at Miu in a speedy strike even as he gets hit in the face with her strange energy attack. The net result? Tenma is blasted away, but he manages to recover at the last moment, skidding back in a low crouch on his feet. But poor Miu got jabbed with his chi-empowered sword, so how's /she/ doing?!
BAM. Her fist hits him square in the face-- though perhaps the back of the head would have been better, in the long run-- and Miu once again feels the wrath of the now-infused sword against her body. Ordinarily, the attack leads into a swift and controlled flight, but a strike as hard as this sends her sprawling out and crashing to the sidewalk with a loud gasp, sliding on her back while her stomach starts to protest the feeling of weapons being driven into them so hard.
Rolling over onto her hands and knees, Miu scoots up to her feet and turns back around, dusting off the short and decorated skirt of her uniform with an angry sigh, moving next to dust off her shirt and sleeves. "Come on!!" she exclaims, reaching one of those moments where she's moved past the point of annoyance. "That can't be all you have to that stupid trick!"
COMBATSYS: Miu focuses on her next action.
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Miu 0/-------/--=====|====---\-------\0 Tenma
Now that's a good attitude to have; Tenma's glad to see Miu has some fighting spirit, and doesn't just hurl random insults like some stuck-up Pacific High girls and their crazy monkey boyfriends. "All right, Spooky Girl, have it your way!" he calls out in response, completely ignoring the potential pot/kettle situation here, as he ATTACKS WITH FREAKING BLOOD. But anyway.
Since Miu has so kindly invited him to come at her, the Gedo swordsman rushes at the calculating schoolgirl, swinging his chi-infused wooden sword back behind his head... And then across in a wide, wild strike which, if he were wielding a proper sword, could probably take somebody's head off.
COMBATSYS: Miu dodges Tenma's Fierce Strike.
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Miu 0/-------/--=====|====---\-------\0 Tenma
And then, her face distorts. "My name isn't 'Spooky Girl'!!"
It's something she's had to deal with from the first day she attended Seijyun, and she certainly won't take it from someone like this-- someone who is actually using their -blood- in their -attack-. And for her moment of indiscretion, the young man with the wooden blade suddenly hurries up in front of her with the sword in such a massive wind-up-- one that could be seen a mile away.
Ducking herself low, Miu stops at about waist-level for Tenma's body. Staying in close with swings like that, though... it's a bit dangerous. Attempting to unsteady her opponent's footing and getting a bit of breathing room, the Kurosaki girl's hands sweep out and grab onto Tenma's leg, the sizzle of her power flowing through her hands, and -pulls-, looking to jerk the young man right off his feet and reminding him what the concrete feels like on his back.
COMBATSYS: Tenma blocks Miu's Quick Throw.
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Miu 0/-------/--=====|======-\-------\0 Tenma
So, Tenma's sword whips through empty air; that's not good, but clearly Miu is nothing if not speedy. "Tch," he mutters as the girl goes low, grabbing him by the leg and... Upending him, sending him spilling to the ground. But it doesn't quite pan out the way Miu was probably hoping it would as the tall boy instead hits the ground rolling, getting back to his footing only a few feet away. But you know, that didn't feel good either.
But rather than bitching and moaning about getting hurt, the sword-wielding Gedo boy instead rushes forward again, slinging his sword over his shoulder and lashing out with his free hand in a series of punches at the girl's body, aimed to disrupt the way energy flows through it; his footwork is careful as well, trying to herd Miu into a better position for him...
COMBATSYS: Miu blocks Tenma's Flow Breaker.
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Miu 0/-------/-======|======-\-------\0 Tenma
It worked!-- sort of. Miu's arms sweep upward with the follow-through of the toss, but Tenma's resiliance is more than the shorter girl had expected. Up, at 'em, and already returning fire, though with an attack that she certainly hasn't anticipated now: Fists?!! What kind of madness is that?!!
Miu's forearms lift in a rather haphazard cross, hands turned out and palms open to soak the majority of the blow with limbs rather than her face or, worse yet, her soon-to-bruise stomach. Whether he notices it or not, energy also begins to gather in Miu's fist, a haphazard gathering of feathers starting to poke, push, and grow out from between the cracks of her fingers and her clenched fist. The moment the last blow finishes, Miu's fist rears back-- "There!!" --and then swings forward, seeking to slam into Tenma's gut. Her fist doesn't even make contact, however... the feathers burst out of her hand, flowing freely out of her arm. With the sounds of a gust of wind, the drilling lance of energy seeks to slam into the Gedo student, boosted by the pressing steps forward from Miu!
COMBATSYS: Tenma endures Miu's Yomosugara.
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Miu 0/-------/=======|=======\====---\1 Tenma
Well, that didn't quite go the way Tenma had wanted it to, now did it? Miu blocks the attack, but he at least manages to herd her along into a better position... But how does he deal with, uh, getting punched with feathers? Grinning a possibly mad grin, the tall youth decides to /stand there and take it/. The energy that slams into him is insanely painful, and it feels like his entire body is on fire, especially his gut, as the force pushes him back and away, but by an act of sheer determination he manages to stay on his feet. Why? FOR REVENGE.
"Geez, you hit like a truck," Tenma says, swinging his sword back and thrusting his other hand forward, fingers slightly contorted into a mudra position. What could he possibly be planning to do? Well, what he does is channel all his energy into his wooden sword, glowing with an ominous red light, before he takes a single step forward and swings his blade across, his full focus on one strike, and if it hits... His bloody chi moves into and /through/ Miu, to disrupt the way energy moves through her body on a grand scale, leaving numbness and weakness in its wake! "TRY THIS ON FOR SIZE!!"
COMBATSYS: Tenma successfully hits Miu with The Sealing Sword.
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Miu 1/---====/=======|-------\-------\0 Tenma
WHAT IS IT WITH PEOPLE THAT STAND THERE AND SOAK HER ATTACKS.
The purple-eye girl tightens her jaw as her attack-- her trusty Yomosugara-- scatters away in the end, the feathers spiraling wildly around in the space between her fist and Tenma's body. The shock dulls her senses, enough that by the time Miu begins to move in order to avoid the incoming attack... it's far too late.
The bokutou's intended slash hits home. The noise caught in her throat is half-gasp, half-gag as the potent, -overspilling- energy that her small body contains is jaggedly disrupted, jerking her body rigid before she loses her footing and her knees give way, dropping to a kneel as she breathes hard, deep-- and stares at the ground blankly.
Fingers curl lightly on the sidewalk. Miu's whole body goes tense as the flow of energy suddenly fights to right itself, even maintaining a physical effect-- her clothes rustling, her bangs and side-set ponytail beginning to waver. "... T-That ... hurt..."
COMBATSYS: Miu gains composure.
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Miu 1/-----==/=======|-------\-------\0 Tenma
Actually, physically stumbling after landing that attack, Tenma has to use his sword to catch himself after overbalancing. "That's more like it," the youth says, straightening up and sweeping the blade of his bokken through the air, the chi aura around it flaring back to life as his own energy rebalances. The blade rests on his shoulder again, blue eyes focusing on the girl on the sidewalk. "Looks like you can dish it out, but... I dunno 'bout takin' it." Not that he's doing a good job of taking /her/ hits either, but jeez! That's a lot of energy!
Tenma isn't, however, such a nice guy that he's going to give Miu the chance to recover fully from his 'ultimate technique'. "But c'mon, this is no time to be resting!" he declares, rushing forward and ducking low, swinging his chi-charged bokken out as he then throws himself into a rising, whirling slash aimed to knock Miu up into the air and away!
COMBATSYS: Tenma successfully hits Miu with Vajra.
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Miu 1/-======/=======|=------\-------\0 Tenma
She can certainly dish it-- though it's true, her ability to take it is questionable. The strange energy that she uses and the strange energy that the Gedo student uses-- both seem to fit so well against each other that it's hard to tell who could end up on top in the long run...
But even as the flow of energy from Miu starts to right itself, there's something off about it. Not so much in the flow itself as ... the amount. It starts to rise further than it has in the entire battle, visible to the point of black and white glowing feathers simply bleeding out of her arms and legs, even as the former color begins to bud and grow wildly from her left arm. Head hanging, Miu's right leg thrusts out to stomp down and lift herself from the ground, getting halfway to standing up fully before the wooden sword racks up her jaw and sends her sailing through the air. Miu flies, for lack of a better term, a good deal into the air from the impact before her lower body -rocks- backward, riding the inertia into a flip and landing in a crouch. Miu looks up to meet eyes with Tenma, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth. "That hurt."
Sprinting forward as fast as she can, the Seijyun student suddenly lunges, arms high over her head and knees drawn forward. The black feathers continue to grow and spread from the tips of her fingers to the shoulder of her left arm, hand clamped tightly around her right wrist-- which produces another broad white feather, set like a katar-style blade of her own. Once she comes into strike range, her arm whips around to slash violently at the Gedo student's chest...
COMBATSYS: Miu successfully hits Tenma with Psychic Secrets.
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Miu 0/-------/-----==|=======\=------\1 Tenma
The prelude slash leads Miu into spinning around like a top as she lands before the Gedo student, her right arm lashing high and low. She continues to strike Tenma repeatedly with the 'bladed' fist-- and it becomes hard to count after the third or fourth slash.
It ends just as suddenly, however, as the feathers burst out of her arm in a -massive- surge, a cone of black feathers much larger than the drill-like lance of an attack not too long ago. Between the two, through the scream of energy that rips into Tenma and throws him more violently than ever, it sounds more like a flock of birds blazing by his ears...
In the aftershock, the feathers again scatter from their formation in a wild spiral, floating lightly on the breeze as her still-extended fist trembles. Miu drops to one knee and starts panting, her arm spastically twitching as the residual energy flows out in a most uncontrolled way.
Pain. Pain, and lots of it. That's what Tenma experiences! He gets quite soundly wrecked by Miu's attack after not even /trying/ to avoid that attack. Maybe he had some clever plan... Or maybe he just wasn't smart enough to try to dodge it. Either way, what's clear is that he takes unholy damage from that assault of energy, briefly crumpled on the ground. Pushing himself up, though, the quite soundly battered Gedo student grins.
"Heh... That was pretty weird," Tenma says, using his blade to support himself. "Strong though... Guess I'm just about done, except..." Well, he's not just going to lie down, you know? Instead, he raises his bokken again, before slamming it down point-first against the ground... INTO the concrete, which then starts to rumble.
The sidewalk cracks in several places, spidering out from the point where his bokken is embedded in the ground, erupting with waves of bloody chi that converge on Miu! "...FOR THIS!!"
COMBATSYS: Tenma can no longer fight.
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Miu 0/-------/-----==|
COMBATSYS: Tenma successfully hits Miu with Hell of Blood.
Glancing Blow
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Miu 0/-------/---====|
Starting to stand, Miu clenches her hand around the slack of her left arm, fingers still twitching involuntarily. That last shot to the head combined with the earlier assault-- brutal as it was-- has left the Seijyun student in a bit of a clusterfuck state, the numbness and pain rolling through her body blurring the edges of her vision.
And then she focuses again on Tenma as his bokken -pierces- -concrete-, looking wildly from side to side as the crimson chi erupts from the ground and blasts her-- hard. "Kyaaagh-!!"
Hitting the ground flat on her back, Miu lays still, breathing hard. Now's when her body chooses to remind her of the violent brawl with Pacific High's Eva on top of her new injuries, muscles burning and only now the pain in her left arm dying down.
'Damn it, this isn't fair...
COMBATSYS: Miu takes no action.
COMBATSYS: Miu can no longer fight.
Not fair? Well, maybe... But is any fight ever fair? Tenma leans heavily on his bokken, the red aura fading entirely as the last of his energy is expended. That's all the fight he's got, and it's pretty clear that Miu's in the same situation. "Hah... Hah..." he breathes raggedly as he pushes himself up, shakily, to his feet, staggering over to where Miu's fallen. "Not bad, Princess," the Gedo swordsman says down to Miu, putting a nice layer of bravado on the fact that he can barely stand... But he does offer her a hand up, at least. "Need any help getting back to where you're goin'?" Maybe he's not so bad after all?
For the next creative writing assignment she gets for homework, she'll write an essay. It'll be a long essay, relating to all the different ways she's been taught to feel pain. In a short time, she certainly has a list of different injuries to recall and base it off of-- including the rare and unique effects she's felt from guys like this.
Though such a clear thought hangs in her head, her body ... well, that's an entirely different story. When her eyes open, it's to the blurry sight of the Gedo swordsman standing over her, a hand extended. Does she need a hand up...? Her lips quirk into a bit of a frown, her eyes shift to look anywhere else -but- Tenma's face... but still, her arm and decidedly small hand grips onto Tenma's own and tries to put a bit of effort into standing up, as much as her body says otherwise. But once she's on her feet, she starts to slump over. "I-- I should to get back ... ugh. To Seijyun..."
"Yeah, yeah. Seijyun it is," Tenma agrees, once Miu's back on her feet, however shakily. The two of them no doubt make quite a pair after the beating they handed out to each other... Though he probably looks more used to it than she does. So, he'll be a good sport and help her get back to her school, with only a brief stop to get the cloth sheath for his bokken. "Let's go," he adds gruffly, because even if he's being nice (kind of), he's not going to admit to it.
Log created on 20:12:53 05/08/2007 by Tenma, and last modified on 15:44:25 05/14/2007.