Description: Sooner or later the sins of our fathers catches up with us. No matter where we go or who we choose to be, that which came before is inescapable. What history has the Devil of Koga with the Shiranui Clan? Another piece of the puzzle is revealed.. And a gauntlet is thrown.
Another sunset dies beautifully at the Shiranui's modest estate, fire and gold surrendering to the blues and greys of evening. Supper is a relatively quiet affair without Andy around to tease, Mai sitting across from her grandfather, both eating silently. When they were finished, they thanked each other for the meal...even though it was just take-out...and rose to leave the table to their respective training. They had long since decided to train separately ever since Mai first developed...er...assets. Perverted old man. So while he takes the dojo, Mai departs for the woods. It's a good place to be, away from everyone else, and it helps her to be more perceptive to the presence of foreign chi. Or rather, the feeling of psycho power in the area. She's been ever-watchful ever since she got an idea of Vega's motives, and thus the need for training and becoming stronger has taken an even higher priority to embarrassing the man she loves. More than anything, she doesn't want him to worry about her. A man like that was meant to blush and look adorably flustered!
Quick on her feet, Mai zig-zags through the tree branches, leaping nimbly from one to the other. Occasionally she touches down on the ground in a low crouch, only to spring back into the leafy canopy with feather-light bounds from trunk to trunk to aid her ascent.
This is what has become of the Shiranui line.
The ghost knows not weither to laugh or weep. She had heard rumors of this 'Mai', and certainly looked over many of the public fighting records.. But she could not make herself believe the truth. Such power.. such greatness.. Reduced to this?
If the kunoichi had selected her locale for purposes of sensing something out of the natural.. then her choice of environment proves to have been a wise decision. In mid-flip the girl can feel the air change. The temperature dropping a single degree as a chill runs down her bare flesh. The sound of trees begins to die away, fading as the softness of the wind loses it's comforting touch.
Ominously, the sun nearly finishes its descent across the mountains to the west.. lengthening the shadows between the mighty trunks and filling the clouds above with a dim crimson haze.
"..Shira..nui.." A voice carries itself across the silence. A feminine, soft voice. Rich and deep.. if directionless. It could have been her imagination alone if not for the unsettling feeling of being watched..
Mai freezes as she lands on a thin branch, fingers wrapped around the knotted wood to keep her steady. Only for a moment her eyes widen in surprise. An unsettling sensation to be sure...but not one that belongs to Vega. Who, then?
Masking her surprise smoothly, the girl's lips curve into a smile, dark eyes twinkling. "That's right," she replies, swinging her legs 'side-saddle' over the branch, flipping out a fan and holding it half-an-inch from her mouth. "Who wants to know? Don't be shy, I'm sure not! Come out," she curls a finger, still smiling as she cocks her head to the side.
The sunset filters through the canopy above, illuminating the aborial kingdom with shafts of glittering crimson, allowing the rest to fall to shadow. Hardly a branch stirs now, the very life of the forest seems to stall away within entropy's unshakable grip.
No further words are spoken. No accusations or boasts of any form. Simply, as Mai glances at a nearby branch the second time.. It is no longer unoccupied.
A tall, looming shadow balances perfectly on a thin stripling of a branch. The silouette speaks of a comely woman, though the oblique darkness sees fit to divulge no details. Save one.
A pair of golden eyes glimmer to the Kunoichi. Luminous in an unnatural fashion, fitted with black slits not unlike those of an inhuman predator. Their accusing gaze burrowing straight through the younger girl.. speaking more than any words could ever hope to.
Certainly, there are women who have been jealous of Mai. Her great beauty, which she is completely unabashed about flaunting. Her great love, whom has had no small number of female paramours attempting to get his attention ibnetween fighting matches. A celebrity of great reknown in fighting circuits. Even some sour-faced competitors enraged at being beaten by such a seemingly innocuous woman.
But the hate that levels her now is unlike those small-minded things. This is hatred for even being born. An unGodly hate that human eyes were not meant to carry.
"Ooooooo... Now that's quite the dirty look!" Mai lowers her lashes, her coy smile bordering on wickedness. So this...personage (Mai isn't entirely sure it's a woman, since the chi she senses feels poisoned and barbed, like iced cyanide)...is looking for a fight. She's not the first. Probably won't be the last. But it's been a long, long time since a female has come to call on Mai personally.
Snapping her fan shut, Mai grins. "Nice trick. You'd make a good kunoichi if you had a mind to try it. Hup!" Pushing herself off of the branch, her slippered feet land with a soft crunch in the twigs and fallen leaves below on the forest floor. Her head tips backwards so she can study the strange and ethereal creature looming ominously above. Curious...and a little frightening! But it's not like Mai to show her fears so openly. Not unless it gives her a perfectly good excuse to glomp Andy's arm and nuzzle it.
"So," Mai smiles, bending a knee forward, and leaning down to brush a bit of bark from her thigh, "you might as well tell me what this is all about. Any particular reason why you want to fight? Or are you just bored?" She shifts her feet apart, dropping into her typical fighting pose. Light on the balls of her feet, leg muscles tense, arms limber and loose.
As Shiranui glances back upwards to the branch high above to again look upon her female caller, she'll notice that the shade is no longer there. Only a shaft of bloody sunlight touching the leaves where she once was.
"Kunoichi.." The ominous voice picks up a distance behind the buxom girl, as the shadow now stands on the forest floor. Utterly motionless as if she had always been there. Not a hint of sound or shift of action.. As if some dead thing unmoved by the living world surrounding her.
More details arrise, the fabric of an ebon kimono.. fallen about her shoulders to reveal a beauty not unlike Shiranui's own, save a touch more mature. Purple painted lips curled into a tense frown beneath the hellish radiance of those eyes. Unblinking, unmoving, glaring straight through the woman's soul.
"You desecrate that word." Her voice filled with a strange, otherworldly cadence. A soft whisper, echoing in the nothingness between you and she.
If she intends to fight, the shadow makes no move towards it. "You do not know what it means to be Ninja. Child." Lips twisting with revulsion. Frowning deep enough to reveal fanged teeth, glinting in the dim light, "You are everything wrong with this world. You and yours took a thing of greatness and left it in ruins. I came to tell you.. to tell you to your face, as a matter of honor to my Clan."
Head tilting forth a fraction, only then turning her gaze away from Mai to a point in the distance. More specifically.. the Shiranui Dojo far away, "I will not rest until I see everything you love turned to ash on your lips. I will not die again until I see your grandfather a broken, withered husk lamenting what he did to me." Taking a single step closer.
"I will not stop until it is Clan Shiranui that is brought to its end and cursed for a thousand years."
Only then does the shadow breath audibly, as if barely containing the emotion raging behind those eyes. Held someplace between tears and screaming rage. "Let your grandfather know.. He failed. And you will pay the price in his stead."
"Huh!" is Mai's flippant reply. "You're not the first to make that kind of accusation! And you're not the first woman to make threats against Grandfather," she grins. "But that doesn't excuse you from threatening my family and future husband, Spooky," she tsks, wagging a finger chidingly.
Mai isn't typically the type who gets angry of vengeful. She hides the majority of her true emotions behind that puppy-playful facade, just because it infuriates people when she doesn't seem to take them seriously. However, in the case of this woman, she's definitely been baited. And she wants a piece of Marise. NO ONE threatens Andy and gets away with it!
Wait...die AGAIN? What does THAT mean? No matter. "Let's go, then!" Mai chirps, her cheerful voice belying the hungry eagerness in her eyes.
COMBATSYS: Mai has started a fight here.
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Mai 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Mai has ended the fight here.
COMBATSYS: Mai has started a fight here.
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Mai 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Marise has joined the fight here.
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Marise 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Mai
Under normal circumstances, the ghoulish creature is unmoved by such juvenile flippancy. Such childish antics have long since lost their meaning to the woman. No.. it isn't Mai's words that bring her to violence.
Its Mai's heartbeat that offends her. Inhuman eyes watching the coursing pulses of life within the woman's chest, taunting the Devil with every thrumming rhythym.
Oh how she wants to make that offensive thing stop..
"No family. No husband for you, child. Your line ends with you. HERE AND NOW!"
The woman's hands flex from the sleeves of her Kimono. Fingertips suddenly springing forth violet nails, extending forth in sharp movements. Becoming akin to thin sword-like razors nearly two feet long apiece.
In a rush of motion the Devil is upon her. Kunoichi verses Kunoichi. Except this dark creature is a Kunoichi the world has not seen since it was a much darker, older place. The woman moves with abrupt speed, faster than her kimono should permit as the fabric splits about her long pale legs. Long tresses exploding from her arranged bun, flooding behind her like hundreds of flailing black tendrils with her frightening movement.
"KYAAAAAAAAAAAEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Claws swing for the girl! Seeking to scratch her flesh and should they connect do minimal physical damage...
...But the spiritual? ..It will feel as if her very soul would bleed from those wounds..
COMBATSYS: Mai dodges Marise's Shinigami.
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Marise 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Mai
Oh hell no! Mai doesn't want ANY of that, no sir! She ducks a little lower as Marise charges her, her eyes focused, perhaps showing some of that intelligence she normally keeps securely hidden away from the rest of the world. The nails rip through air, and even manage to shred away a scrap of scarlet silk as Mai takes to the air.
The small girl lands just behind her opponent, spinning on her heel to throw a fire-laced kick at Marise's back. "Neeee, doesn't all that long hair get in your way when you fight?" she inquires with a cheeky smile, hopping backwards and snapping out a fan in each hand. "I'd be afraid of tripping on the hem of my kimono if I wore an outfit like that!"
COMBATSYS: Mai successfully hits Marise with Ryuu Enbu.
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Marise 0/-------/--=====|=------\-------\0 Mai
Too slow.. Too slow..
The nimble girl leaps away as elongated claws whistle through the atmosphere. Shaving only an inch from the girl's trailing outfit. The Devil's expression contorts into outrage, only beginning to turn on her heel only to get slammed in the back, the flames -raking- upwards along her kimono and skin. The ghoulish creature arches as an agonized -screech- is torn from her! Bizarre gouts of smoke and ash rise from her skin where the flames touched her, above and beyond any usual fire damage the Kunoichi's opponents may take..
Stumbling a step forwards, the Devil makes no retort as she quickly composes herself. Snarling with fangs bared as she quickly snaps a hand out backwards without turning fully. Her arm -shooting- from her sleeve as her milky white arm elongates like a javelin! Seeking to grip the Ninja's ankle in a shocking move and -yank- her forth, disrupting her agile stance..
COMBATSYS: Mai dodges Marise's Quick Throw.
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Marise 0/-------/--=====|=------\-------\0 Mai
What. WHAT. Goosebumps prickle over Mai's bare arms. Those are /fangs/. While they don't look all that foreign to someone like Blanka, it's disturbing to see them suddenly bared on a beautiful woman in flowing silks...like something straight out of a horror movie.
This simile is reinforced when her arm snakes abruptly from her sleeve. UGH! That's DEFINITELY not natural! And Mai wastes no time fleeing those outstretched fingers with a rapid dash to the left.
It's frightening, no doubt about that. But not desperate. That...that /thing/ doesn't like fire. And it just so happens that fire-based chi is Mai's specialty. Those nails, though...she gets a nasty feeling about them. ~I can't let her touch me,~ Mai frowns to herself, spinning one of her fans at Marise as she continues to run. ~Have to keep myself at a distance!~
COMBATSYS: Marise endures Mai's Thrown Object.
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Marise 0/-------/=======|=------\-------\0 Mai
Once again fingers clutch only at empty air. The serpentine arm writhes a moment before quickly recoiling into the ghoulish woman's sleeve as she turns about in full. Hunched forwards with her ebon tresses framing that golden gaze. Wisps of smoke still rising from her as she watches the fast girl race around...
Frighteningly, the Devil doesn't so much as budge or flinch as the fan simply impacts on the creature's shoulder. Bouncing from the milk-white skin without much concern as she employs a different strategy..
The ghost lifts her arms as she begins to inhale. A slow, deep breath as her chest stretches her already mostly-open kimono. The sound reverbates oddly throughout the trees as the air seems to drop another degree.. the movement of the wind on Mai's skin grows faint as the world around the Devil grows still. The very inverse of when most summon forth their inner power.
Rather, Marise seems to draw it away from the world around her.. like a void in the life-force of the Earth. Clearly gathering herself for a technique almost certain to tag this speeding thing..
COMBATSYS: Marise gathers her will.
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Marise 1/----===/=======|=------\-------\0 Mai
Now that's...that's creepy. While Mai is steadily gaining more confidence about how this fight will turn out, she's not so stupid as to think the fight's in the bag. Her OWN tactics are to manipulate the opponent into underestimating her. She'd be a fool not to guard against the very same thing she seeks to employ.
She's hesitant to get any closer. What's Marise preparing for? If it's a long-range attack, then Mai would do well to get in close and ruin her aim. But if she's preparing to charge Mai and attack her up front, then she should continue her twink-dodge tactics with relentless abandon. Her feet shift with uncertainty, weighing her options carefully.
Right, then, she decides, setting her brow with determination and dashing forward in an uneven line. She holds open her left hand, spinning another fan from its hidden spot, cracking it open with a swift flick of the wrist. Upon reaching the woman, deadening the very wind around her, Mai tosses in a little breeze of her own. Spinning rapidly, she aims to clip Marise with her outstretched fans as she shortens the distance between them...adding one last playful slap at Marise's cheek before jumping backwards again.
COMBATSYS: Marise blocks Mai's Hakuro no Mai.
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Marise 1/--=====/=======|=------\-------\0 Mai
The Devil watches the faux-kunoichi's apprehension with a malevolent glare. Having filled herself with the breathe of the Earth, the ghoulish creature lifts her arms slowly.. Determined to not allow this cretin to shake her confidence, even if it holds together by fury alone.
The Devil should back off.. Retreat for now. She knows she's no match for a fighter like this in the prime of her life, no matter how much she loathes the girl. But, for once, rage gets the better of her. The flesh and blood of her tormenter stands before her and she WILL have a sampling of her vengeance here and now.
Golden eyes shift carefully as the Ninja races towards her. The flicking fans are quickly -caught- in mid-air as the creature grab's the woman's wrists with shocking speed. Her touch cold and clammy.. almost unalive..
"So much life.. So little use for it.." The creature whispers as she pulls...
COMBATSYS: Mai dodges Marise's Yomi no Junan.
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Marise 0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0 Mai
Mai was right to be cautious. Whatever power that creature was stocking up was horribly tainted. Just the brush of a fingertip over Mai's arm was enough for her to feel it, and it very nearly made her ill. She doesn't want to know what would have happened if Marise had actually managed to catch her. Her curiosity isn't quite that suicidal.
Slipping past the grasping her arms to grab herself two handfuls of kimono, Mai pulls Marise forward as she falls back. Her foot plants itself against her opponent's stomach, and just as Mai's shoulders hit the ground, her leg extends to hurl her opponent overhead and away. (Hopefully into that tree, Mai thinks maliciously.) "It's MY life, thank you very much, and I'd prefer to keep it for a little while longer!"
COMBATSYS: Marise endures Mai's Medium Throw!
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Marise 0/-------/---====|==-----\-------\0 Mai
Again.. nothing but air.
The Devil's grip is rendered undone as the woman slips from her unholy grasp. The creature can only let out a cry of enraged frustration as feet are -planted- firmly in her middle as the thing is -hurled- far and away. Tumbling head over feet in a mass of swirling dark fabrics and silk, only to -collide- against the far tree trunk with an audible CRACK, and flop to the ground in a miserable heap.
Moments later the devil lifts her head to spat crimson flecks on the ground.. Clearly not moving nearly so smoothly as she was moments before as her gaze pierces the dirt beneath her. Nails clawing into the ground like knives as she bites her lip hard enough to force rivulettes of blood to run down her cheeks.
She can't win.
As much fury as she holds in her heart.. she knows that to be true now. Its too soon.. TO EARLY. She's no match for that woman yet.. She needs more time. More time to recover.. more time to come at her from different angles.
From the mass of her tussled locks the Devil hoarsely whispers, "..You've won.. for now girl.."
Inhuman gaze lifting to affix the triumphant woman with hell's own heart, "..This is not over."
With a abrupt gesture the creature throws her sleeve before her and her image errupts in a blast of smoke.. disappearing swiftly to the darkness she crawled from..
COMBATSYS: Marise takes no action.
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Marise 0/-------/---====|==-----\-------\0 Mai
"Wait!" Mai starts forward, frowning. Now just a darn minute here! THAT'S not how it's supposed to go! She's supposed to thrash that thing and demand a more thorough monologue on just what the heck her beef with Mai and the Shiranui family happens to be.
"Geez," Mai exhales, scratching the back of her head and dropping her combat stance. "I thought I was supposed to be the impulsive one around here..."
At least she doesn't have to worry about Andy if Marise chooses to go after him. He's a hundred times faster and stronger and more *wonderful* than Mai! He'd fold her into a pretzel and that would be that. Mmmmm, Andy... Feeling no traces of the poisonous presence lingering in the area, Mai permits herself a doe-eyed moment. She'll go call him. And if she mentions she was attacked, and sooooooo scaaaaaaared, he'll have to come over and comfort her, bwah ha ha ha ha!
COMBATSYS: Marise has left the fight here.
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Mai 0/-------/-----==|
COMBATSYS: Mai has ended the fight here.
Log created on 23:27:53 06/25/2007 by Marise, and last modified on 23:50:28 06/26/2007.