Description: A chance encounter in Southtown's Village leads the dark maiden to hunt a confused and conflicted soul. Knowing the Ninja will never have a better opportunity, she strikes quickly and sends Frei reeling. Will the Monk defeat his own inner demons in time to thwart the Devil of Koga?
Thailand!
Alright, this isn't Thailand. When Hotaru first came to Frei suggesting they sneak into the country and look for lost friends, he was all for it. And despite the hellacious time the pair had breaking into the country -- in which our hero-monk no-sold a nuclear explosion -- Frei's personal mission to find and help his sometimes-sensei Sakura Kasugano after her disappearance was not exactly a resounding success. His fight with Tran in a dusty country bar outside Bangkok didn't help his mood any, either. The whole country was going insane and he had no idea what the hell he was doing there over his head.
Perhaps fortunately for him, resistance forces managed to retake the capital of Bangkok shortly before Frei arrived. Thus instead of having to sneak out of the country on a junk, he volunteered to help refugees escape on UN-provided planes and made his way back to Southtown to regroup.
But the worst part was the depression. Frei has never really been prone to it because he's a naturally True Neutral sort of individual, with maybe Good tendencies. Trouble rolls off him like water from a greased duck's back. But lately -- and mostly because of that damned bad influence Alma -- he has been thinking of his place in society. His wanting to help Sakura wasn't just about rushing off to do the right thing, it was to prove to himself that he's not good for just being... a nice comedic addition to an SNF fight. Finding out he wasn't really cut out to be useful... well.
The spacious loft condo he bought in the village is rare in and of itself; rarer still is that it has roof access through a pair of French doors and a long, wide, flat roof from which to contemplate the stars. Frei, for himself, is laying on his back on said roof, staring up at the orange wash of Southtown's light pollution and counting the stars he can find... which is preferable to being alone with his thoughts right now, anyway.
There are no coincidences.
The Devil knows she was meant to be here, in this moment and in this time. Intent has nothing to do with what is. She had intended to stalk the streets of the Village, hunting for Taiyo students with strong enough spirit. Easy hearts are fewer and further in between these days.
It is in mid-hunt she finds herself standing upon a relief statue upon the corner of a nearby apartment building. Morbid silouette measured as an absense of stars against the infinite void beyond. What catches her predatory gaze?
A lounging soul. Frei.
A spirit simmering brightly, a multi-hued rainbow of enlightened strength. The Devil knows of this man, and hers are not the only eyes that look coveteously upon his budding mastery. The Devil knows he is too strong to safely hunt alone.. She is well aware of her limitations and normally would simply move along, looking for safer prey elsewhere.
Except..
Golden eyes narrow to errie slits, focusing distantly to get a better measure. The Monk is in conflict.. His spirit less aligned.. Troubled.
Weakened.
Lips pull back in a hungry, satisfied smile. There will never be a better time than this..
If there is one thing Frei was trained to know, is when the flow of the world was wrong. The wind, the passage of the Earth's breath, moves against its nature.
From the west, a chill breeze begins to blow.. Enough to be noticed, enough to stir him to awareness. Something approaches..
Something unclean.
In a normal situation, that would indeed be the case. Frei's education in chi wasn't like most fighters'; they learned to fight first, then how to use their chi to fight. Frei learned how to harness chi *first*, *then* learned how to fight with it. The results are pretty clear from anyone who's seen him fight. Most self-respecting fighters would not, for example, use a pair of fresh trout as nunchaku because it's stupid. Frei would, and did, because it IS stupid.
But the key thing he learned is Yin, the energy of death, and Yang, the energy of life. They pervade everything, and his method of harnessing energy is to play those threads of yin and yang like they were a harp, to pluck each one to the right pitch and vibration and tone so that what seems totally random becomes, *somehow*, glorious music. And as Marise herself might observe, there's little difference between a harp string and a spider's web. Tread on either, and the vibrations come back to the owner. It may be that Frei can never teach anyone his skills because this unique awareness seems to be a very rare commodity.
But Frei is lazy, and tired, and distracted. The chill wind, the sudden bass note of yin in the twanging, manic arpeggio of yang that swims through Southtown's nightlife, barely registers. It could be anything... and for a moment, as he DOES notice it, Frei wishes he had the power Alma has, only once or twice, admitted to having. The ability to see something OTHER than lines of force.
As it is, the monk is not alert. He DOES sit up, hands splayed behind him for support, the tails of his russet brown headband fluttering in the sudden ill-omened zephyr, his normally fire-red hair a dull black thanks to the disguise he adopted while in Thailand.
Too easy. Too simple.
As Frei rises, in the wake of his movement a new shadow looms at the edge of the rooftop some steps behind him. A tall, female outline against the orange haze on the Southtown skyline. The black-clad figure looms in perfect silence, the edges of her ebon kimono not rustling in the slightest in the soft moan of the wind. Her Parasol closed, sleeved hands holding the bamboo handle before her patiently.
The Devil knows all about the Chinese concepts of Yin and Yang. More so than most.. As she is the embodiment of what happens when those forces are egregiously out of alignment. By all rights, by all spiritual understanding.. She should be dead.
In some ways.. she is.
Such things are fairly easily noticed by people with the most keen of attunements to those forces of circular existance. Which is precisely why the Devil feels she's being baited right now. Is he truly this weakened, truly this distracted by Earthly matters to be so blinded? Curiously un-Tao of him.
"...For one who stinks of Onmyoujutsu... your guard is suspiciously down.. Boy."
A haunting voice intones close.. too close. The chilling breath, carried by the wind, reeks of dark things.. an unearthly weight of Yin.. peppered with doses of stolen Yang clearly not her own..
If the world is a symphonic harmony.. This thing is the squealing, shrieking strings of Psycho's infamous murder scene.. Shocking, abrupt and completely wrong.
Surprised? Sure. Frei can be surprised. Caught off guard? Oh, lady, you've got to walk a long mile to do THAT.
He doesn't make any sudden moves. Why should he? If she wanted to behead him or take his wallet or violently redecorate his patio she could have done that by now. She either wants something, or is here on business, or by mistake (not terribly likely). But the thing about Frei's mind is that it blows through that analysis so *quickly* that he doesn't have time to jump back and yell 'COR BLIMEY!'. The decision's been made. Flow through the situation like water: that's his motto.
The black-haired head turns so that the monk can see over his shoulder, his bright green eyes having a somewhat catlike luminosity at this hour, and with Marise's body throwing Frei's in shadow. "I've got a lot on my mind," he says carefully. And then he slowly rises, unfolding from his seated position and turning around to face his new guest, stretching his legs and wiggling the toes of his bare feet as he dusts himself off.
Then he gets a good look at her, and not with plain old everyday vision either.
He's seen this before... once. Someone with no chi of his own, who stole it from others, stored it in talismans. He had a... peculiar way of looking at the world, too. Killed people for fun. Claimed to be so neutral as to be above everything, a philosophy Frei found... sort of amusing but not exactly tenable.
They never met again.
"You have," the monk says after a pause, trying to work this out. Kanji had, after all, rather long hair and wore a Shinto costume. This MIGHT be him... "...a familiar aura."
Dimly luminous green clashes with equally, unnaturally bright gold.
Tresses arranged artfully in a traditional style, pinned in place by a pair of golden needles. Milky skin so pale, as if the sun never touched it once in her whole existence. Her symmetry is still, perfectly quiet. A motionlessness that certain Monks could envy, if it was not for vastly less enlightened reasons.
She is still in the same way all predators are.
His smooth, nonchalant recovery is proof enough to the Devil that he was baiting her. She doesn't feel any wards or seals nearby.. It doesn't feel like a trap either. With that satisfied, the Devil is contented to turn the blossoming conversation back to the young man in question. Ignoring his statement.. neither confirming nor denying she is this 'Kanji'.
Though, she would find such a philosophy as more than a little funny herself. But that is neither here nor there.
"Do you often abandon your friends so lightly, boy?" The Ghost's tone soft, hardly more than a whisper-Yet carrying on the cool breeze unnaturally, holding a strange quality as he can all but see her breath disrupting the lines of force between them in its travels. Giving her voice that curious warped cadence..
A scant 45 seconds into the conversation and Frei can already tell that this is Messed Up(tm). Never mind the fact that she appears to know what he was thinking -- in a warped way, that's NOT the strangest thing going on here. But it's become clear to Frei that this creature ISN'T Kanji. He, at least, had energy that was unquestionably his own. He shaped death, he was *steeped* in death, that much is true. But burning inside him was a spark... a faint spark, but a spark, and it was his own. He even said so himself. He created his arts to compensate for his own lack of chi.
This woman, apparently, had to compensate for just not having any AT ALL.
But it doesn't pay to jump or show surprise, that much is clear. Frei is a man mostly of intuition with occasional bursts of freakish logic, though one could argue his 'intuition' is simply his conscious mind moving at lightspeed now and then. His brain is telling him he's in danger, but it doesn't know what *kind*, and reacting blindly in the dark doesn't really help you much.
"Not that it's any of your business," the monk says evenly, brushing a hand through the inky black of his dyed hair, "but no, I'm usually not in a situation to abandon them at all." Unbidden, as he says so, his mind and body remember the pain of being battered by Kain Heinlein to protect Hotaru Futaba, who was herself protecting their mutual friend Jiro. He didn't think, he didn't puzzle it out. He saw the punches and he threw himself in front of them. That's just how he works.
"Then indulge me.." The Devil whispers once more. Head tilting to the side just so, evocative of curiousity. Or perhaps admiring the delicious pulse of life moving upwards along his spine into his mind, feeding his deliriously quickened thoughts.
To be honest, the ghoulish thing rarely has a chance to meet someone with an appreciation for Breath that matches her own. Few spiritualists in this day and age.. She can see his eyes. She knows what he can see. Shocking the youth has not run screaming yet.
"..Where did you go in Thailand, child? I was looking for you.. you know. In those woods.. After saving Hotaru.. you vanished.."
Only then does the taller woman take a step closer. The hem of her kimono shifting with the motion only slightly, and with utter quiet. "Why is this..? When they needed you most.."
Of course, the real reason The Devil knows is because she was part of Shadaloo's perimeter detail, monitoring the insurgents was one of her duties. But.. the longer he believes she can read his mind, the better she likes it.. And, the ghost suspects.. perhaps this has something to do with his troubled heart?
A short, sharp laugh probably isn't the expected response to that question, but it's certainly what Marise gets out of Frei. The sound is mirthless, though; unhappy, bitter. "Hotaru Futaba doesn't need me looking after her," the monk replies simply, and for all that it's a rationalization it's also the truth. He's seen the young girl's fighting ability first hand many a time and has no doubts about it. For that matter, he's seen Sakura Kasugano in action too... and Ryo Sakazaki... all the people he went to help. They can all take care of themselves.
The tiny voice in the back of his mind -- the voice that no enlightenment, no self-acceptance, no self-esteem can erase -- pipes up, fed by Marise's question: so what's the point of you, then?
Frei doesn't flinch as Marise moves closer, but he's starting to get uncomfortable. He lives alone, in a spacious top-of-building apartment he paid through the nose for, in order to have his personal space. Sometimes he doesn't mind it being invaded, but this certainly isn't one of those times. And why would Marise, of all people, be looking for him? If it's not Kanji, then he's never met this... ghoul, for lack of a better word.
When in doubt, stall for time. "But if you were really interested in finding me, I had my cell phone." And there's the flat-out lie. Frei doesn't HAVE a cell phone.
What most do not realize, Laughter is a defense.
To laugh, is to ease the pain of something hurtful. To rationalize something painful or annoying enough to cause tension.
No.. Marise did not expect that laugh. She did not expect to be so accurate.
Inhuman eyes, pupils slit in the manner of a feline, slowly open wider. Taking in more of his outline as she can see his unrest. What his physical body hides, his spirit betrays.
She can see through him. The growing tension, rattling his pulsing lines of force inside of his body with growing discord.
Just as Frei can see something disturbing her aura in turn. Lines of force, embedded in space, beginning to waiver and bend. Twisting into her and falling within her spiritual void like a waterfall emptying into a pit. Nibbling away at the energies of the world like walking annihilation.
And she's coming closer.
"Oh.. but I have found you now... boy.." Bamboo parasol discarded from her fingertips. Slowly leaning forwards, her silouette swallowing his outline whole as her arms slowly rise closer to him. "..Why don't you give me your heart.. if you feel it is unneeded..?"
COMBATSYS: Marise has started a fight here.
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Marise 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Frei has joined the fight here.
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Frei 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Marise
COMBATSYS: Marise focuses on her next action.
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Frei 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Marise
You don't need to have any particular sense about chi to understand when someone who is capable of fighting, and willing to fight, goes from 'I could fight you' to 'I am fighting you right now'. Marise doesn't really appear to DO anything, but Frei can sense it. For most fighters, it's usually tension. You can see their muscles subtly move one way, their foot shift in a certain direction. For Marise, it isn't so. Frei can sense something much nastier than that.
Malice... hostility...
Hunger.
"Sorry, lady," Frei mumbles, calculating his options. This is a third floor apartment... but at least the roofs of nearby buildings in the village give him SOMEWHERE to go, though there's certainly plenty of space up on his own roof. Coming to a conclusion, he suddenly crouches, then vaults backwards, landing a few feet away in a crouch and then slowly standing back up, fists extended.
Some people are natural wellsprings of chi, able to draw it from themselves or the very air at will. Frei is certainly one of those people, and if the sudden rush of cold yin around Marise is one side of the coin, the sudden burst of warm yang around Frei is the other, the wind kicking up and blowing the long tails of his headband back behind him. "But even if nobody else seems to need it, *I'm* kind of attached to it!"
COMBATSYS: Frei gathers his will.
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Frei 0/-------/---====|-------\-------\0 Marise
The Devil has little time now. While the Monk's resolve has waivered somewhat, his power is still considerable. The Devil herself flinches as he gathers his strength, the brightness of his summoned spirits evident to her in ways they are not to most.
The next few blows will be telling.. If this was a wise gambit on the Ghost's part or not..
"...Is not enlightenment the dissolution of all attachments?.." The Dark Maiden whispers harshly, Her silken locks -exploding- from her arranged style. Cascading behind her in a riot of motion, as her kimono similarly falls open over her pale shoulders.
A long-sleeved arm lashes for him.. Sweeping forth in a quick motion evocative of some manner of long-ranged Chi attack.. Something that wouldn't surprise him at all..
What MAY surprise him however.. is that no energetic assault is unleashed upon him.. But her arm IS. Her limb -shoots- forth, elongating like a white spear. Closing the distance faster than a heartbeat as her long-nailed hand seeks to palm the Monk's face and SHOVE him down to the rooftop with enough force to crack the timbers beneath him!
COMBATSYS: Marise successfully hits Frei with Maou Tsuke.
- Power hit! -
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Frei 0/-------/-======|=------\-------\0 Marise
It's got to be a trick of the light. Like those optical illusions where two lines are drawn together with arrows facing out and arrows facing in. But illusion or no, Frei's no fool; he's got some way to deal with the attack, hopefully, even if it's just thrusting his hand right into the grip and fighting back. Not an elegant way of going about it, but that's better than eating floor...
Then Marise speaks and the entire affair goes totally to hell. Attachments... if you measured a monk's worth by the number of attachments he has, then Frei's the worst monk in the history of MAN. He likes junk food, watches VH-1, and has cultivated... friends. People he'd sacrifice everything for. If, you know... they needed it.
His hand falters before the woman's extended grip and what could have been an affirmative defense turns into a cry of pain as Frei is slammed, face first, into his own ceiling, the surface wood cracking and splintering from the impact. It's a few moments before he gets up, but when he does, Frei's normally bright green eyes are dulled with the mindset of someone thinking... unpleasant thoughts.
Wishing Sakura were okay. Throwing himself in front of Hotaru. Telling Fei Long that Alma Towazu is his 'weakness', the person he has no defense against. The family he'll never speak to again. Attachments.
From the spring of quiet, Frei suddenly leaps forward with surprising speed, his hand cocked back and then, quite inelegantly, looking to deck Marise right in the face, a sudden burst of fire erupting about his fist almost unbidden as he does so. "SHUT UP!"
COMBATSYS: Marise interrupts Fierce Punch from Frei with Onigumo Wanami.
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Frei 1/-----==/=======|====---\-------\0 Marise
The Devil stands still as her arm recoils into her sleeve. Eyes watching him ever so carefully now, seeing his resolve fracture beneath the weight of her accusation.
"..Yesssss.." The Ghost whispers. Purple-painted lips pulling back into a vicious grin. Filled with teeth entirely too sharp to be perfectly human, "..Your heart isn't free.. is it? .. So needful.. so alone.."
The Ghost seems to throw her own personal well-being to the winds. Simply standing there as Frei races forth and shoots his fist forth like a burning comet.
..Although, like her openning attack, The Devil's defenses are equally as unpredictable and bizarre.
As she comes closer and closer into view, his fist -strikes- true. Clobbering the woman upside the head as her face is briefly eclipsed in the gout of flame! The impact jarring her bodily, as an unholy -shriek- tears from her lips.. Clouds of smoke rush from the impact as he can see the satisfying damage it does. His Yang.. the positive chi.. anathema to her. Disrupting whatever animating functions her hellish Unlife techniques gives her.. reacting in the form of that ashen smoke and burning skin..
Unfortunately for him, the reverse is equally true.
The success of his attack was a lure, blinding him to her animate locks as they wind around her and quickly catch the rampaging Monk in a network of coiling ebon tendrils! Perhaps, his brief burst of rage dulling his usually adamant defenses.. And his body quickly pays the cost.
The black strands seem to -dig- against him, squeezing the vitality from him as they inject their Anti-Chi into his body. Playing havoc with the lines of force under his skin, disrupting even his carefully honed orchestra of spiritual power as his positive lifeforce is invaded by this unwholesome, unclean power..
What Frei never told anyone is that he had a question for Sakura when they met. He wasn't going to try and free her of... whatever the hell crazy nonsense Vega put in her head, since anybody watching her SNF against Hayato who knows her could see that something was Not Right about that situation. He'd thought about it, sure... Hero Saves Day, Returns With Schoolgirl. It'd be a neat story.
But he didn't. What he decided to do was to find her and simply ask: are you having fun? Are you enjoying yourself? If the answer's no then stop. It's not worth it if you're not enjoying it. And trusting, maybe, that some deep part of her would hear it and be angry and say, "This isn't fun. I wanna go home."
Nobody's ever pushed Frei to that point before. Perhaps one person has sent him to the brink of annoyance for poor sportsmanship, but never outright anger or rage, or blind pain. But as the needless of prehensile hair slice into his skin like cold needles, that's what begins to happen. When you overbalance in favor of yin, that's what you get. Despair, sadness... even rage, with its white heat, is the pounding of a yang core against a yin cocoon.
It may standing to reason afterwards that pushing someone whose ability to control a vast amount of elemental power relies on his emotional stability to a point where he doesn't have any is a really bad plan.
Frei doesn't move out of the way. He doesn't even bother to shake off Marise's hair. He just turns, and with an inarticulate shout his hands come up as far as they can in Marise's grip and release a short, powerful burst of yang chi -- burning orange-gold, a sphere like a tiny sun -- in retaliation.
COMBATSYS: Marise interrupts Hizashi from Frei with Maou Tsuke.
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Frei 1/--=====/=======|=======\-------\0 Marise
The Devil knows something about hate.
Rage is just the first step. Anger, despair, sadness. Steps on the path to a deeper truth. Hate.. is one of the last steps to fully commit to that fell way. The antithesis of what the Chinese would call 'Enlightenment'. Fools and charlitans all.
The Ghost is glad to see this young man beginning to embrace a far more pure source of power... Even if it comes at personal cost to her.
As the monk summons forth another fraction of his strength, the Devil can't help but -recoil- from it. Like vermin skittering away from the light, the ghoulish thing hisses. Her tendrilous locks snapping away from him as if pained by contacting that burning glow.
The Devil throws up her sleeve, attempting to block her upper half from that sacred radiance as she shies away from it. Streams of smoke jet from her form here and there where beams of heated light touch her milky flesh..
But the Devil is not so easily repelled. No.. She can see his life-force shifting behind the near-blinding energy.. She.. she still has a chance! A chance she seizes upon decisively as her sleeve suddenly flails outwards, revealing her other arm shooting forth. Her pale limb all but lighting aflame as she actually reaches -through- the tiny star. Fingers clutching at the Monk's throat surprisingly and casts him downwards.. Elastic arm -shoving- his face to the rooftop and -grinding- along the harsh surface before tossing him a distance asside.
Wobbling back a step in the aftermath of the powerful throw.. -gasping- a deep breath of air as she too, now, reveals weakness..
She really should have killed him.
The air is actually still and silent as Frei is thrown to the roof again, the harsh edges of already-splintered wood tracing shallow lines of blood across his face like clawmarks. For a moment, he doesn't get up, though it's obvious that he's not dead, or knocked out... simply still, like the quiet air right before a lightning strike. He felt it, though... something in Marise that flung itself away from the power of 'light'. Perhaps not the same brightness that Elisabeth Blanctorche uses, but the light of the sun. The daystar, the thing that made mankind into something self-sustaining, rather than those who fear in the dark.
When he gets up, Frei's face is an emotionless mask, his eyes heavy-lidded. He wipes one hand across his lips, clearing the blood from his mouth, and looks at Marise. REALLY looks. He so very rarely has something to get angry about. He's too soft. He sees the other side of the equation far too often. And while death might be a natural part of life, Marise does not represent the normal sort of decay, that natural push of life to death that's part of the eternal cycle.
She is creeping death. A predator.
Green motes of light -- the chi of the healing earth -- dance around the monk's form as he stares at the Koga Devil. "This is your last chance to leave," he says firmly. "If you don't take it, I'm not responsible for what happens."
If nothing else, he will succeed at this. No matter what, he can't die. He won't give in.
She really ought to have killed him...
COMBATSYS: Frei gathers his will.
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Frei 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\-------\0 Marise
That's not good.
The ghost takes yet another step back as the Monk rises to his feet. His own emotionless, heavy movements a mirror of her disconcerting movements. Her Golden eyes looking through him and seeing now his resolve has reawakened. Her moment of him by surprise.. during his moment of weakness.. is over.
Once again the young man has found something worth living for, worth fighting for. The creature can see his spirit realign like a living engine.. Drawing from the Earth itself in a way completely unlike her own path. Asking and aligning. Rather than tearing and devouring.
They are both spiritualists.. Creatures attuned to the things the mundanity around them cannot see. A deeper understanding of the world that gives them power.. As opposed to their power giving them a deeper understanding, as is the way of so many warriors in this city.
"..So.. The Arrow sprung from the bow.." The Devil's hands rise once more. Shifting her footing to face him squarely, "..No hesitation.. no regret.." Fingers twisting into unclean seals as the ghost inhales slowly. Chest shifting subtly as she breathes in..
...And the world grows still upon her side of the roof. The wind dies away into motionlessness, warmth drawing away as the entropy of her unbeing opens his maw wide and swallows the vitality of the Earth itself. Gouging space and leaving only a soul-wound in its wake. A display opposite of Frei's own glowing power..
Yin facing Yang. Oblivion and Creation..
"..Show me how irresponsible you can be.. Boy.."
COMBATSYS: Marise gathers her will.
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Frei 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\===----\1 Marise
Sometimes all it takes is being questioned to show you the way. It shows on Frei's face, as it's now his turn to advance, slowly, carefully. One step at a time. "I suppose you're right about one thing. I wasn't very helpful to my friends. I'm tied down to the world. I'm... material, I guess." He looks down at his hand for a moment, one line of red across the palm from where his hand dragged across the now ruined roof. That's definitely going to be hard to explain to the roofer... damn.
As he walks, though, Frei continues. He remembers, just for a moment, his fight with Tran, the doctor asking if he ever took a 'vacation'. Frei didn't 100% understand the comment *then*, but he does, in a way, now. "But what the Buddhists got wrong is that I'm not fettered by it. I'm *empowered* by it. Living in the world every day is a hard thing to do, and pretending it doesn't matter, that it doesn't exist... what does that get you but loneliness and sorrow? So if it means I'm fettered, then I'm fettered. I chose it of my own will and that's the important thing."
In a sudden burst of speed, Frei is right up in Marise's grill, unless she does something about it. Reaching out with one hand, he puts his palm right at the center of her stomach, and *shoves*... nothing fancy but very fast, looking to unbalance the Koga Devil... and the sudden burst of wind around his hand doesn't hurt the attack's strength any either.
COMBATSYS: Frei successfully hits Marise with Fast Throw.
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Frei 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\====---\1 Marise
The Devil finishes devouring the local lines of force, sending forth a horrible keening wail amidst an otherwise perfect musical arrangement to those who can detect such things. Her hands lower a fraction as the Monk walks forth, a dark eyebrow lifting as he makes yet another observation.. And this one is puzzling.
Puzzling because its actually.. Very wise. Not something she expected to hear from a young thing pumped full of whatever foolishness the Chinese taught him.
"..So you have chosen-HRK" The ghostly maiden was about to make another smug comment. That is.. before she gets reminded of whom had just awakened to this fight. Barely even registering his movement as his palm -plants- against her middle. Easily blasting her backwards off her feet as the Devil tumbles end over end.. a flourish of silks and cloths until she slides to a halt a short distance away. A hand over her pained center..
"..Kya heh.." The Creature pants, head bowed a fraction as she looks up to him beyond her veil of bangs, "..Can you live up to that choice.. ? No matter what it costs?"
Golden eyes peering through him once more. Illuminating a bit more strongly now, as if piercing through his improved being.. looking for weaknesses or flaws that may yet remain. ... Finding none that are obvious.
Sometimes discression is the better part of valor. The initial ambush favored her.. But now that he's recovered the battle is frighteningly even. No predator desires a fair fight.. They only desire food. Not a battle.
...So tempting.. Such delicious life..
COMBATSYS: Marise focuses on her next action.
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Frei 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\====---\1 Marise
"Who cares?" Frei asks, continuing to advance. Is it stupid courage? Probably. A better tactician might notice, for example, that whatever unholy power fuels Marise, it's been steadily building in *her* too as the fight goes on. He might not rush into the lion's maw to get himself killed. So in a sense Marise may have gotten what she wanted after all... but there is something certain in Frei's step that suggests sound tactics are only one part of the equation here.
"Who am I answerable to about that than me? Whereas if I live the way other people want, I'm answerable to them all the time." A smile almost haunts Frei's lips as he thinks on those words, something he was going to tell Jiro a long time ago and never got to. Quit trying to find 'you'. You're already 'you'. Right? "So if I'm going to disappoint someone, it might as well be the one person whose disappointment I have control over."
His hands begin to glow white-blue, and with a flick of both arms crossing over his chest, Frei hurls a pair of blue-white spheres of icy cold chi at Marise, the two orbs dancing around each other in midair until they get close to the dark lady and then colliding, not with her, but with each other, the result a piercing hail of ice shards that bursts outwards like an exploding firework. "Which also means I really don't give a damn about your judgmental questions either!"
COMBATSYS: Marise overcomes Hyoushou Rengeki from Frei with Onigumo no Dokubari.
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Frei 1/=======/=======|=======\==-----\1 Marise
"Yes..."
The Devil whispers, having managed to rise to her knees as the Monk continues to approach. Replying to his words in a steady tone, her own smile growing as she can all but see the revelations as they tumble through his mind. But there is more to this epiphany, "..However.. You ignore something.."
The movement of his hands are noted, her golden eyes watch the weaves of life as Frei binds spirit together, conjuring forth the elements and aligning them to his technique. Which means.. She has ample opportunity to time her own counter-technique carefully.
As those ice-spheres collide, the Devil acts in a swift motion. Her head tossing forth as she -shoots- to her feet, whipping a few strands of silky hair over her shoulder as she unleashes a small fullsade of black needles. The stiffened fibers shoot through the air with surprising precision.. and contain more power than simple piercing impliments as the nigh-invisible lengths collide with each of those shattering ice-shards. Once pierced.. the conjured chi that crafted their existance is disrupted and rendered undone, forcing the shards to return to the nothingness from which they came..
And a smaller portion of the needles continue on their trek.. headed for the pontificating monk in question..
"..You still hurt who you care most!"
COMBATSYS: Frei negates Onigumo no Dokubari from Marise with Hadou Souran.
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Frei 1/=======/=======|=======\==-----\1 Marise
Of all the responses Marise may have expected from Frei, he surmises that agreement isn't high on the list. But agree he does, his face never losing its suddenly-acquired calm in the middle of this firestorm. "You're probably right," he admits, green eyes tracking the incoming needles. Difficult to make out in the darkness, and created from... something... unknown. It's not a situation he'd like to be walking into, but there's time enough for regrets in hell, as the says goes.
Even as the needles speed toward him, and his hands drop to his sides, Frei keeps talking. "But why is being hurt so bad? I think people believe that paradise is eternal bliss, but..." Between Frei's palms, held slightly apart at his sides in a stance Marise may or may not find familiar, a sphere of light begins to grow, a core of white surrounded by a swirling vortex of other energy, all the colors of the prism... and, she may note, all the elemental chi Frei knows about and probably some he doesn't know he knows about.
"But without pain to make it meaningful, what's the point of bliss?" Thrusting his hands forward, fingers curled and the heels of his hands touching, Frei fights back with the technique he developed through the help of a friend... and his first step toward touching something greater than what he thought he knew. The vocalization says it all: "Hadoooooukeeeeeen!"
As dangerous as the techniques are within those dread needles, they are not indestructable.
As the unusual wave motion of Chi overcomes those needles, they mutually annihilate. Spearing that ball of force and seemingly disrupting its existance, rendering the totality of the assault a harmless spectacle of fury. Disappating before the Monk as he yet stands tall.
And this is where the Devil's unnatural constitution begins to fail.
Clearly.. the young man has only gotten started. His spirt is strong and lively, recollected as never before. Twice the spirit he was when she first spied upon him, as his conviction has realigned his mind and body.
The Devil.. however.. seems exausted. What frightening power she had unleashed earlier seemed to be amongst the best her stolen spirit can muster. Whatever passes for a soul this thing has.. Is clearly reaching the edge of its power. And the creature knows it.. Collapsing down into an awkward crouch as she gasps for air.. Body still smoldering from many impacts of the positive chi that contacted her earlier.
"Kyeh heh heh.. True enough boy.." The Devil admits, gaze lifting once more to meet his gaze as she murmurs, "..Perhaps you will make something of yourself yet.." So the boy craves the strength pain gives.. does he? Matched with his anger earlier.. Hm.
Seeds are planted. There's something missing.. something that keeps him from being whole..
She knows what that thing is because it is the very thing she threw away... To become as she is now.
"..Until we meet again boy." The Devil will heed his earlier warning. No.. Even if she did manage to claim victory over the youth, she'd be in hardly any shape to collect her prize. The risk is too great... And she has nothing but time. And allies.
With a quick flick of her wrist, a volume of shadowy mist erupts from the rooftop, obscuring her outline completely as he can see her dark energy leaving swiftly. Using what reserves she has left to simply make a clean departure. The Monk can feel safe knowing that his spirit remains intact.. For now.
COMBATSYS: Marise takes no action.
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Frei 1/=======/=======|=======\==-----\1 Marise
You don't think much about the old smoke bomb trick until someone actually DOES it to you, and true to stereotype the mist leaves Frei standing on his own roof, hand across his mouth just in case this is less retreat than it is parting shot. Marise leaving doesn't necessarily bother him too much; the monk makes no move to catch or follow her when it's obvious her headstart and superior speed have put him out of her reach. But when it's clear he's alone, a single sweep of the hand is enough to wash the cloud away, the path of his dismissive-looking gesture sweeping wind after it, the smokescreen dispersing.
For a while, Frei simply stands there, watching the point where Marise once stood and considering the word 'monster'. While he doesn't necessarily believe in the traditional sort of monster, the horror movie demon from beyond the Nth Dimension, he knows there IS a working definition that's alive and well in the world. Vega's probably a good example of the public kind right about now, but they exist on the small scale too. Most people know monsters only by the trail of bodies they leave in their wake.
When he finally does speak, it's a question directed at empty air. "But... why me?" It's a good question. Frei's never seen himself as particularly special, or at least if he is 'special' he's no more or less 'special' than anyone else. Who was that woman and what did she want?
But there's nobody to answer those questions, and so the monk troops inside, shutting the French doors to the roof behind him. The night moves swiftly toward dawn, and the mundane chores of the day -- not the least of which includes getting his roof fixed -- promise a way to forget about the terrors that visit when the sun sets, even if only for a moment.
COMBATSYS: Frei takes no action.
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Frei 1/=======/=======|=======\==-----\1 Marise
COMBATSYS: Marise has left the fight here.
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Frei 1/=======/=======|
COMBATSYS: Frei has ended the fight here.
Log created on 22:34:29 07/06/2007 by Marise, and last modified on 02:51:25 07/09/2007.