Jinchuu - [Pre] Tenma's Test

Description: [Seishirou vs. Tenma] Tenma didn't believe Hakuya. He didn't. Hakuya claimed he'd been kidnapped by ninja, dragged all the way to Thailand - and forced to fight for his life. Ridiculous. That's what Tenma thought, anyway. That's what he thought.



A terrible scene somewhere out in a small knot of Rayong province's financial buildings. Midday, the sun is shining over the coastal province, not that one could see it, with the thick billowing curls of bleak oil smoke trailing from the vicinity, owed to the great wildfire that still burns out in the Gulf of Thailand in Mueang, the dire light from which can be seen here. Though its size wanes in the twilight of the Thailand occupation, it still burns as fiercely as ever.

He will awake in the back of a covered military truck, canvas cloth shielding him from the light. He is in a dark ,dingy alleyway, only two or three buildings down from one of the evacuated banks from when Shadaloo made its move. From that grisly war still going on, it is still so, though here and closer to Thailand's capital, it is with good reason. Patrols still mill about the area, necessitating the small secure location that Ryohuara's set aside.

Ryouhara himself stands at the mouth of the alleyway, a thin, despondent look marking his countenance. There was still a lot to do in Thailand, and time was running out for his operations. He glances at a wristwatch underneath his sleeve with some irritation. Going back to Southtown again cost him a little time out here, but.. well. He needed to pick up the one in the truck, and simply gathering up everyone en masse would have proven a logistics nightmare.

Besides, while he was gone, Riko would have been enough.

And as for these Kings.. well. There's no reason he can't take care of both sets of business at once, correct?

How did Tenma get here? Well. Seishirou can do many things with enough gas and a rented cab.

This is a really weird way to spend a weekend.

Truth be told, the last thing Tenma Kiryuu remembers is being back at Gedo, and he's pretty sure he's decidedly not there anymore. Waking up in the back of a truck, the Gedo swordsman puts the heel of one palm to his forehead, trying to figure out exactly what happened. It is, however, a lost cause... At least for the moment. His other hand gropes around in the semi-darkness of the covered truck, before it finally grasps the familiar weight of his cloth-wrapped bokken. So there's that, at least.

A few moments later, the tall, slender teenager is hopping out of the back of the truck, his sneakers squeaking faintly against the ground of the desolate alleyway, dark blue eyes scanning about. "...Well, this sure as hell ain't Southtown," he says, casually slinging his bokken onto his shoulder, his gaze turning towards the mouth of the alley. "Hey, buddy. I'm guessin' you've got somethin' t' do with this?" Tenma wonders, making some pretty straightforward logical leaps, pointing right at Seishirou with the index finger of his left hand. "'cause, y'know, I'm pretty cranky when I wake up."

Also, every other second of the day.

"You were never asleep," Seishirou informs. Some .. strange sphere is currently secured to his back by means of some arcane straps and leather sling work. It is a large construct, easily the size of a shipwright's chest with size to spare, a heavy thing made of armor plates and gaping struts, with paper seals over its rivet-bolted shell. Regardless of the obvious weight the thing has to it, Seishirou seems to mind very little when he turns.

Bizarre, given his build.

"You were in a state similar to a coma," Ryouhara explains briefly, though the technical attributes of aerosol anesthetics is something he'll spare Tenma. For the moment. "From which you regained consciousness," he finally corrects.

A slow blink. "I'm going to tell you something similar to what I told your friend. You are in Thailand. I brought you here, as you might have guessed. It is my goal to evaluate you. Unfortunately I couldn't do that in Southtown," Seishirou explains. His eyes are dead serious, though his voice almost seems faintly bored. "Likely, you will hurt when I'm through with you. But you will survive. And you'll be allowed to return home."

"You might even be allowed to return home conscious, if you're good enough. But you will not be allowed to refuse."

Seishirou is very simple and matter-of-fact about telling Tenma all this. His hands are neatly tucked into his pockets, the weight of the sphere on his back tilted against his shoulder straps as he waits.

One should note, he does not mention the penalty for refusing.

Actually, Tenma's paying more attention, at least at first, to Seishirou's appearance than his words. The large sphere is kind of weird, prompting the taller fighter's curiousity. His head tilts faintly, an almost birdlike gesture, as he tries to figure out just what it's supposed to be; with paper seals like that, there's got to be more to it than is immediately apparent, but...

His train of thought, his reverie, is broken by a few words from the ninja. Tenma's friend? That causes the Gedo swordsman's expression to change, a lazy smirk crossing his sharp-featured face. So Hakuya /wasn't/ just telling weird stories when he was talking about being abducted by ninjas. Tenma had assumed it was a daydream he'd had in class or something. Finally, though, Seishirou seems to finish his 'sales pitch', and Kiryuu rolls his neck, with a faint cracking. "Refuse?" he repeats, as though it were completely absurd that anyone would even suggest that, as he unshoulders his bundle, removing the ties and pulling the wooden sword free of its cloth sheath.

"That thing on your back must be cuttin' off some blood flow," Tenma says, raising his left hand to his mouth, and biting into the flesh of his thumb until it bleeds. "'cause I'm gonna kick your skinny ass whether or not you're invitin' it." His thumb is drawn down the wooden blade, painting a line of red along it. The bokken is swept once through the air, and the chi link Tenma created with his own life's blood is activated, a violent aura of mingled chi and blood surrounding the blade.

Without another word - which is unusual from Tenma - the younger man charges forward at Seishirou. He has no intention of giving the ninja any breathing room, nor the chance to be any more prepared than he must no doubt already be, as he swings his chi-charged bokken in a vicious diagonal slash upwards across Seishirou's torso. "GRAAAH-!!"

COMBATSYS: Tenma has started a fight here.

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Tenma            0/-------/-------|


COMBATSYS: Seishirou has joined the fight here.

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Tenma            0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0        Seishirou


COMBATSYS: Seishirou endures Tenma's Fierce Strike.

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Tenma            0/-------/-------|==-----\-------\0        Seishirou


Ryouhara nods once, seemingly satisfied with the swordsman's response.

Skinny, though?

Seishirou ..smirks.

The words do not need to be said: Let's begin.

Then Tenma charges forward. He's a little more rash than Hakuya, and that vicious slash, the fires of energy fired up the blade letting loose towards Ryouhara. To this? The ninja raises an eyebrow. Not so much at the up front nature of the attack, but at the manner used to release the chi on the blade. He nods once, as if affirming something to himself, before checking his watch one last time.

Then Seishirou catches the end of Tenma's infused blade in that same hand.

His hand sizzling from the energy licking at it and what is obviously pure agony, Seishirou is surprisingly.. unaffected. One could easily imagine him missing a hand entirely with that kind of chi, but it is more or less intact, burns aside, and a bit of blood. He does not flinch, he does not move against Tenma, he merely studies the hunter for a moment academically.

Reading his eyes.

"Not bad. Pretty strong, for your class. You're from Gedo," Seishirou muses, "And you have an interesting command over your own body's energy. You attack me directly and without fear. I think.. you've had experience with the gangs there. But.. soft styles are not popular in Gedo," Ryouhara reasons, tensioning the wood, trying to force Tenma's wrists to the side. In such a case, it's trivial for Seishirou to predict a punch or a kick to break his hold.

Which is why he cuts the space between them as surely as any sword. One step. Then a flat palm will take Tenma beneath the right shoulder from the outside. This, plus his grip on the bokken will give him the leverage he needs to throw Tenma face-first over his forward leg into the ground.

COMBATSYS: Tenma Toughs Out Seishirou's Strong Throw!!

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Tenma            0/-------/-------|===----\-------\0        Seishirou


The fact that his blade is caught like that is no small matter, to Tenma. His blue eyes widen faintly at how his powerful strike is dealt with by the ninja, but as shocked as he might be, the overwhelming confidence of the 'demon hunter' doesn't waver for a moment. He makes a brief attempt to pull his bokken free from Seishirou's grasp, but to no avail, as Ryouhara suddenly forces his hands to one side via his grip on the weapon... But what comes next is perhaps unexpected, as a confident grin crosses Tenma's face, and he just goes with the flow.

The palm strikes him, but it feels like it might as well be someone else's body that's struck; the ninja's use of leverage sees the taller young man tripped onto his face on the ground, but to as experienced and canny a fighter as Seishirou, it's probably clear that something isn't right.

Chi moving through his body to his free hand, Tenma slaps it against the ground and pushes himself upwards, using the relocated force to get to a half-kneel in the blink of an eye, swinging his bokken around in a wide, wild slash at the ninja's face. "Not good enough!!" he grits out, twisting to follow the slash with a backwards kick with one leg, using his momentum to get onto his feet, grasping his bokken with one hand on the grip and one at the base of the hilt, to thrust it forward at Ryouhara's sternum. "EAT THIS!!"

COMBATSYS: Seishirou dodges Tenma's Deep Strike.

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Tenma            0/-------/-------|===----\-------\0        Seishirou


"..."

Unexpected.

For the record, that's the first time Seishirou's seen someone fall on their face exactly as he'd planned and not even stop for the effort. However, he is accustomed to thinking fast. Even for the massive sphere laden on his back. Ryouhara doesn't seem slow when he moves, slipping back from the first slash with the fringes of his war coat flailing in front of him, the second kick he slips to the side of, and finally the last deep piercing motion he takes a second leap back from, the on his coat settling the aerodynamic fabric as quickly as his heavier sash.

"Maybe not," Seishirou wonders absently. He opens his bleeding hand.

He'll leave that guess for later.

That hand is actually still bleeding, but not as badly as it would have been, it may be noted. Seishirou pulled his watch over his palm before catching the sword. Impact-resistant quartz has blocked worse before. Unfortunately, this now means Seishirou can no longer reference the time.

Hence, the running tally of seconds he's been keeping in his head since the last time he looked.

Timing is important, hence why when Seishirou responds, it's more out of instinct, idle tactics as he rounds Tenma quickly so that Tenma is now between him and the alley's mouth. His opponent might be pretty tough, but Seishirou is fast and mobile. And further, the watch renders him armed. Seishirou will catch Tenma as he rises. A set of handseals--complex gestures. In this case, Naioutou no Jutsu. It links his chi to the watch on his hand. The quartz begins to glow.

One charged quartz palm hook strike to the face.

The watch's shattered quartz fragments, now hardened, will withstand the impact admirably, force and chi both conspiring to make it feel as if Seishirou were hitting Tenma with the full size and weight of a dead iron sledgehammer, glowing hot from the forge.

Not the greatest expression of tactical superiority, but.. well. Ryouhara isn't above settling on what works in a pinch.

COMBATSYS: Tenma blocks Seishirou's Calculated Tactics.

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Tenma            0/-------/-----==|===----\-------\0        Seishirou


A faint grunt of annoyance escapes Tenma as his first slash is so handily dodged by the ninja, but he follows through with the kick and stab, each dealt with by Seishirou's agility. That, he figures, is probably going to pose a problem. But the real question now is whether or not Tenma can keep up with Ryouhara's quick thinking and improvisation; the seals are effectively gibberish to the esoteric Buddhist sorcery-trained Kiryuu, but while he can't understand them directly, the fact that they /are/ significant isn't lost on him. The punch that follows is, he reasons, probably bad.

Which would be why he twists as fast as he can, his slender body fairly spry, and interposes the chi-charged bokken between his head and Seishirou's watch and fist, his free hand bracing the blade higher up. The force of the blow still transmits, the weapon shaking and his arms shuddering under the force, his hands feeling slightly numbed... But the weapon is undamaged, and Tenma himself is unbowed.

Tenma uses the momentum to twist slightly to the side, trying to situate himself in a more awkward position for Seishirou to deal with, rising fully from his crouch now as he actually leaps into the air, rotating with his bokken extended in a whirling slash intended to take the ninja up /with/ him, before knocking him away towards the cold, unforgiving ground underfoot. "VAJRA!!"

COMBATSYS: Seishirou interrupts Vajra from Tenma with Quick Throw.
- Power hit! -

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Tenma            0/-------/--=====|=====--\-------\0        Seishirou


Pretty fast--

Tenma seems almost to be off-type for a Gedo student. The Ryouhara ninja realizes, somewhat ruefully, he should have gathered more information there when he had the chance. Of course.. from this perspective, shortly it wouldn't exactly matter. Shortly. His palmstrike impacts Tenma's weapon with a thick crack, the charged quartz banded to his hand leaving vapor trails as he draws away from Tenma's attack.

Almost time, if his count is right.

When the hunter rockets up into the ninja's unguarded side, Seishirou himself twists, turning his hand against the bokken's impact to transmit the force that would have torn his side open through his own chi-charged guard and into his shoulder, softening the bone-jarring impact and sending him into the air. Then the ninja spins, his free arm shooting out, his hand disappearing into his sleeve, a blur of motion.

.. A blur that continues to shoot out ..

.. Curve around the hunter's body ..

.. All to give the ninja perfect leverage to plant a foot past the Hunter's guard, pull him off-balance with his sash (thrown from his sleeve at the hip) and flick him over his body, effectively trying to counterbalance the hunter out of the alley and into the ground.

Maybe it was the wrong time to go with such a heavy attack; still, Tenma's been throwing out fairly strong attacks to start with, as he's wont to do, and sometimes it works, and sometimes not so much. This would appear to be one of those times, as the Gedo swordsman is caught by Seishirou's sash, which does indeed pull him off balance and send him flying through the air. It's an uncontrolled flight path he follows, spinning from the torque of the sash uncoiling from his body, crashing to the ground outside of the alleyway. "Dammit..." he mutters, feeling a bit queasy as he gets out of the heap he landed in, glancing back briefly at the damage without... Before turning his attention back to where Seishirou ought to be.

There's no time to waste, Tenma realises, given the advantage Ryouhara possesses. Pushing himself out of the crouch and into a low run, almost parallel to the ground, he tries to get close enough to the ninja to whirl around and kick straight up at Seishirou's jaw, to knock him into the air. If he manages that, then he twists again, teeth gritted in an expression of concentration, aiming to bat the ninja aside with his bokken gripping the weapon more like a baseball player attempting a bunt than any sort of swordsman. "Go to sleep already!!"

COMBATSYS: Seishirou blocks Tenma's Medium Strike.

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Tenma            0/-------/--=====|=====--\-------\0        Seishirou


Sash spinning back around his body, Seishirou lands heavily--the weight of the sphere on his back adding force to what would have otherwise been a feather-light grounding. The ninja stands grimly, the glowing watch in his hand held up again as he takes a moment to concentrate. Even while Tenma attacks, the ninja's eyes shut in thought, slipping to a side well before Tenma's dash matches with him, clearing the alley himself. The kick is blocked with a single swat from his bleeding weapon hand, keeping him planted.

For the battle, though it has felt like an eternity, only minutes have passed since Tenma has awoken. Ryouhara knows it for a fact, because he's kept track of the time almost as well as he's keeping track of Tenma. And now..

"Hey, you there!!"

Uniformed troopers bearing the familiar dread winged crest have noticed them. The aforementioned patrols. 3 of them. "More fighters!" one calls. "Surrender immediately!" yells another. Lifting guns to bear on them from three angles.. it.. well, it doesn't look good.

Seishirou glances left to the nearest patrol, frowns, and gestures.

Someone.. it is entirely clear who.. takes the first shot. In the form of a loud cracking sound, gunpowder and metal gounging a small niche in the nearest building just past Seishirou's head. A shot... that doesn't seem to surprise him in the slightest. But when they do, the entire area becomes livid with the sound of gunfire. A wicked crossfire field interrupting the battle. It seems the situation has.. escalated.

COMBATSYS: Tenma dodges Seishirou's Thrown Object.

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Tenma            0/-------/--=====|=====--\-------\0        Seishirou


Of course, just as Tenma starts enjoying himself... /Something/ has to go and happen, doesn't it? His attack is largely deflected by Seishirou's strong guard, but just when he was ready to follow it up with something else, there's a bunch of guys with guns. If he didn't watch the news, he wouldn't have the foggiest idea who the guys pointing guns at him and the ninja were, but as he does, a faint scowl crosses his sharp-featured face. "This is /your/ fault, Pervert Kidnapper," he directs at Ryouhara, the blue eyed glare given towards the ninja leaving little doubt who Tenma has assigned this latest in a long line of demeaning nicknames to.

"Tch... Abductin' people into a war zone..." Bullets start flying, as they tend to do when there's a lot of people with guns and short tempers standing around, and Kiryuu isn't quite at the point where he can dodge bullets like he just stepped out of 'The Matrix'. Instead, he does what he /can/ do in the superhuman deparment, focusing chi in his feet and legs as he kicks off of the ground, lifting himself in a leap that would be impossible for any normal person, putting him above the immediate crossfire... At least for the moment.

Though he hates to be forced away from whatever it he's doing at any time, Tenma has to admit that the guys with guns trying to kill them are a more pressing matter than Seishirou and his 'evaluation', which is why as he lands on the ground - /behind/ a group of soldiers - he whirls around to slash at them with his bokken. "So what're you gonna do about it, huh?!" Kiryuu adds, shouting towards his abductor. Stupid ninjas!

COMBATSYS: Tenma takes no action.

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Tenma            0/-------/--=====|=====--\-------\0        Seishirou


COMBATSYS: Seishirou dodges Seishirou's Thrown Object.

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Tenma            0/-------/--=====|=====--\-------\0        Seishirou


"So you figured it ou- ...Excuse me?"

Seishirou stares at Tenma in a mixture of shock and bald contempt.

If he bothered to have an opinion before, it probably just got lowered a few notches. There is, however, precious little time to debate the issue, as lead fills the air. One wasted breath would breathe that lead deep. Seishirou has to act as quickly as Tenma does, though his speed is sufficient to deal with bullets. For the most part, bullets in his path fired at his back are simply blocked, if not by the massive sphere there but by hidden plates secured to his lower back ahead of time. This gives him some freedom to duck and slip around rounds fired at his front, as the ninja takes off in a low sliding dash towards the nearest set of guards.

The guards in front of Tenma are simply dropped by his bokken slash, ambushed simply and dispatched even more simply. Foot soldiers, even trained ones, are little match for a demon hunter. The commander of the platoon seems to be the man with the black eye currently engaged in screaming at the other soldiers. "Get the one with the shell on his back! That's the one I want! --we shoulda been assigned a tank this time.." he murmurs. It is, in fact, the last thing the man can think before he is dispatched with a woefully simple knife-hand to the back of the neck.

Standing behind the man and unshouldering his weight to swing it about like a giant mace on its sling to knock out the commander's guard, he responds. "As I intended," Seishirou explains. "I'll finish the evaluation." He catches the massive weight in his bleeding hand. According to his count.. five minutes minus. It's about time. The chi from the charged quartz in contact with it crawls up inked conduits over the shell's frame, causing the entire thing to glow. The ninja, even as countless guns train on him, flings the shell skyward, making the release handseal, causing the shell to unfold and pop, coasting further into the air as gears twist and seals glow on and inside it.

"What you do about it.. is up to you."

Then Ryouhara catches the nearest wall, slamming against it in full motion and runs up it like a bat out of hell.

Only a moment later, the shell explodes. A bright light in the sky trailing thick curls of white smoke, and the telltale whistling of reeded metal on the wind. But it is not an instrument of art that whistles so. It is the sound of the sky glittering with steel cast out in all directions. Blades. Both makeshift and engineered. Even machined in the explosion from fracture points along the shell itself and the strutwork. The sky weapon throws them out in all directions, with a set of four smoke canisters along with them. Between the kunai, the spikes, and the flechettes, there are hundreds of sharp points scattered through the sky. They are all trailing the familiar torch light as they fall to earth at ground zero.

In short, it is raining fire and knives.

COMBATSYS: Seishirou successfully hits Tenma with Level 5.

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Tenma            1/---====/=======|=====--\-------\0        Seishirou


That's right, Seishirou. Only some kind of perverted weirdo would kidnap people like that, now wouldn't they? And of course, once Tenma assigns someone a nickname, it's rare that he's ever persuaded to drop it. See, the thing is, he's kind of a jerk. With the mooks in front of him dispatched, Kiryuu is free to turn his attention to the rest of the situation, and what he sees is pretty weird. The strange sphere Ryouhara was carrying seems to levitate, and the ninja himself escapes by /running up a wall/, which is a new one by Tenma... And then there's an explosion, which would explain the significance of the large object Seishirou had been carrying all along. The explosion is just... Too big, there's nowhere to go, nothing really to do about it. Tenma's only choice is to stand his ground...

Which proves to kind of hurt a lot.

Burned and bloodied far beyond even his own estimation, in the aftermath of the bomb's detonation Tenma is only barely left standing, his chi-charged bokken buried tip-down against the ground to support him. There's bits of metal sticking out of him, kunai and flechettes and Seishirou alone knows what else, and the tie on the back of his hair has come undone, leaving bloodstained black strands to rest just above his shoulders. "Gghhh..." mutters the Gedo swordsman, stumbling a bit, but he manages to stay upright, somehow. That hurt ALMOST as much as Ryo blowing him up with a giant chi blast.

"Not finished yet, dickhead," Tenma says aloud, to nobody in particular but it's certainly intended for Seishirou, wherever he's gotten off to. "So, y' wanna 'evaluate' me, why don'tcha come and find out what I'm gonna do t' ya next!!" Fight past the pain. Ignore the pain. Visualise... Punching Seishirou really hard in the face. That helps; it even brings a bit of a smile to Tenma's bloodied face.

COMBATSYS: Tenma focuses on his next action.

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Tenma            1/---====/=======|=====--\-------\0        Seishirou


At least Tenma is standing. That's much more than anyone standing around him could say.

Many are simply riddled with knives. Bodies lay prone all around Tenma, knees, arms, torsos all pierced with burning knives, twinkling like a field of candles. If there was a problem with patrols before, there wasn't one now. Additionally, there wouldn't be any investigation for hours--by a feat of control and timing, Seishirou had planned not only for Tenma to wake up minutes before he had to trigger the bomb, but also during the period of time where most of the patrols in the region were gathering for shift change.

Few, if any, are actually killed.

But all are too wounded to raise any kind of alarm.

Timing and execution are the only way to get ahead of a cramped time table, Ryouhara notes to himself. The ninja sits on the edge of that building now, breathing slowly. One hand folded across his knees. He was watching, as intended, the entire time he spent outside of ground zero. It does takes some guts to just stand your ground in the face of one of his advanced techniques. But make no mistake. Seishirou still intends to leave.

"It's over. If I were you, I'd leave," the ninja warns. "It's going to get interesting soon."

Let Tenma follow if he even can. But Seishirou gets up, clasping his bloodied hands together once in a gesture to center himself. Then he starts to walk away, across the rooftop, leaving the patrol behind him. He's still keeping that count in his head.

COMBATSYS: Seishirou gains composure.

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Tenma            1/---====/=======|====---\-------\0        Seishirou


Teeth gritting again, Tenma actually starts yanking some of the blades out of his body. It hurts, and it causes a fresh flow of blood... But is Kiryuu likely to care much about either of those things? The tall boy practically snarls, though he tucks a few kunai into his pockets - he's keeping those as recompense!! - before he runs as well as he can under the circumstances towards the wall. Not being a ninja, he can't just run up the wall, but he's pretty acrobatic though, enough to scale the wall by more conventional means, clambering up by whatever outcroppings he can find, leaping from one to the next, eventually getting onto the roof where Seishirou is.

Once up there, he's got a more level space to move across, which lets him run after the walking Seishirou, swinging his sword arm back and pushing his left hand forward, fingers lightly contorted in a hand seal of his own, of Buddhist origin, the red glow around his bokken intensifying until the wooden blade itself is entirely obscured. "I said... I'M NOT FINISHED YET!!" Tenma declares, further evincing his not-ninjaness by announcing his intent to attack rather than trying to sneak up on Seishirou. If he can get close enough, then he swings his bokken in a single, powerful strike aimed just below the ninja's ribs....

...And if it hits, something bizarre occurs, as Tenma's chi actually passes through the form of Seishirou Ryouhara, attacking him at the very essence of his being. The demon hunter's chi attack disrupts the flow of life and chi through the body, stealing vitality and leaving behind only a chilling numbness and fatigue, inflicting harm a simple physical blow could never answer for. "GO TO HELL!!"

COMBATSYS: Tenma successfully hits Seishirou with The Sealing Sword.

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Tenma            0/-------/-------|=======\-------\0        Seishirou


"Hrmmm?" Seishirou looks over his shoulder, hands in pockets.

So he's thought to come at him anyway. As expected, someone like Tenma couldn't just do the sane thing and let the situation go. Ryouhara turns, his eyes tracing the spectral lines of that chi, not recognizing its form, not recognizing the feel of it. His skin tingles as the energy gets closer. He steps to one side. He has little chance to evade. But.. even if he can't..

Seishirou's hit full force with the blast, the chi flooding through him and causing his nerves to numb and the ninja to go skidding back on his shoes, pulling up twin plumes of wind-blown sand and grit on the roof as he does so. Hunched over, the ninja breathes slowly. Controlled. It hurt. That much is clear. But what's more fascinating to Seishirou is the fact that it seemed to cause partial paralysis. Aggravatingly, charging the weapon to disable all the guards took most of his chi today, so he'll need to martial more to handle Tenma.

He looks up at Tenma, one hand still in pocket.

He smirks.

"Interesting move. You're of use to me.."

He stands, straightening his back and clasping his hands together. One breath, and he begins to martial together his chi. Milky white energy curls from every contact point--between his hands, where his feet touch the ground. His eyes point dead forward. It's going to take a few moments to clear the numbness from his spirit points. And a few moments more to gather enough chi to use his techniques usefully.

"..But if you're intent on continuing.. handicapping myself will no longer be necessary. You have exactly thirteen seconds to beat me. If you can't beat me by then... my full power will determine the fight."

Thirteen seconds. With that, by his guess, the fight ends in thirty or less.

There's enough time.

COMBATSYS: Seishirou gains composure.

[                 \\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////             ]
Tenma            0/-------/-------|======-\-------\0        Seishirou


That attack, clearly, takes a fair bit out of Tenma. In the aftermath of striking Seishirou with his most powerful attack, the younger fighter is left gasping for breath; it's still incomplete. His training is decidedly not finished, but still... "Tch," the arrogant boy from Gedo mutters, as Ryouhara seems much less affected by the technique than, well, pretty much anyone else he's ever actually hit with it. And then, the ninja starts doing something weird with his chi.

"Thirteen seconds, huh? Fine by me," Tenma says, and the glow around his sword has already died down to its usual form, which is still enough to put some hurt on folks. And he's already about to take advantage of the time given; lunging forward, he aims to grab the ninja by whatever handhold he can get, for to deliver a mighty headbutt with his own injured forehead... Of course, he's sensible enough not to aim for the metal plate Seishirou is wearing on his headband. No sir, he's going /right for the face/. And if that lands, then he sweeps his chi-emanating bokken out in a horizontal slash, aimed right for the side of Ryouhara's neck; against a normal person, that would surely be a killing stroke. "HAAAAAA-!!"

COMBATSYS: Seishirou parries Tenma's Heavy Strike!

[                 \\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////////             ]
Tenma            0/-------/-------|=======\-------\0        Seishirou


"Thirteen," Seishirou confirms.

That move did take a lot out of him; it's a fact that did not escape Seishirou's eye. The boy was raw, of course. Untested, untrained. But there was raw power there. Raw power that made him dangerous to Seishirou, especially in his weakened state. Too many landed blows, and the difference between their strength would not be as great as Seishirou initially anticipated. His ability won't matter much if he's unconscious, after all.

The key is, of course, to assure Tenma did not land blows.

One thing is clear as Tenma reaches out for Seishirou--

He is much, much faster than he was before.

Simply put, Seishirou is just /not there/ when Tenma grabs him. He doesn't cleverly slip to the side, he doesn't duck for an uppercut, or even jump over Tenma. He simply disappears, and Tenma's grip only captures the white curls of energy he was conjuring only moments prior, as if a ghost had conjured them.

"Six," he updates, all the way across the rooftop to Tenma's side.

He stands, hands at his sides as if he hasn't moved an inch.

COMBATSYS: Seishirou focuses on his next action.

[                 \\\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  //////////////////            ]
Tenma            0/-------/-------|=======\-------\0        Seishirou


When Tenma's attempt at a grab catches nothing, and indeed the ninja ceases to /be/ there, the Gedo swordsman says something terribly impolite. He doubts that Seishirou is all talk, and even more doubts that he's the sort of person to make an idle threat; so, it's clear that he has to do as much as he possibly can in the time alloted. Which, if he can't /catch/ the ninja, is going to prove to be a problem. When Seishirou speaks, then, Tenma moves immediately, closing the distance between the two of them as quickly as he can in his injured state. He knows this is going to go poorly.

He twists his sword around as he goes, gripping it backhanded to hold it against his back; for what purpose might not be immediately clear, until he gets close enough and aims a quick series of punches at Ryouhara. The strikes might not seem so at first, but they're carefully placed and calculated, aimed to directly, if briefly, disrupt the flow of chi through the other fighter by hitting specific points on his body. Furthermore, Tenma moves very carefully, trying to herd Seishirou back; trying to create an advantageous position for himself...

COMBATSYS: Tenma successfully hits Seishirou with Flow Breaker.

[                  \\\\\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////////               ]
Tenma            0/-------/------=|=======\-------\0        Seishirou


Oh, Seishirou knows what's happening to him, the blows landing on his body in specifically placed locations.. he was able to tell just based from the first landed blow and that other, more powerful technique earlier. This one's style interferes with the basic chi circulatory system of the body--various methods are used, some of which Seishirou can't entirely understand, but as Tenma fights, the more he gets the basic idea. Struck, the ninja slides back.

Regaining his footing is a lagged process from the draining effect of those moves. As he'd expected, a prolonged fight will become more and more difficult. But it doesn't slow his mind enough to disrupt his count.

"Time's up," Ryouhara breathes, getting to his feet.

With the same ungodly speed as before, he moves past Tenma instantly.

If Tenma isn't fast.. Seishirou will only need to touch him just once.

COMBATSYS: Tenma interrupts Ryuuouin EX from Seishirou with Head Breaker.

[                      \\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////                 ]
Tenma            0/-------/----===|===----\-------\0        Seishirou


The touch that Seishirou leaves in his wake is a light one. It's hard to believe he could deal damage with such a slap. However, the nature of the technique is more sinuous. It leaves a telltale mark on the body, the same mark as seen on Seishirou's back, the clan mark of Ryouhara, swirling leaves. It's seared into whatever he touches in that instant.

For the weak, it can be a killing mark.

With one release seal, the mark will begin to gather energy. It will begin to hiss and bubble and burn. As if an entity on its own, the mark will bore into the body, sinking past clothes, armor, skin, flesh, growing hotter and gaining more power as it goes. It settles there, inside the body, gaining critical amounts of the purest form of fire chi.

There, inside the body, it will explode.

If Tenma possesses a true strength, outside of the strange chi he was born with and techniques passed down through his family, it's probably his unwillingness to acknowledge any limits upon himself. Most people, even most fighters of his own caliber, would probably have fled earlier, much less continued in an attempt to get all up on Seishirou's face and put some hurt on the ninja. But there's one piece of knowledge young master Kiryuu has been burdened with ever since he was small, ever since he realised it quite on his own.

And that is, quite simply, that Tenma Kiryuu is probably the best thing to ever walk on two legs.

Other people are stronger, or faster, or more experienced... But sooner or later, that won't even matter. Tenma isn't struggling futilely, in his mind. Seishirou is a much stronger and more skilled fighter than he is, that much is clear, but the idea that however much he's going to get hurt in the meantime, that he /cannot win/ doesn't even occur to him. Not even when that mark is suddenly impressed upon him, his own chi already starting to war against it as it burns and sears its way into his body. Because, he knows something Seishirou doesn't.

Which is that he caught Seishirou by the collar on his way past.

"NOT SO FAST!!" the Gedo swordsman bellows, using that grip to yank Ryouhara around to face him, before treating the ninja to what he tried to earlier, but was forestalled so handily: The brutal impact of his forehead against the other's face. That done, his next step is to simply smash Seishirou into the rooftop as hard as he can. But is it going to be enough?!

The issue, fundamentally, is that what you don't know can in fact hurt you.

Unfortunately, Seishirou's studies agree that what some fighters don't know can also hurt /him./

Yanked, dazed via face smash and propelled with force into the rooftop, the ninja collides spectacularly with concrete, unable to save face before rolling away. The explosion of his fire seal will cause suitable distraction to cover his escape, hopefully.

But when a single snap of the legs brings the Ryouhara ninja to his feet and clearing blood from his nose with a wiped sleeve, he is somewhat dismayed to see his target.. still standing.

"..Hm. Little tougher than I expected."

Seventeen seconds. Still thirteen left.

"Snf," Seishirou's nose is still bleeding. "...not a problem."

Seishirou settles into a .. more traditional fighting stance, one hand open and forward, the other sliding back at his hip. He unzips his satchel with that hand.

He unzips it all the way.

COMBATSYS: Seishirou focuses on his next action.

[                      \\\\\\\\  < >  /////////////                 ]
Tenma            0/-------/----===|===----\-------\0        Seishirou


Pain. Pain everywhere. His insides hurt from the fire seal, his body hurts from the sheer accumulation of injuries he's sustained, but especially the myriad of cuts and burns he received from the enormous fragmentation grenade the ninja set off earlier... And Tenma can't push all the pain away. He has to force himself to focus, to see only one Seishirou instead of two, and it takes all the willpower he's got left to stay moving. The glow of energy around his bokken remains strong though, proving he's still got fight left in him. But for once, there's no smirks, no confident grins, no endless arrogant prattle from the leader of the Guardian Kings.

This is serious business.

His left hand falls to his pocket, where some of the kunai are still sticking out, by some wonder. As it happens, he's watched a lot of samurai movies. Lots of cinematic ninjas and swordfights, which is bound to somewhat colour his impression of the /actual thing/, not to mention giving him a few ideas which may or may not work to his benefit. It's really kind of a crapshoot.

But he grips two of the metal weapons, clutching them between his fingers, in a slow draw as Seishirou assumes his stance and unzips his bag of mystery. In a way, Tenma's kind of curious to see what's in there. But not curious enough to not suddenly throw the kunai at their original owner, his hand blurring as he tosses the pair of knives Seishirou's way....

COMBATSYS: Tenma successfully hits Seishirou with Thrown Object.

[                     \\\\\\\\\  < >  ///////////                   ]
Tenma            0/-------/----===|====---\-------\0        Seishirou


One of his own kunai?

Damnit--he needs the chi..

The ninja catches the two kunai with his collar and his side respectively, with a brief hiss of pain. Oh, Seishirou's in this too. The damage is beginning to accumulate on his body, from the first blow up to even this last, wracking his thin frame with pain. Oh yes, Tenma's proving to be quite the thorn in his side. In addition to people who watch too many ninja movies. This necessitates swift retaliation. Ten seconds left.

His furthest hand grips something at the same time his forward hand flips one of those bloodied kunai into the air, twirling.

CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK CLACK

Tenma has about half a second to respond before Seishirou catches him in the midsection with a short sectional staff, on the end of which is the blade Seishirou just flipped into the air. He caught it with the hollow opening at the end, resulting in a very instant and very effective spear. If he can catch Tenma on the end of that spear, he'll plant the end in the ground and, keeping the line holding the sections together taut, lift Tenma into the air as if he were a very expensive teriyaki skewer. That will be to seal his approach and counterattacking capabilities.

Should Tenma be so paralyzed, Seishirou will then make another handseal with his free arm, simply exploding the kunai head of the spear inside Tenma's wound.

COMBATSYS: Seishirou successfully hits Tenma with Calculated Tactics.

[                         \\\\\  < >  //////////                    ]
Tenma            0/-------/-======|=====--\-------\0        Seishirou


'Strategy' and 'tactics' are strange, emphemeral things. Oftentimes, Tenma will simply depend on his own toughness to create openings, attacking in turn after letting himself be attacked; however, that's something of a risky approach. So it is that the young swordsman stands his ground against Seishirou's charge, getting caught with the impromptu spear, clamping his jaw shut so as to not actually cry out in pain. He's suspended in the air by the thing, which does indeed put him in a bad situation, especially when Seishirou detonates the kunai in his wound.

Which DOES make him cry out.

"ARRRRGH!!!" roars Tenma, unable to keep it in this time. He hits the rooftop hard, his vision unsteady, greying. He's pretty much had it, but that doesn't mean he's just going to lie down and take it. "Ghh... Dammit..." mutters the demon hunter, covering his wound with one hand. Blood seeps between his fingers, spilling out, but... Of course, blood is his tool.

"One day, I'm gonna kick your ass." he says to Seishirou, grinning a wide, toothy grin, blood smeared through his mouth, red outlining his teeth. And then his bokken comes up, and then is driven down, the point burying itself in the rooftop. He can't execute almost any of his techniquee properly now, so it's time to show some improvisation. A single crack spreads from the point where his bokken split the rooftop, and as it spreads further blood begins to spurt out of it, a linear surge of crimson that streaks towards Ryouhara, assuming the form of a dragon of blood. It's not his usual blood projectile, nor his immense variant... But somewhere in between!

COMBATSYS: Tenma can no longer fight.

[                    \\\\\\\\\\  <
Seishirou        0/-------/--=====|


COMBATSYS: Seishirou parries Tenma's Dharmapala!

[                    \\\\\\\\\\  <
Seishirou        0/-------/-======|


Seishirou's weapons are his. Regardless of whether or not he's holding them.

It was a little bit of a gamble to spend most of what's left of his reserves on the complicated technique, but he had precious little time to finish off Tenma and complete his mission. That was sort of the problem, approaching things as he did. Everything was twice as difficult.

But it got done.

The deadly blood dragon, so improvised, snakes out in full crimson glory, causing the ninja to -- frown, quite distinctly. This highly ritual style basically meant the more blood Tenma shed, the more resources he had to defeat the opponent. That would explain his fearless nature.

Pulling the now-headless sectional staff back and twirling it like a whip, he puts some space between the onrushing serpent. Catching the topmost section on a foot, Seishirou changes its direction. If that student can interfere with his chi using his own.. the opposite must apply.

The whiplike staff is cast straight out again, this time fed straight down the gullet of the beast as it surges above Seishirou, threatening to consume him. White light crawls up the staff, as Seishirou charges it with his dwindling reserves. Imbuing the whipstaff inside the dragon gives him what is effectively an antenna down the beastly gullet. A conduit.

Seishirou makes one last handseal.

And the creature explodes into an ineffective spray around the staff, rendered useless from the release of Seishirou's chi from the staff evenly throughout it. Instead of focusing on a single weak point he doesn't know, or relying on a special chi type he doesn't have, Ryouhara was content merely to explode the chi surge by adding more to the delicate shaped matrix. Much like overfilling a balloon with air, the creature is simply popped.

This, of course, results in a mess.

Spinning the excess blood off his staff, Seishirou slings it over a shoulder, looking evenly at Tenma. Though he is hardly as beaten as the boy is.. he seems.. far more tired. In a fashion. "Not now. It's over." Even as he is now, Seishirou's eyes can't miss it. "But you'll get your chance."

That's the worst part of it, for Tenma; he's still full of energy, the mind perfectly willing, but the flesh... His body's simply sustained too much damage for him to keep going, and even with the peculiar nature of his chi, he still needs blood to function. He can't make himself move anymore, especially not well enough to fight, and with a last gasp of strength he yanks his bokken clear from the rooftop underfoot. The red glow around the blade has vanished entirely, Tenma unable to sustain it any longer, and with it the crimsons tripe he'd painted down the side of the sword has also disappeared, no doubt consumed over the course of the fight.

With the bloody dragon he'd generated defeated, Tenma is left with little choice but to sit there, hunched over the injury he was dealt by the exploding kunai, teeth gritting as he looks back at Seishirou. "Woulda made my own chance anyway," Kiryuu replies with firm conviction, even though finding a ninja who doesn't want to be found is probably pretty hard. But, as one might expect, he doesn't give much thought to difficulties like that. Tenma Kiryuu knows he would find a way, /he's just that awesome/.

"Heh." So he's still got some left. That's good; Seishirou isn't taking Tenma home.

A jingle sounds. Keys, held on their ring from the middle finger of what used to be Seishirou's bleeding hand (those wounds seem to have healed up..) (!?) Seishirou dangles them there for only a moment and not any more--he flicks them towards Tenma, to fall at his feet.

"When you're able to walk again, get in the truck, drive the nearest road south to the pier. You will know which one because it will be the only one that isn't burned to cinder or burning still. There'll be a boat moored there. There is a first aid kit on the seat. I suggest waiting.."

Pause.

"..An hour up here until the commotion dies down. If you want to survive." What commotion?

Hm. "Thirty seconds... You almost made me late," he states. As fact, not as a taunt or a chide or even a compliment. "If you're that good, I'll see you around."

The ninja turns. An eyeblink later, he's gone.

.. And no more than five minutes after he leaves (four minutes and 23 seconds, to be exact) men in combat fatigues and gas masks arrive on the ground level below. No less than ten well armed people without a single rank, symbol, or identifying mark of any kind. Barely stopping to murmur about the downed patrols, they gas the lower areas. With guns raised, they quickly storm into the nearby bank with.. oddly little resistance or fanfare.

That is because Tenma's evaluation conveniently happened to result in the neutralization of all the patrols in the area. Seishirou, of course, is long gone at this point. As a result?

Tenma may be the only thing left even remotely resembling a conscious witness or resistance of any sort.

Unfortunately - or more likely fortunately, under the circumstances - Tenma is in no position to witness or offer resistance to much of anything that's going on down on street level, if he even cared to. He's a bit busy trying to stop bleeding in the bad way. In fact, for all his bluster and overconfidence, he's entirely willing to listen to Seishirou's advice, since whatever else he might think of the ninja, he's pretty sure Ryouhara knows what he's doing.

So it's not until well later, at about the hour that the mysterious ninja suggested, that Tenma pokes his head over the edge of the roof, before making his way down, carefully and gingerly, to the truck to drive away in the process of his daring and hair-raising escape. Though it's mainly daring and hair-raising because he doesn't know how to drive.

But all in due time, Kiryuu makes his way to the boat so he can get the hell out of Thailand. The whole way back, two thoughts predominate: One, how he really wants to beat that 'Pervert Kidnapper' one of the these days, and two, that he's gonna be in so much crap when he gets home.

There's no way his grandfather is going to believe he was /abducted to Thailand by a ninja/.

[OOC] Seishirou says, "-- ass!"
[OOC] Seishirou :|!!
[OOC] Seishirou says, "I AM NOT A PERVERT"
[OOC] Tenma says, "Man you're kidnapping random teenagers! C_C"
[OOC] Riko says, "But he has no sex drive. =("
[OOC] Seishirou says, ".. I kidnap TWO and I'm a pervert!?"
[OOC] Riko, sad.
[OOC] Seishirou says, "Riko is like the michael jackson of kidnapping over here and I'M the pervert C_C"
[OOC] Riko runs a hand down Seishirou's arm. <3
[OOC] Seishirou says, "-- C_C"
[OOC] Tenma says, "D-Damn!"
[OOC] Seishirou says, "IIHH!!"
[OOC] Seishirou close log :U;;

Log created on 17:30:13 07/07/2007 by Seishirou, and last modified on 17:29:58 08/01/2007.