Description: Saint, Tessa, and Sada fight. Schoolgirl cruelty wins again! (Winner: Sada)
God, it's so dark out here. And Ms. Gallo, being the kind of health nut she is, doesn't usually stay up this late unless she has to. So she's not exactly a happy camper when she arrives on the night of the first Saturday Night fight she's had in months and months. It ought to be the /second/, but some angry little girl who was supposed to be her teammate bailed out for whatever reason and she never found a replacement. And speaking of little girls, wasn't there a schoolkid involved in this matchup too? Not that it really matters since it's the weekend, but it's still one of the many idle worries that run through Tess's mind as she traverses the cold, shadowy terrain.
Eventually, she comes near enough to the designated spot that some of the strong floodlights surrounding the area start to bring her focus back. "Agh, geez, I hope they're not trying to /permanently/ blind us." she mutters, squinting and shielding her eyes. But that's okay. She manages to burn the retinas of a few of the cameramen with the reflection coming off the silver of her actual shield as she passes them, as you can hear them cursing and see them looking away from their light-intensifying camera equipment for several long moments after she passes by, to finally stop there in the middle of the forest and wait with arms crossed.
Saint was new. New to Southtown, new to fighting, and most certainly new to the Saturday Night Fight. He was an unknown to this fighting circuit, and he had no real knowledge of what to expect when he finally managed to find out how to audition and sign up for the SNF. Then, he got a letter and a plane ticket to Alaska. Yes, Alaska of all places was to be his first place to fight professionally in, and in a dark forest, no less. How simply delightful! The entire plane ride over, the priest had hardly been able to contain his delight. It was all so full of mystique, of charm. So lovely.
The cold weather and the darkness that would grip this part of Alaska didn't hinder him at all when he'd arrived. If anything, it'd only heightened the experience. Even though Saint was a tall, thin, even sickly looking man, he wasn't going to let something like dangerous amounts of cold bother him! Now at the place of fighting itself - and he had been for some time - the young priest simply stands to one side of the area marked off for combat, cane pressed to the mostly clear-of-snow ground, both hands resting on it, and smiling at each and every thing he can possibly look at. "Oh my, look at those cameras... such fine equipment!" he remarks to himself, his Romanian accent noticable. A thicker coat and a scarf were worn about him to help with the cold, and his hands were covered in thicker gloves, but even so he still shivered some. From excitement. As Tessa comes into the ring, he raises a hand, noting the woman to be a fighter by no means other than the shield alone. "Why hello there! It's so marvelous to see you! My name is Saint, and this'll be my first fight, but I do hope you won't take it easy on me." Big smile. But his eyes can't be seen due to their narrow squintiness.
Sada Asai is glad she still has her leg-warmers.
She squints into the glare of the lights, her fingers poking out of fingerless gloves worn to keep her palms from sticking to the chain of her kusarigama, which she twirls idly at her side. She pops the gum in her mouth, pursing her lips as she steps nearer to her appointed spot.
She looks towards Tessa to say, "Don't worry about it, it's typical for dark things like this. If it's bright, it makes the shadows show up better, or something." Her attention then goes towards Saint... but she doesn't say anything to the man. She knows this type; she watches TV!! More seriously, the presence of a tall, amiable white man in black reads as slightly creepy to her. /Especially/ when he's talking about hoping they don't take it easy on him.
As she looks off towards the referees, she idly twirls the weighted end of her chain-sickle and wonders to herself if maybe he'll shoot fireballs from underneath his arms. "It's a lot like this in Hokkaido," she tells the others, out of vague sociability. "Even this time of the year, there's still lots of snow on the ground."
For her part, Tessa didn't really dress for a long stay. She's got her usual dress on, with a long slit going up one leg, and the only change that's been made is the addition of one of those puffy ski jackets. But again, she's the type who's so serious about staying in good health that it shouldn't hinder her much. She's young and hale and the cold just doesn't seem to bother her.
"Hm? Oh, I suppose. Though I figure they're probably going to turn the lights off on us soon." the Roman says, having to look down at Sada just a little at her height. She then casually unshoulders her shield and takes the grip of it into her hand before turning to look at Saint as he says his hellos. "Thanks. Yeah, you won't have to worry about anything like that. It would just be rude not to take someone seriously after they went to all the trouble of coming out here, right?"
She doesn't seem to suspect a thing! But then again, she doesn't have very long before the announcer for the night gives them all the signal to get going, and just as she predicted, those big floodlights all begin to shut off in rows, leaving them in darkness with only the sound of the wind howling through the trees.
COMBATSYS: Tessa has started a fight here.
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Tessa 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Tessa focuses on her next action.
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Tessa 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Saint has joined the fight here.
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Tessa 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Saint
COMBATSYS: Sada has joined the fight here.
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Saint 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Sada
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Tessa 0/-------/-------|
A similar wave and greeting is given to Sada when Saint notices the other girl. The priest seems all smiles and all cheer, despite the creepy vibe he may be giving off. After all, it wasn't like he was brimming with psycho energy that was entirely tuned towards the memory of pain, the causation of pain, or indeed the enjoyment of pain. Creepy? Saint? No way. But now the priest has settled somewhat, again adopting that waiting position with his hands settled onto his cane, smiling placidly at everything. It's only when the coordinator of the fight, without much fanfare, gives the signal for them to begin... and the lights go out.
Did Saint's eyes open just a little in an almost cruel smile, just before the lights went out?
Normally when one is stuck in an environment where it is dark and one has to rely on the other senses of hearing, touch and even smell to find their opponent, they would normally be quiet. Saint, however? He does no such thing. A clear, sharp ring of singing metal as a blade of some design is pulled from a sheathe clearly eminates from Saint's position. The naked steel occassionally glints as it catches a very stray beam of star or moonlight. But that's not the worst part. No, Saint isn't just satisfied with pulling out his sword.
He starts singing.
"There was a barber and his wife... and he was beautiful. A proper artist with a knife~... and he was beautiful..." His voice is actually quite pleasant, a fine tenor if there ever was one. But in the cold dark of the month-long Alaskan night, it undoubtedly has a kind of creepy tone to it. Further, when Saint begins to move and the source of the sound changes... yet seems to become harder to pin-point as the man doesn't move TOWARDS the other two fighters, but away from them, into the trees. For now, he doesn't attack, but his voice does cover the entire forest, the cold stillness of the air making his voice carry far.
COMBATSYS: Saint takes no action.
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Saint 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Sada
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Tessa 0/-------/-------|
It goes dark. Damn, Sada thinks as she squints into the gloom, it /is/ dark here. How can they manage it? She thinks she sees a faint red light off - no, that's something else. It's like she can see nothing outside of her own eyeballs, so all those faint little bits of floating gunk are the centerpiece of her vision...
But she can still hear stuff. She remembers more or less where she was. She takes two steps to the right, listening to that weird singing from that movie. (Isn't he getting it wrong? I think he is.) She still doesn't speak up, though she does twist the kusarigama around, spinning it once with a soft whissh to build up speed.
/Then/ she flings it into the darkness, towards where she thinks that that sound is coming from. She hopes she's right. At least, she tells herself, she hasn't walked into a tree yet, and that's something to be proud of!
And that would leave Tessa as the only one keeping quiet. For her at least, it seems easier to get one's bearings that way. And as she's standing there, trying to decide which way to go and how best to approach, it occurs to her that the sound of what is obviously a weapon winding up for a pitch is probably of bigger concern to her than Saint and his harmless singing. Maybe if she knew the rest of the words to that particular song the way Sada seems to she might feel differently?
In any case, her mind's already made up, and she's sneaking after the young Japanese girl in the next few minutes. As soon as she thinks she's caught up, she lashes out in a wide arc with her shield, trying to hit whatever she can since she can't even make out any kind of outline. However, there's quite a bit of force behind the attack, so whether it hits a body or any nearby trees, the clunking sound it makes is likely to give her away just as much as the others.
COMBATSYS: Saint endures Sada's Odani Foundation Art.
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Saint 0/-------/-----==|=------\-------\0 Sada
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Tessa 0/-------/-------|
It's easy to hear the rattling of the chains of the kusari-gama, particularly as it it hurled towards you. But not so easy to get a fix on exactly where it'll strike. But that doesn't necessarily concern Saint. While he can hear it coming, and knows it's actually on course to strike him, he doesn't even try to move away. He just keeps singing. It's perhaps humorous to hear him in the middle of singing the lyric 'Poor thing!' when it actually does strike him, cutting it off. It is perhaps not so humorous that he doesn't cry out in pain at all, but instead laughs as that blade sinks into his shoulder a fair way. "Oh my, what a splendid weapon!" he can be heard to exclaim. But that's unfortunately not the only thing he does.
Whether he's made to follow the rattling sounds of the chain as the weapon is pulled back to Sada, or whether he's fast enough to grab the chain and pull it taut, giving him a direct path to follow back to Sada, Saint comes charging out of the woods, his rapid footsteps easy to hear as rushes forward. And he's still -laughing-. "Ha ha ha! How much fun this is! And how much that -hurt-! Allow for me to return the favor, YES?" The last part is given emphasis as the priest nears to Sada, his cane lashing out. It's meant to strike for where he approximates the girl's legs to be, attempting to sweep them out from under her. Assuming this hits, he'll then know exactly where she is to bring the sword he withdrew up, and then back down again, skewering Sada through the middle. The shocking part is that, once he does that, other sensations of being stabbed, as though he were raining down stabs with his sword, begin to form over her body. Stab, stab, stab! And yet these ones feel different from his sword - as though blunt, searing hot pokers being jabbed all over her body.
COMBATSYS: Tessa successfully hits Sada with Power Strike.
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Saint 0/-------/------=|===----\-------\0 Sada
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Tessa 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Sada fails to counter Liber Ivonis from Saint with Asai Harvester.
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Saint 0/-------/----===|=======\-------\1 Sada
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Tessa 0/-------/-------|
Sada's struck from behind by that shield, feeling nothing until something strikes her in the shoulder blade. From that muffled cry that is probably something vulgar in Japanese, however, Tessa's found her goal. Sada staggers to one side, something warning her -
Of course, it isn't enough. She twists around to try and catch the sword she'd had a glimpse of earlier in the chain and swipe with the kama. This manages, unfortunately for her, to send her tumbling forwards; the half-reflexive swipe of her arm as if to cut at the enemy sends the sword and the strange agony it brings skidding up along her arm, slicing through her sleeve instead of going directly into her precious, precious organs.
She twists to the side after that, tumbling down to the forest floor. The chain rattles and she curses in Japanese, scuttling and rustling after that as she must (presumably) be regaining her feet, breathing heavily.
Then she speaks. "This is a - /fucking/ fighting event, you /freak/! If you're excited at being beaten up by girls, go find a S&M club!" I hope Yurika doesn't watch this, she thinks then, taking several more steps back into the hopefully-protective darkness. The pain's fading, at least.
Hey, she thinks further, I still haven't run into
thump
So much for that.
If Tessa takes any kind of satisfaction in striking the Seijyun girl like that, then it's not the vocal kind. But even if the lights were to come back on now, there'd be something to keep her from smiling very long. Something about Sada's reaction to what came *after* she brought her shield away didn't sit right with her. And the stuff she heard that Saint guy say was pretty weird.
What she basically gets out of it all is the same idea as the younger girl. He must be a sado-masochist of some sort. But she probably feels a lot less strongly about it, given that she hasn't been introduced to the kind of pain he's talking about as yet. Not that this makes her want to be any less cautious. She's much rather try and hurt him like he so politely asked at the start of all this than be stabbed. Or reaped or whatever it is Sada does with those kusari things.
Thusly, Tessa's next order of business is reaching out in the general direction from which she last heard Saint's delightful tenor, and trying to grab him and flip him into the nearest tree with some kind of Hapkido technique. This obviously takes both of her hands to do, so her shield must have been slung up onto her back again. Only the cameras really know for sure under these circumstances.
COMBATSYS: Tessa successfully hits Saint with Felicitas Flip.
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Saint 0/-------/-======|=======\-------\1 Sada
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Tessa 0/-------/-----==|
Sado-masochist? What an odd term to apply to him! Indeed, if Saint's face were visible at all right now, he'd look surprised and honestly shocked. "Is that not why -you- fight? To beat your opponents?" He asks this, his tone honestly mystified. He seems unconcerned that, you know, talking is giving away his position. He doesn't even notice Tessa as the woman is suddenly at his side, reaching for him. He -does- however feel her hands on him, but it's too late by then to really do anything about it. Off he goes, into the trees, and indeed he even manages to find one, making a nice meaty *thump* against one of the frozen trees. He still doesn't cry out in pain, though, but rather laughs again. "Throwing, throwing, oh my!" he says. Then he's absolutely silent, for once. No breathing, no singing, no nothing. There's a few crunches of the snowy grass beneath boots, but the noises are indistinct, and not focused in any one direction.
His presence isn't felt until suddenly, ghostly gray-white arcs of electricity dazzle up the length of his cane, held up next to his face, illuminating that his eyes are open, and that he's smiling. But none too friendly-like. This also reveals his position... but also somewhat around him - and that he just so happens to be standing next to Tessa. Lucky her. "Allow me to likewise return the favor." And then? He brings the cane down, and attempts to jab the flat, circular edge into the small of Tessa's back. His other hand, at the same time, seemingly free of the blade - where did it go? - reaches out to grasp Tessa's head. Should this all connect, she'll get the shock of her life - literally - as electricity simply floods her body all over, a severely damaging flash of pain throughout. Oddly enough, if this connects, Saint screams as well, though not really all that much in a negative way - he sounds like he's enjoying something. Creepy. As soon as the attack is finished one way or the other, he staggers backwards, the light from his cane going out, once more leaving everyone in shadow.
"There's more than one meaning of beat!" Sada shouts from inside of the darkness. "You're the one getting off on it!" She falls silent after this, crab-walking to the side and trying to time her footsteps more carefully, all the while breathing, as quietly as she can, through her nose.
Ugh, she thinks, feeling blood run down her arm as she /almost/ whacks into another tree. It's more of a quiet bump, though. This, she decides most emphatically as she grasps her kama, sucks.
COMBATSYS: Sada gains composure.
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Saint 0/-------/-----==|======-\-------\0 Sada
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Tessa 0/-------/-----==|
COMBATSYS: Tessa blocks Saint's Crawling Chaos.
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Saint 0/-------/-----==|======-\-------\0 Sada
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Tessa 0/-------/--=====|
When that burst of electrical energy brightens up the gloomy night for those scant few moments, Tessa's eyes are shown to be open fairly wide. Not because she's scared, but because even while she's been relying for the most part on her sense of hearing, she's still been holding out for something she can actually see. If there was something mere inches from her face and she failed to react to it because she'd closed her eyes she'd feel like a complete idiot later. But no, here this guy is using a technique that he must've known would tell everyone where he was, like it's nothing. That's gotta mean he feels pretty confident that it's worth revealing himself for.
"Whoa, no thanks, guy! I've already been tazed more times than I'd like!" the shieldmaiden shouts back, bowing her back in slightly so that the shield lashed to her back catches the canejab instead of her spinal column. Her head, however, isn't as easily guarded, and it's held onto for a good few seconds before she's able to reach back and hammer down on Saint's wrist to force him to let go. So she does get zapped quite a bit, and it does hurt. She can only imagine what it would've been like if she'd had to endure the full shock.
"Nngh." she grunts to herself, not saying anymore than that now that that ghostly light has faded. But she's not exactly being very quiet in other ways as she moves to recklessly chase after him into the dark, seeking to grab him again, turn him around, and give him a good old-fashioned kick in the ass.
COMBATSYS: Saint interrupts Disciplina Dispatch from Tessa with Heretic's Fork.
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Saint 0/-------/---====|======-\-------\0 Sada
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Tessa 1/-----==/=======|
Confident? Not in the way Tessa might be thinking. He simply just doesn't -care-. He's not a tactical fighter by any means whatsoever. He doesn't think three steps ahead, he doesn't bother with trying to set up certain reactions. He's very direct. And this is no better displayed than when the woman he targets with his cane and that weirdly colored ghost electricity manages to deflect a great deal of the damage meant for her, and then moves to strike before he can get away from her. The priest is grabbed, then turned around for a good old fashioned boot to the rear, but instead, he simply keeps turning with the motion Tessa has imparted to him, twisting out of her grip. Of course, this doesn't stop the kick - it just hits him in the stomach rather than the ass. Making a light grunting noise (finally, an indication the guy is hurt!) he still surges forward, and drives the tip of his cane into Tessa's chin. The disconcerting part comes when the cane isn't the only pain, but rather the phantom sensation that comes with it, much like the electricity felt before - and the hot pokers stabbed through Sada earlier. It feels like the cane is being driven up -through- her head, as though a spike. A sharp explosion of pain that no doubt disorients her, long enough that Saint can grab her, then toss her to the snowy forest floor with a quick hip toss. "Ha ha ha ha! This is most fun, I had to admit! Neither of you seem to be taking it easy on me... but come, come! Surely you can do better than -that-? Come at me!" He's walking away from Tessa at the moment, not bothering to hide his presence still. But he's not really walking around with much of a purpose. --And he narrowly avoids a tree.
Sada does not feel like getting close to this guy. Nor does she think that it would be a particularly productive use of her time. But then, her weapon - it's designed to handle swordsmen! That was its purpose even if it was always hard to pull off in any kind of a forested environment (or on the battlefield or - but never mind that).
She twists the chain around, swinging it in a tight arc and then back again, producing a faint sound that tells her what she needs to know - that way is clear. She sidles into it, and then she casts the chain in an upward looping motion, to send that bashing weight down towards... Something on the man; she's aiming for the upper body if you can call it aiming, but a leg, as they say, is fine too. Regardless, it is ten pounds of lead weight in a token leather wrapping descending swiftly towards the noisy 'priest'.
Smartass, Sada thinks, crouching low as she waits for the pressure on the chain that will tell her if she's just made a fatal mistake or not...
Tessa's not normally a screamer, but few things really mess her up like being stabbed all the way through a part of her body. The last time this happened, it was Balrog's claw, puncturing her chest. This time she *thinks* it's a spike getting jammed all the way through her head, from the soft spot under her chin. There'd probably be no coming back from that if it were true, so the ex-policewoman does scream, just a little, until she realizes the experience was lacking the kind of sickening crunch that would accompany a pointy object actually busting back out through the top of her skull. So the scream kind of stops short when she chokes it back, but she still has to feel just about all over her own head to make sure there's no kind of severe wound anywhere.
When she's convinced that most of it was just phantom pain, she stands back up, not bothering to dust the snow off of her mostly-black outfit before unholstering her shield and going on the warpath again. She's gonna get this guy. But only if she's able to find him and rush him down. And if that happens, he's not only going to get rammed by a big bulky shield, but swept up onto it and tossed as high as she can get him to go with the strength of both arms.
COMBATSYS: Saint endures Sada's Rebound Whip.
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Saint 0/-------/=======|=======\-------\0 Sada
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Tessa 1/-----==/=======|
COMBATSYS: Saint endures Tessa's Overshield.
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Saint 1/-----==/=======|=======\-------\0 Sada
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Tessa 1/---====/=======|
And they take his taunt quite seriously, it would seem. Saint can't do much about the kusari-gama being flung at him from an awkward angle - mainly, above him. He hears the rattle of the chains just a bit too late to do anything but brace for it, and once again the ten pound blade cuts into him, time imbedding in his shoulder blade, just barely not managing to puncture his lung. Were it anything but an underhanded toss, it might've done more, but as it is, he just staggers forward, letting out a loud, generic sound of pain. He doesn't have much time to recover, either, as Tessa decides he's the bigger threat here and goes straight for him - of course, he's also making himself into an easier target, what with all that talking, so that probably has a lot to do with it. Being slammed into, then swept up into a throw, Saint doesn't go as far as Tessa might like, as the priest grabs ahold of the chain in his shoulder, pulling on it to provide a resistance to his motion. As it is, it frees the kusari-gama from both his grip and his shoulder blade, allowing Sada to more easily reclaim it - Tessa hit him pretty hard, after all, and tugging on Sada's weapon wasn't going to help him -that- much.
Staggering, Saint lands only a bit away from Tessa, and immediately begins laughing. If they could see him, he'd be bleeding from the two stab wounds he's received so far, and also bruised in the places he's been hit by that shield, or Tessa's foot, alternatively. "Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! HA HA HA! That's all!? THAT is your best!" He turns around to face the direction Tessa had hit him from. "You are both unfamiliar with the love God can provide... fine, then. I shall show you! I shall show you how much love God has to give! Through my hands, I shall show you it!" And then, though neither of the women can see him, he grips the top half of his cane, and pulls forth the blade again. It's not a slow draw, however. Almost like an iaijutsu strike, he draws forth the blade from the cane, and then slashes forward, a vicious cut aimed for Tessa's middle, assuming he can find her against int he darkness.
That laughters fills Sada with several conflicting emotions. There's fear - what if she was to lose here? She's still bleeding. This guy could do anything in the dark. Sure, they'd step in, but some things could be done quickly. The other feelings are disgust, disgust at his words and even his cheap - is it even blasphemy? She doesn't know much about the Western religions. And, at his words... outrage. Outrage of a sort, anyway.
This pain, this sorrow, this outrage, all of them come together and decide on a course of action that is likely foolishness. But even so, she steps forwards as Saint screams, feeling her blood curdle even as her teeth grit together. Enough to telegraph her position!?
Either way, she advances, arms extended in front of her at about where she estimates his arms will be when they come back. Enough to, she hopes, guide her... and whatever she feels touch them, she grabs with all the grasping, clinging fervor of a high school student, following shortly afterwards with a lunging motion, knee leading. She aims to snap and disjoint whatever she's grabbed...
... which will hopefully not be a low-hanging bough.
COMBATSYS: Tessa interrupts Deep Strike from Saint with Siege Breaker.
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Saint 2/<<<<<<</<<<<<<<|=======\-------\0 Sada
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Tessa 0/-------/--=====|
Tessa isn't really sure was kind of hurt Saint was asking for if being slashed by a scythe-like weapon and battered by the thick, reinforced steel of her mighty +2 shield. But come to think of it, she does have yet to prove to everyone here how magical and epic a piece of equipment it really is. Well now seems like as good a time as any. She hears that sword being drawn, and then she's off like a shot, her shield lighting up with this aura of bright silvery chi that makes her look a lot more like a giant Kaiser Wave streaking through the darkened forest than a charging Roman trying to run someone over with her shield.
And oh, hi Sada. Didn't see you there.
COMBATSYS: Saint fails to interrupt Fighting Like A Girl from Sada with Parade of Ghouls EX.
- Power fail! -
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Saint 0/-------/--=====|=======\-------\1 Sada
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Tessa 0/-------/--=====|
COMBATSYS: Saint can no longer fight.
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Tessa 0/-------/--=====|=======\-------\1 Sada
Well, a lot of pain, for one. When you've spent your entire life getting tortured in some manner or another, it's quite difficult to feel pain like others do. To Saint, pain was more like a pleasure. When he was struck, he didn't feel any sort of negativeness to it, it was all positive. But it wasn't -enough-. Not for him. Not when Tessa slams into him with a giant silvery chi shield of painings. Not when Sada attaches to his arm as he staggers backwards and twists, breaking the bone at the elbow. What? Yeah, that's right. Getting his -bone broken- was child's play! Hah! Of course, from how he screams, you wouldn't know it. A long, pained scream, yet one that still isn't entirely 'damn that hurt' but more 'woohoo'. Still, as the attacks hit him simultaneously, he's -out-. He collapses to the ground, and doesn't move, nor does he say anything else creepy. Undoubtedly, he is out for the count.
Yet, when the match ends, and the lights go back on? He's gone. Not even the medics know where he went.
It snapped. Sada feels something too. It's sort of nice. She's never done more than disjoint one, but she guesses - in the heat of combat, and if -
Hm.
She casts Saint aside, the dimming residue of that flash of light outlining her eyes as she turns her attention towards Tessa, whose location is now, perhaps, rather clearly known. "He lost the day he took up the sword," she says aloud, twirling the kusarigama's weighted end around with a jingling rattle. "It's our oath, to avenge the shame swordmen have brought to our nation."
She grasps the kama, then, twirling the entire chain around in a swift, arcing whip towards where Tessa is, trying to wrap her up in the weighted end, shield and all! As she does it, she lets out an eerily deep laugh, low and controlled and easily echoing through the snow-muffled forest.
COMBATSYS: Sada successfully hits Tessa with Snare Whip.
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Tessa 1/-------/=======|=======\=------\1 Sada
So what? Everyone is happy now? It sounded like Sada gave him the kind of pain he was looking for before he passed out there, and they stopped hearing his freaky laughter. Then there's Sada herself, saying some kind of deep Asian proverb. Don't get her wrong, Tessa loves those, but it just seems kind of odd that the fight's not even over yet and everyone seems so satisfied. Even her.
But then that happens. Her aura dies down and she finds herself flagging just a little due to all the energy she just burned running so fast and pumping out so much chi at one time, and the lasts just long enough for the schoolgirl to spot her, but not for the older woman to see what's coming. She gets herself all wrapped up in chain, and pulled until she topples. She doesn't seem to get up right away, either. But the cameras can still see her eyes are open, and that she's doing *something*, so the match isn't yet called.
COMBATSYS: Tessa gains composure.
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Tessa 0/-------/-======|=======\=------\1 Sada
"Hnh," Sada says, sneering in the dark. "Now I know just where you're at, don't I?" She lets the chain go slack, moving around towards something -- and there's a moment there where Tessa might just be able to escape whatever horrible fate the weird Japanese girl is planning.
Sada feels like a genius. She's using this environment, now. She's becoming some kind of a fighter goddess. Maybe she's just become a pure body of fighting technique!
The chain tightens, suddenly, as Sada reaches around another tree, wrapping it there and using it as a pulley point to yank the wrapped-tight chain from 'firmly grasping' into 'strangling agony', as well as incidentally dragging Tessa forwards towards that same tree with brutal force. Can she get loose in time, despite the total darkness? It's probably a good idea to at least give it a try.
COMBATSYS: Tessa blocks Sada's Avenging Anegawa.
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Tessa 1/-------/=======|=------\-------\0 Sada
There's an awful lot of rattling as Tessa fights and squirms to try and get her shield free of all those chain links, but she eventually manages. She then uses it like a helmet to keep her head from being slammed into a tree, but she's still a little choked before all is said and done. The important part is that her elbows and forearms are up and making it so that the chains themselves aren't directly against her throat. They're just kind of squeezing in on the arms themselves and making her choke herself like that thing stupid people do when they want to make themselves passout for fun.
It doesn't go on long enough for the shieldmaiden to pass out, though. She goes rolling to one side to unravel them as soon as Sada stops pulling, and kicks herself back up to her feet, making sure to step on the chain itself to get a feel for the direction it's leading back to its weilder in, before she spins herself around a couple of times and launches her own weapon/guard, hoping that it bounces off of something and comes back to her, whether it be Sada or a cameraman or whatever is out there in its path.
COMBATSYS: Tessa successfully hits Sada with Large Thrown Object.
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Tessa 0/-------/-----==|===----\-------\0 Sada
Sada leans back - "Hah!" she shouts, as the shield whicks past her, straightening up and advancing towards Tessa with a gleam in her eyes. She raises the kama, when the shield /does/ hit a camera man...
And bounce back towards her, striking her in the small of the back. "Gaaah!!" she shouts, twitching as her back arches, spine locking for a moment. The shield rebounds, wobbling as steel is wont to do (and perhaps to aid recovery) as Sada spits and hisses in vicious-sounding Kyoto-ben.
"Bitch!!" she shouts, snapping one leg blindly out towards Tessa's approximate position. It's fast, but poorly aimed!
COMBATSYS: Tessa interrupts Light Kick from Sada with Upper Echelon EX.
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Tessa 0/-------/--=====|=======\-------\0 Sada
Tessa can kind of hear what must have happened. The guy behind the camera doesn't sound very happy, and there's the sound of something shattering. For the folks at home, the screen blacks out momentarily, and not even the grainy greenish nightfighting that one has to squint to see clearly in the first place is being shown anymore. The shield hit the camera from the angle they were shooting from at that particular time and took it out.
"Uhh, my fault." she calls out, a bit meekly. But then she clears her throat and steels herself, hearing young Sada coming because she has the urge to shout swear words at her so loud. And being without her shield for the moment, she opts to throw her shoulder into the girl just as she's kicked, and use a little bit of SWAT team kung-fu to send her spiraling up into the stratosphere. "Hmph! Watch your mouth, kid!"
Sada does not actually GO flying. No, that would be too easy. Well, she doesn't fly into the stratosphere, anyway. She rises and tumbles, the kusarigama rattling around her as she thumps into the ground, grinding her teeth at the pain in her hamstrings. But - it's nothing... Nothing at /all/, she tells herself, even when she doesn't leap to her feet again right away.
"Don't call me a /kid/, you old hag!" she says, or perhaps roars, from her prone position as she whirls the kusarigama around, this time leading with the sickle! Normally highly dangerous but this time she's pissed; the blade whicks twice through the air, aiming to lodge itself viciously in the nearby limb of the Italian woman. Let her deal with THAT while she's looking for her weapon!
COMBATSYS: Sada successfully hits Tessa with Catch The Knife.
-* CRITICAL HIT! *-
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Tessa 1/------=/=======|======-\-------\0 Sada
Well, Tessa had already had about all she could take. And even being as healthy as she is, schoolgirls like Sada still tend to run circles around her. Just ask Himeko, she'll tell you. On top of that, this is a woman who's usually in bed by this hour. And then on top of *that*, Saint messed with her head a lot before she even started in on the young Miss Asai. What this basically means is that she was going to fall over no matter what the next time she was struck, even if just by a leaf in the wind. The fact that it's the blade of Sada's kusari-gama that hits her shieldless arm and digs in deep, causing enough blood to spray out that it actually reaches her opponent only makes the Strolheim elite fall unconscious something like ten times as fast. That's all. But like a true soldier, when she goes down, it's with both arms raised up above her head, fingers locked together and trying to form an axle-handle to be swung down on the Seijyun student's head as she collapses like a stone arch that's lost its keystone.
COMBATSYS: Tessa can no longer fight.
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Sada 0/-------/-======|
COMBATSYS: Sada counters Falling Arch from Tessa with Niitaka Yama Nobore.
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Sada 1/-------/=======|
"Hyaaaaah!" Sada screams as she feels wind falling onto her face, pulling back the kama, gripping it and twisting it up in a savage slice - shoving the plummeting Tessa to the ground and gritting her teeth at the shiver it sends down her arm!
After this, she lays there, breathing heavily for a few moments. She can still feel that weird echo of that pain. Perhaps that Saint guy... perhaps he's got the Evil Energy. Another one? How many people...
"Pretty good," she says, her voice low. "I think... Fighting in the dark's pretty tough, isn't it?" She pushes herself painfully up to her elbows -
The lights flick on. "Aiiiighh!!" GOD DAMN THAT HURTS
Log created on 18:30:41 04/19/2008 by Sada, and last modified on 15:03:07 04/23/2008.