Description: They say a dream takes only a second or so, and yet in that second a man can live a lifetime. He can suffer and die, and who's to say which is the greater reality: the one we know or the one in dreams, between heaven, the sky, the earth? (INCOMPLETE Scene, posting for posterity)
Few people would ever be able to tell that news of the invasion had reached the lonely and grandiose school in the forest. It is nighttime, as these things tend to do, and there is no sign of intense security. No Ladies Team rung about the school like a wall, no armed guards, or anything of the sort, even though most public schools have long since succumbed to the trappings of paranoia even before this worldwide invasion.
The students were not sent home.
The teachers still execute their classes with impeccable attention to detail and a hunger for excellence that exemplifies the name of 'Justice High.' Students meander the campus here and there, milling about the grounds, off on their way to their various studies--even at this hour, classes are still underway, as Justice High's curriculum encompassed and supported a telling variety of schedule to match each student's particular ability to learn. As if in derision at the chaos that rips through the city, Justice High has not cancelled a single class.
This is a school, not a warzone.
But it would be folly to assume that it has not acted.
The principal, for the moment, is absent, dealing with the conflicts in the city directly, as is suited for that gentler left hand of Imawano. But to that end, he left his greatest treasure, his school, to the legacy of that clan's brutal right hand. A great trust was placed in that boy's hands, and 'ambition'.. even one that is devoid of malignance, is itself reason to exceed expectation.
A form of penance, it is.
But it will not be an indulgence of sorry negligence. There is no time for that, for Hyo's mind is only on the city itself, and the school he believed to be central to its future.
Though, admittedly, he could have done without being left Raizo's inimitable stack of paperwork. Today's load took him four hours to complete..
Now the boy sits atop the school, at the foot of a massive mechanism, the Raizo statue, in an imitation of full lotus. He meditates quietly on every mind that exists underneath the encompass of his great wing. Esconced in the pooled white of his great cloak, the young man's hands just visible beyond the darkness, beyond the glint of his pauldrons. His gloves are as pristine as ever, as his hands tiwst, fingers clasped together but fingers spread in a cutting hand of ninjutsu--mudra that keeps his chi in harmony with his surroundings.
Eyes shut, Hyo might as well not exist.
But he needs no eyes to see.
This is a school. But it is a school founded by ninja, which means there need be no guards at every gate to successfully turn invaders away.
Reconnaissance. It's usually the boring task passed to the lower ranks to handle. You don't need a billion dollar killing machine to go poking her head around corners or peeking over walls in the dead of night. At least... Not for *most* locations in Southtown.
With Gedo under their thumb, the paranoid Eye of NESTS was turned to the other faction hubs within the city. For they WERE factions. These were no mere 'High Schools' like people in other nations might have. These were -Southtown High Schools-, and the bodies that attend them cannot be taken lightly. On a daily basis, students attending these schools survivor rigors that would be the death of most grown adults around the world. To ignore them could very well be a fatal flaw in the invader's plans.
To Taiyo, Pacific, and Seijyun high, standard recon teams were dispatched. The students at them were tough, no doubt. But they were also more open to infiltration and deception than the one remaining school: Justice High. To that one they sent their best.
She moves easily into the campus grounds. Dressed in black protective leather armor, her skin competely concealed but for her face, Kula Diamond slips through the shadows offered by the late hour with silence. Someone even thought to bind her yellow insulated gloves in black tape and her hair, normally long and free, has been bound into a looping pony tail behind her head. Chestnut brown in color, she doesn't need her combat chi for this... at least, that's the intent.
The girl scales quickly, making her own hand and footholds as she goes - small patches of ice every bit as effective as a spider's bristles letting her climb even the smoothest surfaces. The small patches of ice melt quickly, leaving only small damp spots as evidence of the girl's passing. She scales buildings, slips around corners, peeking through windows, avoiding being seen by those still milling about or enroute to or from classes. Her expression, cool as it may be, bears a mixture of confusion. It's as if they are blisfully unaware here... It makes no sense to be attending classes at a time like this!
She slips through the cone of light cast by a mounted lamp, her face visible for the space of one third of a second. A black eyepatch covers the girl's right eye - evidence of an injury from when she fought at Igniz's side at Gedo. She'd be itching to pay that Tenma kid back for it if she felt anything at all about the fight. No anger for the wound, no self-loathing for walking into it. The eyepatch would serve, for a couple of days, as a reminder of why every step in a fight needs to be taken with the utmost seriousness...
She'll have an interesting report to make when she's done here. Just a little longer; best to assess their defenses more fully. There WILL be a day when the invaders come, after all. And they'll want as much intell as possible. Recon. It's kind've dull. A soft, chilly breath escapes her lips as she moves through the night. The administration building is just ahead.
It all unfolds a little differently from the other schools.
The academy of ideals was something different, had always been something different. A waypoint for children of tenacity and vigil, talent and ambition. It is nothing to say that the student body would be nothing less but expectant of attention from their enemies. How vain such expectations may be. That NESTS could only send their best is the expected result of being the top academy, not just in Japan, but in the world.
But vanity is nothing in the face of ambition.
A school whose leaders are practiced in Imawano ninjutsu would only be hindered by guards, guards that would no doubt simply die in the face of whatever the invasion could wreak. A guard standing at a gate is not vigilance, it is merely show; and false vigilance is easily surmounted. This much cannot be said to be mere opinion.
Is it any surprise then that Kula Diamond meets no opposition in the scaling of the wall, her breach of security raises no alarm, evinces no response? Students mill by without any anxiety, some passing feet from Kula without truly noticing her, as if her skill rendered her simply invisible. That skill is beyond that of the most rudimentary technologies used to keep common thieves out, and no other such trapping exists for her kind. Except..
The strength of Imawano.
The technique he uses is not exactly the kind of empathy the great studies of the spirit use. He is using a long-range technique, for the penetration of minds and perceptions, the illusory abilities of the Imawano clan being put to work under his heel in a form of self-hypnosis. In this meditative form, he can watch over the entirety of Justice High, or at least any of the spaces that hold minds he can sense and penetrate through the spirit.
A bead of sweat trails his brow.
He has been at it for some hours now.
Yet he remains upright.
Passing through various perceptions like pages from a novel, he sees this school of his from many angles, in many ways. He can see the courtyards, the classes, the administrative rooms. Everything a person can see in Justice High, he does. But tempering that is his own acute sense of perception and notice. Things lose color underneath his filtering gaze, gaining definition free of the heady sense of bias that most have. He is not on his way to the laundry, or to class, or home for a nap. He is searching.
Eyes crack open halfly, as the young man exhales.
The chill breath condenses softly on the wind.
From Kula, it twists--the breath visibly wrenching into the air and twisting away as a sudden rush of wind passes, dissipating the mist.
And in the next moment, his shadow falls over the black suit.
The sound of his boots alighting reach ear a moment later.
Though her form is indistinct, broken against the environment behind her, the subtle curve lines of her leather-clad form are not beyond his notice. That shadow creeps over her and the night she'd call home against that wall, his position impossibly dark, and his own features are indistinct as well, lit from behind by the great lamps of Justice High in the distance. Even so, the great white cloak of his station is as bright as can possibly be, rendering Kula's own attire a relative antithesis. But there is no passion in his voice when he speaks, only the low confident words of a man who has waited all his life for just one more chance to put his ambition to the test.
The fittings of his nameless blade gleam, hung at his hip.
"Welcome to Justice High, Kula Diamond."
Her normal assignments are no where nearly so stealthy. When NESTS sends her to kill, the girl walks through hired security or rent-a-guards, killing or incapacitating them without little care or effort on her way to her unfortunate target. Her killing techniques can be so very deadly even while quiet, but the screams of the dying have a way of carrying in the still night air. But just because stealthy movement isn't normally required of her doesn't mean she hasn't been trained.
Trained exceptionally well, in fact, to navigate the terrain. To maintain an awareness of all three hundred and sixty degrees around her. You can't move when eyes may stray your way. You can't take so much as take a breath if sharp ears nearby might hear. She moves as quietly as the shadows in which she creeps. Even quelling her own formidable aura, an effort for one such as her, is part of her technique for avoiding detection.
She crawls through spaces few could manage. And when going through isn't viable, she goes over, scaling surfaces, using a tiny percentage of her ice control to aid her way. An inspection of the administration building will be key. If she can verify that Raizo is away, plans can be accelerated accordingly. The problem is her lack of knowledge of the Imawano. Oh, sure, there's files on the clans at NESTS. But it's too much for the common man to parse, the average clerk to comprehend, or the typical analyist to break down into component data that would have been useful to pass on to the NESTS operative before the mission. So she comes, woefully unequipped with knowledge about the clan that watches over this campus and the powers they may have.
She senses it for a brief moment, only by its absense, when it withdraws. As if a suble shift in the way her aura resonates with the world around her alerts her to something changing. That suspicion is enough for her to freeze in place, tucked in the corner at the edge of one building and the wall of another. Face lowered at first, as to keep the only light-colored portion of her body hidden from view, she waits.
She needn't wait long.
The shadow among shadows moves over her and she turns, her single, violet eye gazing up against the light toward the silhouette of one Hyo Imawano, his cloak adding stature to his frame. She knows who he is. Her handlers did at least brief her on individuals to be wary of. Kurow Kirishima. The grizzled Principal himself. And of course, the young man standing before her now.
He speaks her name. So he knows too. Then there is no edge to be had there. In knowing her name, he knows why she is here. "Hyo." she whispers back. "Imawano." she declares the last name with a certain level of weight. If there is to be a takeover of the campus, then he is among the biggest obsticles to doing so. She wasn't sent to assassinate or maim; and lacking a certain... burning loyalty for 'the cause' behind this invasion, it isn't even necessary for her to fight him.
And so she choses a different tact. Tensing up, crouching tightly, it's a split second before she springs, taking to the air in a backward leap. Her hands, fingers splayed, press against the wall behind her, freezing a small patch for her grip right about halfway up. She hangs there for a second. Her side to the wall, her toes pressed against it, her hands keeping her fixed as she glances downward. "Thank you for the welcome. But..." She springs up higher, this time shooting for the rooftop. "...I'm not staying for the recruitment tour."
Her feet touch lightly against the rooftop with a slight grace that would do any ninja proud.
It is of no real surprise that these two would know one another without ever having met face to face. One is a darkling of academia, the other a princess of the tournament circuit. Even without taking into account this citywide invasion and the intelligence-gathering abilities of their respective organizations, Hyo's eye would recognize Kula's and vice-versa trivially, passively. That is the nature of those who retain.
It is true; Hyo's stature is nothing to slouch at, at six feet even he commands a height unusual for Japanese, especially those of his age. Swathed in pure white, his silhouette makes him seem a great white dragon, dwarfing the subtleties of the comparitively diminutive NESTS agent. It is pomp and circumstance, purely; a display meant to impress upon all watching as to the station that not just Hyo, but Justice High itself commands in history. To reveal those without will before they even get close is the manner of the bright red uniforms worn in impeccable repair by every Justice High student. But this is merely display for the occaision, and nothing more.
After all, size is not a determinant of a direct battle.
Hyo has an answer he needs only moments after meeting Kula. Though talented, she would move through Justice High's halls without arousing suspicion, without marking battle. In a normal circumstance, Hyo would hardly force the matter upon Diamond. But there is no patience today for allowing a child to roam the hallowed halls of Justice High, to plumb her secrets.
If there was to be an invasion, Hyo will not suffer the harbinger to go without a response appropriate for the Imawano clan.
She leaves quickly, her legs uncoiling and carrying her in two motions up and away from him, to stick to the wall just above him. Hyo himself doesn't make any grand movement against her, his floor-length cloak shifting the grass as he betrays only a single step to her--only one shift of the body, before he looks up, his long white hair dropping tight against his cloak.
"The pleasure is mine," he allows in grace. "But recruitment would shine poorly on you. For all of the legendary talent we harbor at the school, there is still only one indefatigable rule."
His eyes slide shut.
"Be just. Or be dead."
His eyes open, meeting Kula's evenly.
One glance into those dark brown eyes is enough to decide it.
The school will drain away like syrup off a ladle, the moon, the stars, the sky above becoming indescribably cramped and small as it settles over the chaotic earth, broken away like glass. If Kula finds herself trapped in that fatal gaze of his, she will find herself swallowed by nothingness, her mind eaten by the kami without any more pause than one enjoying soup.
... In the silence, the heartbeat of the world is nearby.
"To this end, I must insist."
He stands some ways away, the grandiose cloak gone, standing on a ground made of nothing in confidence, the ripples of his steps extending far beyond him, as he bares the blade of a sword with no name. There is little pretention in his movement, each step methodical, eager. He is lit by the passage of a rogue star, so bright and so close that it draws the long tail of his hair in his wake. One by one, stars begin to appear, casting a noble twilight upon this.
An 'illusionary space,' dominating the senses.
An arena of the mind.
"Here I will test you," he announces.
"And when we are done, you will tell me everything you know."
She chanced that moment's glance while clinging to the wall. Elevated beyond the shadow of the building, the small patches of ice that form her handholds glisten like drops of mercury frozen in place, a brief pause to issue a pithy greeting is all she affords the young steward of Justice. And then she leaps, taking to the air easily. Speed is not her only ally, it would seem, as she arcs over the roof's edge, arms extended out to her sides, every moment highlighting utmost agility. She'll make him chase her - a game of cat and mouse, perhaps; an attempt to lose him in the night and circle back to her objective.
She lands. But something is amiss. The grinding sound of gravel underfoot is missing. The sky, dark but for the bright moon overhead, has gone black, as if someone pulled the power plug and the lights of the universe went out all at once. She stands up straight, her looped pony tail bobbing against her upper back as she glances across what should be a horizon occupied by the high rise buildings of Southtown is pitch black. A hint of confusion occupies her crimson eyes as she stares into the emptiness. The cost of that mere glance has not yet fully sunk in.
Sounds are soft. Subtle, as if heard over great distance. Up until the moment his voice rises and Kula turns, mouth partially agape as she faces him again. A solitary beam illuminates the youth against the backdrop of space. Her next breath has shifted, her mind reeling at the circumstances she finds herself. The nature of the living weapon's upbringing had always been a double edged sword. Fearing the solecism of their past with the K' project, she was designed to be far more submissive; more easily subdued by suggestion and carefully worded instruction. The side effect has left her vulnerable to invasions of the mind or those who target it with their Psycho Powered attacks.
Suffering the unbidden voices of others in her head is nothing like what the girl is experiencing now however. "Where is here." she demands rather than asks, already taking a step toward him. "It doesn't matter." Already he will feel it - that surge in presence, as something dangerous kept in check until this very moment. Her foot falls against a surface that remains black even as the starry dome over head begins to glow, one pin light at a time. "I will tell you nothing." Her tone had started capricious at first but it's changed, right along with her breathing rate. The young killer is nothing but gravely serious now - a natural response to try and mask her confusion at this turn of events.
"You, on the other hand," she picks up speed, her figure, obscurred in black, almost difficult to make out in this place, bluring forward. "Will have much to explain. Hyo Imawano." Her right hand tightens, a surge of white, liquid energy coursing over her forearm. Good, she tells herself. Whatever this place is; whatever he is doing, her power is still hers to command. He hasn't taken that away from her at least.
Her feet glide with ease as the girl leans forward into her charge. That liquid flowing over her arm solidifies into a two foot long, narrow sword of translucent ice affixed to the back of her forearm. It appears almost black in color, reflecting almost none of the glimmering star light as the killer draws near. Her course will take her past Hyo on his left, her right arm swinging, aiming to stain his white uniform with the blood that flows through him with a carving slash toward his ribcage. A rush of wind moves in her wake. He'll feel it rustle at his cloth and hair if he hasn't been forced to focus on the sting of that toothed blade on his opponent's arm.
Should she pass, she'll slide to a stop a meter later, drawing her arm back in to inspect the tip of her bladed ice for the telling sight of blood. "Surrender now." she'll encourage either way. Stop this or reap the consequences to follow...
COMBATSYS: Kula has started a fight here.
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Kula 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Hyo has joined the fight here.
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Kula 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Hyo
COMBATSYS: Hyo fails to interrupt Aggressive Strike from Kula with Ouryuuzan.
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Kula 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Hyo
It's true. No feat of psionics is this technique of the scholar's. No elaborate and intimate emotional connection is shared between the two, no bond of empathy. This is not something Hyo concerns himself with. In the end, it is a reconciliation of the medium of "pure contention." A dictation of terms, absolving the hands of blood. It's not something Kula will have a choice with, this contest of wills. Hyo explains in the simplest fashion:
"This is my skill of 'illusionary space.'"
The ability to enshroud the mind.
Lights in various colors fall on the shining metals and expensive fabrics of his suit, even itself now a residual self-image of his own spirit as much as anything. He steps forward fearless across ground that doesn't truly exist, trusting in his own ability at every level. Without further preamble or pointless secrecy, he explains it thus:
"In this space of my devising, there will be no escape for you save at my whim. It's not a situation childish demands can change. Your body is safe--it will be kept such for our purposes later on. But your will--it is under my knife now."
His eye does not miss Diamond.
His blade rakes free as Kula whips past him.
Just an instant passes, but it cuts away any further explanation needed.
Crimson stains the cherried front of Hyo's uniform, spreading over his body and bending Justice High's top student double, his hair only settling a moment later. His breath betrays him in a short and choked off gasp, eventually fading to silence as the council head takes one staggering step forward, now away from Kula. He can bleed here--as he can in real life. But when he slowly rises underneath the erratic starlight, it is not in agony. It is proud.
"I sincerely hope.. that this is not the best blow you're able to deal me, or this will be a sorry affair indeed."
His voice is a bale of chill arctic wind. No egotism marks his voice--he is earnest in his disapproval as much as he is in his own inability to avoid the blow in time. He lifts his blade straight in the air held in the left hand by the pommel. The eerie lights that glimmer overhead and below play strange patterns off the hamon and off the sharp, serious glare in his eyes. The Imawano ninja's stance widens as his blade lowers, like the waning tail of a lion.
"Someone such as you speaking of surrender is the mark of a fledgeling amateur. Those who sent you should have warned you. This school will not cater to your pointless wars. If you believe you are the best of your number, able to overcome Justice High and the Imawano, its preeminent talent.."
Glowing pink blossom petals wind through the empty space above, trailing Hyo as a manifestation of his own chi. As he stands there before Kula, the wound cut into his abdomen bleeds openly, but he disregards it. A grievous wound for any other, but Kula will need to work harder to see him in anything other than immaculate repose.
"...Come and earn your freedom."
Her glistening, obsidian-like blade is adorned with the slightest hint of blood. The cut has been swift but ultimately shallow. The blade served its purpose. She discards it, casting the sharp ice to the side without further thought as she whirls to face the noble guardian of Justice and survey his condition. Crimson stains his uniform, as expected. It seems the lack of depth perception that patch over her right eye hints at hasn't made her any less deadly. But his visage does not suggest that he is in agony or that his resolve has been swayed in the slightest. Her mouth curls into the faintest frown.
Illusionary space he had called it before she charged. What does that even mean? He had laid out the terms of this condition she finds herself within. No escape. He'll set her free when he feels like it. In the meantime, her will is his to dissect... She doesn't like these terms in the slightest.
Her mind snaps back to the present as he speaks, the girl glaring at him with her lone unpatched eye. Goading her - not in the taunting, childish manner some might. But in an expression that implies disappointment at the lack of menace demonstrated. Because he wants more from this get together than just that. She should ignore him. She should retaliate with whatever is the most prudent. Let her asssasin's instincts lead the way and deal with the young man like any other.
Except. He isn't like any other. And she doesn't like his tone of voice. This universe may be his. The swirling lights; stars amid a carpet of black, may paint the colors their creator commands, but she won't be controlled, ordered around by him. "The value or uselessness of these wars is not something I worry about." she notes. "Your interference in my mission is all that matters."
She leans forward, taking one step, then the next, before entering a sliding glide over the hidden surface of this new domain. Her hair trails behind her as the young killer bullets toward her chosen prey. The fingers of young Diamond's hands extend, a shimmer of white coursing over them. A flash, a crackle of ice taking form, and then gripped tightly in each yellow, insulated glove exists a shimmering sickle.
Only it isn't blades of white grain ready to harvest she's after here. The one-eyed NESTS project is interested in reaping blood from the young man's body. "Amateur...? you shouldn't underestimate me." Her voice, normally soft, quiet, reserved, borders on a growl. "I am the best." So many have fallen to her lethal attacks. A trail of bodies remains in the wake of NESTS most successful project to date, proof, in her mind, of her superiority.
Those twin hooks will be brought to bear as she ducks low, swinging her arms forward, seeking to dig them into Hyo's sides. They would carve flesh with the greatest of ease - blades so cold as to briefly freeze the very blood they might come in contact. But the intent is merely to secure him in a most painful, savage manner. "You bleed here." she observes. "Can you die here as well?" There's one way to find out.
She would bring her right foot up then, the sole of her boot facing Hyo's torso. Should he not have avoided her assault, Kula's foot will slam forward even as more spikes of ice rip out from its surface as she aims to run the student through entirely.
COMBATSYS: Hyo dodges Kula's Strong Kick.
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Kula 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Hyo
There'd be no more explanation for Kula as to the nature of this space of his. The time for that has mercifully past, though Kula may be left in the dark as to Gen'ei's true form. It doesn't matter. As she is an assassin, she will persevere as expected. Hyo would not deign to face any less from the enemies of Justice. Nor would he expect any less from himself than to overcome it without fear.
That is why, the winds of gentle petals twisting away from him, he strides forward, towards the young assassin's darkened blades, over ground that is a mere extension of his will, lowering the blade out of his guard, and dragging its edge across the ground-not-ground with a riled hiss of steel on stone that reverberates into the darkest recesses of the human spirit. Hyo was one of the few who, even in the real world, could do such a thing without ruining the edge of a sword. His ability was such that his sword rarely dulled, only seeming to get sharper the more he used it. This is how it is now--the edge keens instantly as the student slips forward.
"Your mission," Hyo points out, "was pointless before it even began."
No quarter can be given to the unjust.
Such is the expectation of those who are chosen to excel without equal and with the utmost of idealism in the consecrate halls of Justice High.
"If you think you're the best, then don't waste my time with foolishness!"
He steps forward, into Kula's threatened space, her gliding motions offset by Hyo's sudden shift, his whirling body almost military in discipline, in precision. Shifting from one motion to the next, his blade whips high as it had only moments before, as if to meet Kula in an immediate response, to try and overwhelm her offense again with one of his own. A heady move, that, as if stubborn and unwilling to accept any outcome that doesn't result in absolute victory--his blade clashes against Kula's ice blades, twisting so that one is caught on the tip of his blade and the other cracks against his weapon's hilt, bringing the boot up the center--
in an instant, the student is gone.
With the sound of raking steel still a resonant echo in the vast space of this chamber of the mind, Hyo's exact location is likely a fathom of guesses, the only evidence of his movement at all being a vague red and silver streak. The only evidence of his body every being there at all is a fading afterimage left in his wake. He moves quickly, but Kula's instincts should be enough to tell her his location even before the suppression of sound -- the absence thereof -- is enough to announce it. He relocates to Kula's flank, his blade whipping down in one stroke, a single judgment.
Only two white flashes are imposed in the air, a blinding white cruciform cut into the wind over Kula's body.
People have been quartered by less.
COMBATSYS: Hyo successfully hits Kula with Juumonji Giri.
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Kula 0/-------/----===|===----\-------\0 Hyo
She charges forward, aiming to hook him with both sickles. Just one would do, really, were it to carve into his flesh and leave him unable to avoid her punishing kick. She responds to his boldness by picking up speed herself, as if seeing his forward motion as a challenge to her ability - as if perhaps he wasn't convinced yet of the threat he faced. One hook and then he will know pain!
The shape of her blades proves her attack's undoing, as his sword clashes against the first one before twisting it, forcing the handle from her hands and shattering the tip in the process. The second one collides with the hilt of his sword a mere inch before it would have sunk through his uniform and left him torn open or secured long enough for her to cave his chest in with a powerful kick. That alone would have perhaps decided this exchange. But the young man's defense proves precise and by the time she slams her foot forward, he's gone, and she's left holding one broken sickle and the other sickle is flipping into the distance over a high arc, a ringing resonance echoing out right up until it shatters at its apex, the pieces raining down like glittering diamonds in the horizon.
Not simply slipped out of her path but gone all together, leaving her to senses other than her eyes to try and track the guardian of Justice. He is fast. Not just here, but in life. Just fast enough to overwhelm her own legendary speed in this instance. She turns when he is within range of his sword, and that is her mistake. She should have moved immediately instead. The lesson learned is inscribed by means of those two slashes.
The first lands so fast as to defy her even realizing she's been slashed, a thin ribbon of blood from a horizontal cut a few inches below her neck. The verticle slice, on the other hand, travels down her torso, right through the zipper of her torso protecting jacket, leaving another cut in its wake in the process. A gasp escapes her lips as she staggers back a couple of steps, the pain of the damage wrought registering after that impossibly brief moment has passed.
Her jacket falls open, revealing the bleeding cross cut into her body, thin red marks left in the second layer of her black uniform - a form fitting body suit specifically engineered to aid her in temperature regulation. Her gloved right hand lifts, planting against the center of the cut as she looks down, stumbling back another step as she hisses, her breath just a barely visible vapor before vanishing. Her leather body armor offers almost no defense from that sword he wields, its edge too keen to be stopped she realizes. For a split moment she looks panicked. Trapped here in a universe that exists only in the mind's eye, facing the one who controls it, what is she to do?
Kula backs up again, before turning her back to Hyo, recoiling, her expression shaken, up as if her eyes were nearing the point of unleashing a flood of forever-frozen tears. She crouches, huddling up, arms hugging herself tightly as she bunkers down, looking ready to surrender to the master of this realm. Her body trembles, a reflection of a mind not up to the task Hyo sets it against now. She was confident at first. But how can she fight a battle here? Trapped in a world that shouldn't be, subject to his demands, his study?
But a change comes over the world. First comes the sound of water. Not rushing, not pouring, not dripping. Merely present, calm, as if only the breeze disturbed it. Hyo might find his feet submerged in it before it is even visible. It's only four inches deep. Enough to soak the cuffs of his pants and no further. But a change comes over his young charge as well. That waist length hair that was, upon their encounter, frosty blue, has the color melt out of it until it is merely shoulder length, strawyberry blonde. And she's no longer trembling.
"Is this what you were hoping to find? What it was you faced?" she asks, slowly rising, her back still toward Hyo. Her voice is different. It would be hard determine just how without an ear for detail. She sounds a little older. And by the time she reaches her full height, she's grown two inches too. "You shouldn't have done this." She turns suddenly. Her feet are on a circle of ice and the mist that obscured the water at their feet rushes away as if driven by a swift sea breeze, leaving the two to stand in a giant reflection pool at the base of an impossibly high cliff. The sky overhead is black, laced with stars, orbiting planets, asteroids, and other cosmic entities. An icy comet arcs a path across the center of the dome, raining frozen matter down all around the two lost travelers.
She's older by maybe two years. Her limbs slightly thicker, her hair its natural color. And her hands; her hands are bereft of those gloves. Freezing cold vapor pours from off them, as if she held solid carbon dioxide in her palms, but her hands are empty. He may notice they have been relocated, frozen in the circle of ice at the girl's feet. Crimson eyes gaze at her hands as she holds them up in front of her, her head leaning to the side curiously before she notices a length of her hair resting against her shoulders and blinks in some surprise.
The blue hair - a visible indication of her having unleashed her combat level ice control - was an innovation of science. It let her channel more of that freezing energy without killing off the cells of her body. It is a crucial part of her ability to fight. Or, rather, was. "Hm." the sixteen year old girl muses, attention brought back to Hyo as she shrugs her slashed jacket to the icy platform beneath her feet. Her skin tight black body suit reveals some muscle tone in her covered arms. "What have you done now, hm?" Is this his doing or hers? Is this her future state? A day where her gloves were no longer needed to keep her safe from her own lethal ice?
She lifts her right hand, energy coursing over it. She can feel it, she realizes. Feel that almost fluid-like, freezing cold chi curling over fingers and across the back of her hand. It's never been this easy. It's never felt this good. Her hand doesn't hurt in the slightest. Her mouth curls into a confident smile. "It doesn't matter now." She steps forward, the water of the reflection pool freezing with each step into an ever expanding area of influence. "How this came to be. You will regret it just the same." The girl snaps her right hand forward and unleashes a torrent of that power she wields. Water is drawn up into a frozen whirlwind that tears across the pool toward Hyo, intent on exploding into him, as the young ice wielder merely smiles quietly to herself.
His eyes might detect the frozen energy churning in that burst of swirling air closing in on him. He might have sharp enough focus to detect the miniscle thousands of razors, each one eager for his blood. But seeing, on its own, won't be enough.
COMBATSYS: Kula successfully hits Hyo with Diamond Breath.
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Kula 0/-------/---====|======-\-------\0 Hyo
The Juumonji Giri was a specialty technique of the Imawano ryuu that was revised several times by various Imawano nin. Others had done it with two swords or even their bare hands. But with Hyo, it came in the form of a lightning fast double cut, making it difficult to defend against, and even moreso from behind.
With zero hesitation, Hyo moves forward the moment his blade bites flesh, opening those leathers and bodysuit of hers. For someone who can cut steel, there was little proof against his blade. Even less defensible was his intentions--it was part and parcel of his militant style of swift elimination of opponents. Once he gained ground, Hyo did not cede it easily. His blade lifts, turning parallel to thrust--
And Kula turns away.
Hyo's blade pauses, the guard of the nameless weapon hovering at his chin as he stares coldly down its edge, held in check by a loose sense of mercy, but only just so. Was she losing will already?
But the moment of mercy turns to suspicion and interest as he finds his boots mired in water. Though his boots are knee-length, and more than enough proof against that water for now, it bodes ill for those against her. You see, the flow of things has changed. That suspicion comes into being as easily as Kula's panic turns to.. something else. Even Hyo has to take a step back, lowering his weapon. A side effect of his jutsu most interesting.
The student stands away from Kula, eyes slipping over her in swift review. Though she gains relatively little height, she seems less a child than she was only moments prior, letting pass more and more the gentle curves of adolescence into something stronger, more feminine before his eyes. Only faintly disturbed, Hyo engrosses himself instead in determining the root of this. He knew that somewhere in her subconscious, this self-image existed. But for it to come out in the midst of his jutsu--that was interesting indeed.
Slowly, he lifts his blade once again.
"It seems," Hyo notices, "that you've been hiding something."
But his voice is without fear. To the contrary. Hyo is intrigued, more so than he was when Kula first turned away, even moreso than when he took first impressions of her skill. If this is the truth of what NESTS sends to him, it doesn't matter if she's any stronger or not. He will get to the root of it.
And then, surer than any real blade, his ambition will cut through it.
He has that necessary eye for detail enough to deduce the pitch variance in Kula's voice, enough to deduce the mass change. But the difference in ability--has that changed as well? Without her gloves, whirlwinds seem to cut through the air at her beck and call as if nothing else, twisting, forming--Hyo catches it at the last moment. Razors?
His uniform is torn, shredded in a thousand different fashions. Blood is drawn even with the ornamentation ripped off of Hyo's jacket, gold and silver tumbling away into the all consuming night and fading into nothing. His coat is ripped open at once in that dizzy spin, blowing the council head back until his boots squeal wetly against ground that is not there, sending splashes of water in all directions, shaved away with the force.
It's enough to gain just the slightest amount of traction.
The response is immediate.
Hyo launches into a full forward thrust, his bleeding form shucking the distance between the two as if he were always that close. Whipping forward in a scything curve of razored force, his steel eats distance in a full on thrust to Kula's midsection. His form twisted together, one knee drawn up to his chest and the other launching him from that one strike point in perfect harmony despite the savage pain of the biting chill. Despite the fact that he rains crystalline blood, he fights on. Without that regret Kula promised him. There is no such thing. Not for a student of Justice High.
"Show me."
COMBATSYS: Kula fails to interrupt Medium Strike from Hyo with Crow Bite.
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Kula 0/-------/---====|======-\-------\0 Hyo
From a gesture a tornado was unleashed. She stays put as Hyo is buffetted by gale-force winds and a storm of thirsty blades as if watching the event unfold was precisely what she had not just intended but had entirely anticipated. Her expression is calm as she draws her hand back slowly, and clenches it closed. Small rivulets of freezing cold water spill from between her closed fingers, the drops troubling the surface of the the reflection pool in this ethereal universe of the mind's eye.
He's been bloodied, moreso than before. The water at his feet is tinting red even as he stands. But if that were enough to stop the young man they would not find themselves here in the first place. He never would have had the power to find her invading his campus. He never would have been able to bring their thoughts to this place. She knows it won't stop him. It doesn't even seem to slow him.
The storm hasn't even ended when Hyo charges, exploding through the lingering mist and ice dusted air currents. He will find his opponent doing likewise, not having waited for him to make his move before bolting forward, all reluctance, all hesitation, all uncertainty cast to the wind. There's an eagerness in her eyes. The reluctant fighter is no more. She /wants/ this. The call of battle, the challenge of one powerful enough to withstand her strength... she rises to the occasion, answering with her own show of counter force.
The ice freezes with each step, giving her a smooth, frictionless platform atop which to bolt forward - a black blur moving with inhuman speed. Her right arm, cocked slightly, preparing to strike, is encased in searing cold energy before solidfying into a bladed guantlet of jagged ice. Colors swim within the sheath that serves both as protection and a weapon at once and the surface is encrusted with gemstones of various colors and sizes. Diamonds, rubies, emeralds. Minerals shaped purely by force of will from the matter she controls with nary a thought glisten in the starlight. This will be the means by which she shears him in half and puts this contest to an end.
Toward each other the two dash. The exchange would be impossible to follow with the naked eye. He, kicking up plumes of water so fast as to seem to run over it. She, extending her stage with each step, an ever expanding platform of smooth ice. His blade drawn, ready to spear forward with all his momentum put into that perfected thrust. She, her arm bent at her side, ready to rocket into a crushing strike.
When they collide, the very sands of time cease to flow. The spray kicked up by Hyo's feet freezes into frozen drops as Kula's piercing aura of cold is entered. Mist parts like curtains over the second act, revealing the two interlocked in a perfect mirroring of strikes. Their faces close, her right arm, encased in that brutal sheath, close enough that a single spike juts out and nicks his flesh. His sword is angled toward her torso. Blood drips to the ice she stands upon and runs down the atomically sharp edge of his sword. At first glance, it would seem to have been a perfect stab - that he had run her through in their collision of speed and intent to harm.
Seconds tick, however, before one might notice the truth of the matter. The way her torso has twisted at the last possible instant. The way she leans, just enough to have avoided the spearing. A gash across the middle of her abdomen through her body suit and flesh alike reveals the path his blade traveled before it came to rest. Her left hand, encased in ice two inches thick, grips the sword without a name, having provided just enough leverage to spare herself the worst of the intended strike. He had forced her hand, being a fraction of a step faster, causing Kula to abort her own attack to save herself. The most he will taste of the Crow's teeth is that small scratch in his torso. A tiny hint of her true intent.
Her own face only a foot from his, he'll likely feel her frosty breath as she exhales. A hint of a smile crosses her lips, a subtle representation of the exhilaration she feels. She's never felt so free, so unrestrained, so eager to be challenged. "Your reputation is well earned," she whispers at last before bolting backward quickly to avoid an immediate follow up. Her right arm sheds its armor, the gems and ice crashing down to the solid matter at her feet, scattering over its surface as Kula slides to a stop by coming out of a spin.
Her left hand traces over the gash at her stomach, painting it with ice and sealing the wound off as she has done countless times in the past... as if the frozen elements served as her flesh just as well as her real skin. Her eyes sparkle, that energy within her begging for release against this legitimate challenge. "There is so much to show you," she continues. "If you can survive it." The comet overhead continues its journey through the sky, its tail raining gentle snow across the landscape. "NESTS..." She shakes her head, her shoulder length hair bouncing against her shoulders. "They have no idea what they created. But I always suspected..."
Her right hand clenches and liquid nitrogen pours from between her knuckles, "Come. Discover it with me. The future. You are to blame for this... you must see it through."
A single drop of blood mingles with the ice below.
Her celerity was nothing to take lightly; at the very last moment Hyo was more hurtling than moving, his body airborne by the grace of only a few centimeters over the water. Kula's perception was not off; Hyo, in those last moments, was in fact skirting over the surface of the water. When someone controls ice in that method, footing is a matter of vital importance, worth Hyo's attention. He is unsurprised at the outcome--the calculation of instants won his blow through, gaining him that fraction of a step.
The single drop of blood is his own; the attentions of that single vicious spike. She'd come closer than he would have preferred; that spike was a disemboweling iron. His trained eye could see it clearly. Had he not found that half a step, it would have been the bulk of his blood coating the razor's edge.
The shining curve of the orphan blade bites across the midriff of the NESTS ascendant; her young, strong body seeming only a vessel to cut free in that weapon's decisive plunge. The blood trails down its hamon curve freely. But any pretense of a winning blow is illusory; post-impact his steel hums with the gauntlet of ice seizing and binding it from further actions. Hyo's arm is tense against that counteracting force, the fine leathers of his gloves squealing against the wrappings of the blade's hilt. Despite the obvious strength he leverages against Kula, the gaze of his eyes does not meet any point of tension, only Kula's own evenly as their faces meet. His breath lacks the heat of amateurs, but it is not particularly the bitter cold with which Kula is accustomed.
He has no fear.
To retain the status quo on the brink of time ever frozen is his aim just then. Temperance is as important as ambition, and Hyo has both adequacies in spades.
Laboring but even slides free his voice as a knife in the tension of battle. "Love, and legion are Justice High's pedigrees. Of these, I am humbled to service that mother school's ideal. Facing me is not the same as facing others. You will face all of what that school's bloody past represents," he speaks, struggling against Kula's grip on his sword, his other hand coming to meet it. Frozen tightly.
"Wisdom, and the fortitude to persevere..."
"It's Just The Beginning!!"
In an instant, Hyo's blade wins through, carving a white line through the air with the decisive shearing of the crystalline guard, blade singing as it scatters fragments of ice before it, Hyo's blade going low in a single hand. But Kula is no longer present, having leapt back to prevent his otherwise inexorable stepping response. In the space of a single step backwards, Hyo is gone too, leaping up impossibly far into the sky, into the eye of the snow conjured by that passing comet. His coat spreads wide in the wind of the receding earth below and the biting weather above. Whirling, a huge line is traced off of his sword as he carves through the wind, punching through whatever phantasmal barrier once existed there, to the outside. He continues on until he lands roughly, standing on the periphery of one of those whirling lights in the sky, standing at right angles to Kula below. It is as if those lights, those stars in the sky, were in themselves moons and planets all their own, constructs of the mind as they are drawing them ever closer than one would ever imagine.
Hyo, impossibly long silver hair dragging and fraying strand in the winds, is lit from below by the magenta glare of the star from which he stands. Black boots hold ground as if he knew but cared little for the lure of physics. With the point of his katana, he drags a slow line in the phantasmal earth before him, now suddenly and startlingly proving three dimensional. There is no ground that we do not conjure for ourselves; that is the way of true fighters, isn't it? Even in the real world, it can only be so.
He finds the point he is looking for, and holds his blade there. So she has shown him, and she promises yet more to see. Her acts back her words. She is one of the few who is truly dominatingly strong. Hyo seems pleased. "Somewhere within your subconscious, confidence and ambition has always existed..." he states, as sure as the arrow of Sagittarius. "It should seem that NESTS has indeed sent our illustrious academy something special." The battle here is as strong as when he fought Asamiya. "Sa. Come then..."
He opens a hand invitingly. The light adjacent to him grows dim, and a line is drawn across it as if struck by a lightning bolt. Now in full realization of the whirling stroke Hyo made only moments ago, the star begins to fall, shearing in half neatly, its death throes shaking the mental universe to its core. Bits and glowing pieces begin to crumble and fall from the star, tumbling not just to Kula below, but spreading out in all directions, as if gravity held no hold just beyond the edge of the normal human will. As this happens, mixed in with the snow from the comet above winds the lonely petals of the cherry blossom, glowing pink motes amongst the tumbling masses and the ubiquitous white.
With the siren song of tightening leather, he gestures, come hither.
"It is you," and no other, "that I would like to fight."
COMBATSYS: Hyo focuses on his next action.
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Kula 0/-------/---====|======-\-------\0 Hyo
A small whirlwind of ice churns about the girl as she remains standing on her glistening stage of reflective ice. The normal human body exposed to the depths of such bitter cold as surrounds the slightly older killer would succumb to frostbite in a matter of seconds, the flesh reduced to brittle, dead matter, the blood within it frozen solid, inert. Of course, her body is far from normal. Her aura fluctuates constantly, shifting to respond to the violent cold that would consume her; a process so innate, so natural she experiences not the slightest discomfort as a result.
He spoke of love and a collective; the blood spattered history of Justice High faces her here and now. And as she stands in a storm of her own making, watching him perch upon the impossible, she wonders at that sense of belonging - that oneness of Hyo and Justice High itself. She may very well represent the height of NESTS years of research and heedless pursuit of new, unearned power. But she has never felt that kinship, that sense of belonging to the Cartel. It made her and sustained her; a fact she had always acknowledged. But did she ever feel loyalty to their ambitions? Does a gun care about the one who wields it; his hopes, dreams, aspirations?
In him she sees one who understands precisely where he belongs and is happy there. "Hm," she murmurs, eyes half closed, strawberry-blonde hair whipping about her shoulders. On the porch of the gods, Hyo stands, his blade merely an extention of his will, its tip dancing as if a sentient thing acting at his behest. Is that it then? Did he burrow down through the crystaline barriers of her psyche far enough to discover the young budding life hidden beneath? Blocked from the world by a shell of frozen steel lurked a girl with ambitions, hopes, dreams, and a vision of what she could be if freed of the yoke of NESTS. A girl lost but now found, if but for only the duration of this fleeting trip through the universe of the mind. There's other sides of her too though. Sides yet to be discovered.
And as the bisected celestial body falls dark, she wonders as to her own depth. She /is/ real; a person not a thing, a human being not to be classified as a 'other' or 'near-human, life-like entity'. Snow-salted blossoms whirl about her, caught up in the perpetual air currents dotted by the remnants of a broken star. "Likewise." she answers. She needs to fight him here and now. It is her chance to learn - to glimpse beyond her own mental walls to the life that hides beneath.
With a sweep of her gloveless right hand, a wide, twisting staircase of translucent ice errupts out of the pool of water she stood above. A smile flickers at her pale lips before she rushes forward, her boot-clad feet barely touching each glass-like step as the girl rises to meet Hyo in the sky. The expanding ice shifts to accommodate her ascent only to cut off abruptly some yards yet from Hyo.
The ice closes the gap only so far - the last bit must be spanned by a leap of faith. She doesn't hesitate, doesn't pause, as she springs into the openness of space upon reaching that final, fated step. The current of wind, ice, and chi so concentrated as to have taken on liquid form follows in her wake until she spins into a pirouette at the apex of her leap, sending a million diamonds of frozen matter spiraling out from her body, seemingly discarded as excess power...
That is, of course, until she brings her attack to bear. Her own trajectory may take her into a fall back toward the frozen pool below. But the path of that cloud of crystalized matter is a collision course with Hyo himself. What flies through the air with deceptively slow angled curve of lighter material is in fact a metric ton of ice held together by a cloud of super-charged chi held together by the mind of Kula Diamond. A collision impact would be unfortunate but even a glancing exposure to such power could prove to be dangerous. Worse still is that the crystaline staircase explodes, filling the air with sharpnel to augment the attack before raining down like devil's pitchforks over the bloodied reflection pool below.
COMBATSYS: Hyo just-defends Kula's Diamond Shoot!
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Kula 0/-------/---====|======-\-------\0 Hyo
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Kula 0/-------/---====|======-\-------\0 Hyo
In many ways, they were similar entities. Of course, everyone with this depth of natural ability is kin to one another. You are cared for. You are taught in a certain method or another. You are heralded and praised as the strongest of their number, the weapon to realize their fate. Seldom do those dark enough to put the hammer to a child's nubile steel realize the consequences of teaching children these things and nothing more. Hyo was once where Kula stood long ago, only his position was tempered by earnest purpose. A purpose that saw him fall.
But when you learn to stand again...
A smile, subtle in the inscrutable way of Justice High herself, breaks across the student's face as Kula chases an idea she never knew she truly had. Releasing this part of her with his jutsu made the fight worthwhile. Had he not had that inkling, he might have thought her another of NESTS' hampsters, scurrying into the darkness and looking to overtake a school vastly better equipped to handle itself than any of the others. But a rodent could never ascend in this manner, traversing stairs of crystal to reach the heights that the former Imawano scion had ascended to.
Diamond dust and petals twirl in the air as the very stars of the imagined reality break apart, twirling off in every direction, some crashing into other bits of light in the sky as they churn ever downward around the glittering spiral staircase, but never quite threatening it. Cracked light becomes rough-sawn steel and stone. Molten still from the reactions stirred in the skies above, vast chunks of the rock and ore smash into the non-earth below, sending a quiver through the dementia. Even so; the height of these seeming towers is secondary to the great plumes of water and slush that jet into the sky with every seismic collision. Through it all, Hyo stands, welcoming Kula as she ascends.
A sound leaves his lips softly.
The pointlessness of her flourish does not fool him. He can hear the cacophonic twist of structure in the ice as it substantiates on its path towards him, slowly curving towards him and accompanied by a hailstorm of daggers. One boot steps forward, taking firm ground in the light before him as his blade lowers until the guard almost touches his belt, the curve dropped downward. When he is eclipsed by the reflected light from his own perch, he's affected little but an ambitious grin. His muscles flex as he steps forward loosely into the brink.
"Hn!" The exact point where the cloud of ice is knitted together most strongly by the titanic chi levelled by the junior bioweapon is shorn through with a wave of red light cracking through it like thunder. In an expression of his pure and native ability, a single stroke of Hyo's Japanese steel cleaves through that force of will like so much cream, the force of his stroke more than enough to scatter and bisect the many knives and shards accompanying the boulder-like chunk. He sails through the fissure without missing a step, trailing the crystalline light of scourged ice from his epaulets like great curtainous wings. The gleam of his sword seems kin to the audible hum in the air as he brings the wicked curve back to bear. His boots land roughly against the very edge of one of the fragments of molten sky as it collides with the earth, creating a makeshift rain from the seismic impact on the ground level.
For a moment, Hyo faces Kula on an entirely different 'plane' than her, standing 90 degrees to her 0 as he takes a step to twist and kick off of the rock, rising once again into the sky on a shallower arc, but letting loose with one wicked flash of light that curls the blossoms all about him. THe stroke of his sword is deceptively simple, if not for his complex movements--he rises into the sky with one stroke across Kula's back, should her eyes not follow him. It will be a direct attack otherwise.
A direct attack that can and will shear the rock behind her in half.
COMBATSYS: Hyo successfully hits Kula with Ouryuuzan.
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Kula 0/-------/=======|=======\=------\1 Hyo
Log created on 00:19:52 03/01/2009 by Kula, and last modified on 22:24:54 10/24/2014.