Description: At some point before what would come to be known as the Taizhou Incident, Ryouhara made his last stand against the self-styled god tyrant with his eye on his family's continuing legacy. There is a line. Ryouhara will not allow it to be crossed. But in the end.. can he actually sacrifice all that he is? Is that heroism? Or is it merely vanity?
This is a sacred place.
No one who does not understand his truth may set foot here.
That was his decree. Everyone in that shadowy group had been given the same doctrine, the same all-encompassing order; to achieve this goal, anything was permissible.
Wood and stone hand-in-hand sets the foundations of the great temple built here in the mountains, in a secret place he removed from the reach of normal men. He stands now in the center of the eerily silent temple, armored statues of faceless shinobi at every corner of the temple, wielding great flames hanging from pots suspended from chains in their hands, twisting the air with aromatics. It wards against spirits, and lights the interior of the temple. They seem to guard the statues flanking the great wheel, bodhisattvas of lightning, lotus and sword surrounding the great triple-bladed tomoe forge in the center, whose fires bear a single great blade which fills the air with an unearthly hum. It is the only sound that emanates from this great chamer.
Ryouhara stands just before that hallowed place. He wears nothing of his great coats and facades, the youth abandoning them shortly before entering the chamber. Instead, he wears a simple jet gray pullover and pants marked at the hip with the familiar leaf symbol of the Ryouhara clan. He wears no shoes at all, his feet coming in contact with the bare stone floor with only a short length of linens wrapping over them--the same for his hands. Folding his arms slowly, the boy is silent. He has sent his assistants away, his attendants. The rest of this, he'd said, would have to be done by his hand alone.
"Begin the proceedings," he'd said.
He is left alone here in this secret place, watched over only by the eyes of ideas and spirits long dead.
That is as he prefers. He can only hope that they are proud.
For decades now, the oceans have suffered with a blight. Like a cancerous tumor, the sight of the Black Noah would sink the hearts of sea-worn sailors and weathered naval officers alike. Moving wherever it may, the floating citidal was given wide berth by those fortunate enough to see the "R" capital ship when it wasn't seeking them. Often it moved slowly, drifting as if without purpose or ambition. Other times the nuclear plants of the Leviathan would burn hot, as if the heart of the Dragon had been enkindled with new found aspiration.
Tonight is one such night. The events in China have of course been observed. Remote cutting edge telemetry augmented by actual eyes on the ground have proven useful in tracking the general going ons. But it took more than such mundane techniques to find this hallowed ground. Intuition coupled with a hunter's instinct brought the murderous dragon of the seas to the shrine. Spies, flyovers, satellites combined to provide just enough information for Rugal Bernstein's mind to fill in the rest.
How he has looked forward to this moment - revenge against the last of the Ryouhara. He would be easily sensed from some distance. He makes no attempt to hide his approach. An approaching storm, of power inhinged, draws near. But when he moves out from between two of the statues into the flickering illumination, the suit-clad crimelord appears as calm as can be. His right hand rests in the pocket of his dark crimson pants, while his left hand folds and unfolds the thin black scarf that rests over his powerful shoulders.
He walks with a certain weight, as if each foot step he was grinding the floor beneath his heel. "You have been busy..." the tall German muses, his one good eye inspecting the statue at his side. Releasing the end of his scarf, his left hand extends to trace a finger along the arm of the stone figure. "Good." His one eye side-glances toward the ninja inventer. "The greater your legacy, the more important its conclusion. Your ambition makes you worthy."
He steps in front of the statue, passing near flaming pot suspended by forged chain. "I have a sanctuary too, you see..." He is quiet for a moment, studying the youth. "You have heard of it, I know. You should feel honored... you have earned a place in it." His right hand slips from his pocket as the tyrant of 'R' closes his fist, the tightly fitting fingerless leather glove creaking as he does so. "Your cast form will stand alongside many greats this world has had to offer - encased in a tomb of bronze, preserved for all time as you were at your best."
Beneath the cool exterior a demon rages; a small portion of an angered god that thirsts for blood - a morsel of a being that seeks only destruction. The endless war for control within the unbalanced monster will soon spill over into this sacred place to be mixed with the blood of his foe.
Seishirou's heart skips a beat.
Someone like Bernstein isn't exactly heard. When the man moves, his crushing steps are like an old cougar's--experienced and predatory. Without a sound to catch upon, Rugal is more felt than heard, the shinobi shifting faintly as Rugal arrives, the geometry of the heat baling from the stone hearth before him moving with him, as if the chill in the air were real. The smoke curling into the air is dissipated somewhere above, filtering through a blasted-black grating in the ceiling and disseminated as in open air without revealing the forge's location. It's astounding that Seishirou can even stand on the hot rock without his feet becoming scalded.
Yet, Ryouhara was still found.
"Rugal Bernstein.." Seishirou recognizes the voice.
After all, Adelheid.
The statues stand taller than men, but only just so. They are undeniably old--Rugal might notice they bear symbols of the clan upon them. They are not generic shinobi, but highly stylized representations of a few of the previous leaders of the Ryouhara clan; Ikou is not among them, but Rugal would recognize one, if only just so; Hiretsu Ryouhara, also known as the man whose name Seishirou took on for the Jinchuu tournament ages ago. His hair was much longer, almost shrouding the lens he wore over one eye. Held in a stone hand almost completely enshrouded by a sleeve, the statue wields the chain to a brazier less as a light for the path, and almost more as a weapon.
They are old, but Rugal can tell: the ancient script written across their clothing are not entirely benign in nature. The entire place was built to Ryouhara's specification as the final grounds for his grand event, and it is made all the more clear as the boy turns away from the forge--the blades for many weapons sit fresh in the fire. Only a moment's thought provides the answer to an unasked question; spies. Seishirou had /thought/ he had had them all removed. He breathes softly before speaking, as if troubled.
"Save it."
He knows the rumors of that dark sanctum well. "A legacy is only worth the pages of history on which they were penned," Ryouhara observes placidly, brushing a strand of black hair from cool brown eyes. The thought of standing immortalized amongst strong warriors.. it makes him sick. "This ambition of mine isn't for you to aggrandize."
The strength of ancient gods fills his forge with ill omen, all emanating from the well-dressed man on the other end of the room; clothes making his seem like pauper's garb. But when the shinobi gently rests hands on the hilt of a hung blade fresh from the fire, he seems unafraid. Stepping forward towards Rugal, he fingers the hilt gently, the fresh leather and silk wrapping over the deer horn fittings slowly gripped as Seishirou continues moving. "I'll die not having existed at all... it is no ambition of mine. Only history itself. I'll not have the likes of *your* admiration in my house.." He spits the word as if it were bitter poison. The warm flickering light from the hearth draws a fresh halo in the shine of the steel, the forge line of the shinogi-form blade waving as it slides free, the forge filling with the scintillating hiss of steel exiting sheath, agonizingly slow. Throughout history, many legendary shinobi had to steal great weapons to fuel their campaigns from the shadows. The Ryouhara were no such clan.
Seishirou knows what Rugal intends.
And he won't abide by it.
The warm blade twirls slowly in the air as the boy brings it to bear.
"No. Your blood will do just fine."
When most men reach the age of the dreaded crimelord, they begin looking forward to the promised years of retirement - a last ditch hope of enjoying their lives before their bodies decay in the way of all mankind where, decrepit and weak, they pass into the oblivion beyond the veil. Ambitious monsters like Bernstein only grow more dangerous with age. As if urged onward by the ticking of a doomsday clock only they can perceive, they begin to lash out even more violently and randomly. Like an ancient dragon cornered in its lair will flail its mighty tail with all the speed necessary to turn a man to paste, so too do the aging titans of the world seem eager to leave their corrupted mark on the landscape and in the souls of all who have the fortune to survive them.
The expression he bears is one of calculated amusement as Rugal studies the much younger man. A chuckle escapes his lips as the engineer speaks of leaving no trace when he dies - the antithesis to the vain goals of men like the Tyrant of 'R'. "Then it would seem," one hand clenches, knuckles cracking ominiously beneath the taut leather that covers them, "Tonight you will achieve your goal. To perish in the dark, to expire in the unknown." He squares his shoulders, one foot sliding forward ever so slightly along the ground - the subtlest of changes as the man who would make every martial art his own readies himself.
"What will be for you a fatal finale will be just another conquest fullfilled for me. One of countless. Though..." His one good eye becomes shadowed for a moment, his tone shifting to a darker focus, "Not many have troubled me as you have... So maybe your passing will stand out for me from the rest... only time will tell."
The motions used to adjust the positioning of his coat sleeves such that just the precisely proper line of white from the expensive shirt worn beneath is visible at the wrists is fierce yet accurate as the man's instincts sharpen in preparation for the execution to come - for that is what it is to be. This is no mere test, no evaluation of the young Seishirou's abilities - no intention to leave him broken but warned, bleeding but perhaps educated by the experience. Murder is all that the Ryouhara will see in that man's solitary eye.
"Well then." He turns, his body a perfectly coordinated machine combining strength and speed as his left fist rockets out into the torso of Hiretsu Ryouhara - or at least the stone likeness thereof. With rock-crushing force, the intent becomes clear as Bernstein applies strength with his other hand from the opposite side, expediating the damage from the initial impact, allowing him to tear the silent golem into two halves - the top portion of which Rugal hefts over his head with both arms with distressingly little effort.
"Let's see what your ancestors have to say of your fate!"
The roar comes just before the flying stone as the upper half of that statue - the flaming pot still likely held in its hands - comes hurtling through the distance toward Seishirou with dangerous force.
COMBATSYS: Rugal has started a fight here.
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Rugal 0/-------/------=|
COMBATSYS: Seishirou has joined the fight here.
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Rugal 0/-------/------=|=------\-------\0 Seishirou
COMBATSYS: Seishirou dodges Rugal's Huge Thrown Object.
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Rugal 0/-------/-----==|=------\-------\0 Seishirou
COMBATSYS: Seishirou has joined the fight here.
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Rugal 0/-------/-----==|=------\-------\0 Seishirou
Murder.
It is the first time Seishirou has managed to see such a thing directly.
Don't misunderstand. Seishirou has faced those who would like to have his head before; criminals, swine. Rapists of society's chastity, beaten in an instant and disregarded just as quickly. There was no danger in the threats of mice to men. He has always eluded the attentions of the pinnacle, content to dwell and work against them in the very shadows they cast across history. But this.. this was a little different, wasn't it?
Twice before, Seishirou has vexed the crimelord. First in defending what he has. And once again in helping that man's own son bite the hand that feeds.
"Oho.." Seishirou vocalizes softly, reading the calculated, barely restrained rage in Rugal like a book. "Are you beginning to hold a grudge...?" the boy asks, the blade lowering slowly as Seishirou rests the spine of the blade in his free hand, outstretched fingertips slicking down across the stiff edge to travel the softer steel of the mune, leaving a distinct trail of blood in its wake on the inside edge, only visible to him. Seishirou's reflection in the polished surface of the weapon is blotted out by the streak of crimson, hissing and popping as it goes.
Yes..he thinks Rugal intends to kill him today.
Seishirou seems to be smiling.
"You can't conquer fate," Ryouhara observes solemnly.
And then all hell breaks loose.
The statue is snapped in half like a bundle of dry tinder, a flash of discharged chi hissing into the void as it is, thousands of pounds of polished granite thrown through the air with near-godlike force at the shinobi. Any part of it could cripple him permanently--he takes one step back as the shadow eclipses him, and then smashes into the ground over him. The statue sizzles as the greater part of it shatters on the hard floor, cracking the stone mosaic tiles beneath it. The upended brazier slings flaming oil through the air to spatter and spread across the ground in thick pools of oil, which ignite and curl flames ever higher. Bits of granite roll off in every direction, powdered stone dust curling through the air as it goes, the dry taste of it mixed with the taste of blood, oil, smoke and.. boiled earth?
In the wake of Hiretsu's passage, the ground seems to have been flash-boiled in an instant, leaving a coating of fresh-molten rock on the statue's remnants. One would almost imagine the angry head of the stone-rendered Ryouhara to mock the crimelord, even in death.
An instant later, the ground beneath Rugal turns to liquid.
The blade appears first. The shinobi slides from the earth as if carving through it with his mind, leading a massive kick-off from his lower body with a direct thrust for the brute lord's neck with 28 inches of shining steel, the blade inoculated against the hard terra, timber and tile with pure steam. The boy's entire body trails steam, the aftereffects of his own chi imbuing the blade and his body, protecting him as he cut through earth itself to get the drop on the crimelord.
He goes for the throat, not holding back, not even for an instant.
That will be the difference between his clan's glory and its despair.
COMBATSYS: Seishirou successfully hits Rugal with Prime Tactics.
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Rugal 0/-------/---====|==-----\-------\0 Seishirou
The statue crashes to the floor and the burning pot spills, spreading its flammable liquids across the stone. "A grudge," the man growls, standing up straight after propelling the heavy stone with herculean force. "Would suggest that we speak of something lasting." His fists clench, the air compressed between palms and fingers compressed to the point of escaping as fine vapor, faintly visible in the flickering light cast by the spilt oil and shadows of still billowing dust.
"Something that has a future."
The youth is gone. Rugal anticipated as much. His speed is legendary. Among the fastest the man has ever seen in all his long years of battling the best.
"You do not."
Seishirou rises from the ground-turned-fluid; a trick of the eye? An illusion wrought by masterful manipulation of chi? Or has the Master Chi Engineer discovered techniques long hidden; to pass through the shadows with the ease of a wraith? Bernstein doesn't give it much thought. The swordscrafter is fast, but he contends with an eye of technology fused with the mind of a sovereign fighter. It gives the monster just enough time to move.
What would have been a lethal strike becomes a glancing slash. The cut makes not even a sound as the man lands some feet away. "Bold." he declares, his right hand going to the side of his neck to rest briefly over the narrow cut. A half-inch to the side would have made all the difference. The tyrant lowers his hand, flicking his fingers to scatter droplets of crimson to the floor with a certain air of indifference.
"Interesting that you need -" He moves. "- a blade in order to cut." A blur of crimson and white as Rugal attacks. The way his fingers align in a straight edge; the way he swings as if aiming to chop into Seishirou's arm with his left hand may be familiar... if the Ryouhara recalls the knife-handed striking style of a certain Ikari mercanary. The left hand strikes secondly - but rather than a slicing chop, it is a direct stab for Seishirou's abdomen, designed to deliver a stunning blow.
He intends to carve loose blood with blades made of flesh and bone.
COMBATSYS: Seishirou dodges Rugal's Medium Punch.
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Rugal 0/-------/---====|==-----\-------\0 Seishirou
If Rugal cared to look for a moment, he'd find out the truth.
The earth, as Seishirou exits it, still steams with the force of his passage. It is no illusion, no trick of the senses, no space-folding ability as the enchanted might declare it. Someone with the kind of 'eye' that Rugal has would eventually be able to divine it. No illusion, no shift of the body: There are some in this world whose chi burns so hot that rocks can melt in an instant.
It can be felt too--his chi, that is. Though it's not much more than a vague tickle for a emperor tyrant, it would be enough to vise the lungs of the weak. As Ryouhara becomes wound up, the brazier's fire curling across the floor seems to intensifty, flare brighter with the heat corona surrounding the boy.
He lands hard, his bare feet making hissing sounds as they impact the stone tile before him. The blade raises quickly, for Ryouhara to sight across the curve, and the slight length of fresh scarlet dropping from the edge. "Spare me," the boy snaps. Almost a direct hit, but an inch decided it. Had Seishirou held back for even an instant, he wouldn't have even come that close. "My future will not be foretold by you. No matter how well dressed, you're just a dog of this world's unrelenting greed."
Still, the young man frowns. For a moment before the blow, it was hard for him to tell what was going on in that creature's calculating mind. This wasn't blind rage he was dealing with. This was something else. Something more. Something he couldn't put his finger on. That, to someone who relies on that as Seishirou does, is infinitely dangerous.
His eyes widen as Rugal streaks towards him. Fast--!
Leaping back, Seishirou seems to lose ground against Bernstein for an instant. For someone moving as quickly as Seishirou is accustomed to moving, that counts for something. But--Seishirou's an avid study of fighting styles. Once, before this path he set himself on, he even fought Leona Heidern directly. He knew exactly what that form could do. And it does. It splits the drill of his gi at the arm, slicing it open with pure accuracy.
But it draws no blood.
The boy twists in the air, in a vertiginous expression of momentum control, his sword twisting in his hand false as he attempts to lock one leg around the second blow of Rugal's series from directly to the man's side with his far leg, continuing to twist as if trying to tear Rugal's arm out at the socket as his closer heel drops straight down into the man's chest. "A pity that someone like you needs --" his foot, trailing white, will scar the front of Rugal's suit jacket if it lands on him, gaining purchase, "-- to steal the forms of others to achieve your goals."
The jutsu that Seishirou will use just then is a Ryouhara original.
The Ryuuouin - Dragon King's Seal. A shape of the Ryouhara kamon, potentially placed at the exact point where Seishirou's foot meets the tyrant, is an assassination seal. As Seishirou attempts to kick off Rugal straight up into the air above him, the seal will begin to gather a distressing amount of power into it as it glows. It's a aura-subversion technique, attempting to sink deep into Rugal's body, to penetrate his defenses and settle on his internal organs directly.
If Rugal lets Seishirou place that mark on him, it will explode, without fail.
COMBATSYS: Rugal counters Ryuuouin from Seishirou with Scorpion Blow.
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Rugal 1/------=/=======|=====--\-------\0 Seishirou
COMBATSYS: Santa has joined the fight here.
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Seishirou 0/-------/--=====|======-\-------\0 Rugal
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Santa [W] 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Santa has left the fight here.
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Rugal 0/-------/-======|=====--\-------\0 Seishirou
What Seishirou has built is worthy of notice even from a man consumed by his own ego as the monster he fights; his secret cabal of plotters and visionaries, his inventions, the legacy of his clan. The ninja engineer may not seek fame but by his actions fame follows. Anarchists laud him. Law enforcement curses him. Those sick and tired of suppression by governments and powers see him as a hero while criminal empires find him and his inventive nature an annoyance.
But Rugal has no qualms squelching a rising legend. The tomb of morbid bronze that is oft spoken of in whispers is lined with them. "Hn." is the only verbal response to the evasion of his slashing strikes. He expects as much. Every second that passes, the man continues to digest the style of fighting that belongs to the Voice of Jinchuu. With an eye aided by technology, a body honed by years of brutal training, and a mind sharp as it is cruel, Bernstein adapts to the ninja's legendary speed.
There is a problem with Seishirou's approach thus far, however. Against most, it wouldn't be a flaw. Against most, Seishirou's own lightning speed would more than make up for the risk. But against the King of War he faces now, he takes a second very risky chance - he stays close.
In comes Seishirou's foot - but where it travels, a vise-like grip is there to catch it by the bottom of his shin. "Do not-" It's fast. Impossible to perceive to the normal mortal eye. Seishirou's momentum is jarringly disrupted as Bernstein turns, the leg held tight, twisting the limb with ligament-tearing force before his left hand slams up, driving into the back of the Ryouhara's knee. "Think to lecture me."
By the time the man finishes turning, his suit coat trailing by a fraction of a second, he finishes by flinging his captive prey to the side with the dismissive release of tossing away rubish... at ninety three and a half miles-per-hour. "On the mastery of killing arts!" Never has he hesitated to steal the techniques he deemed strong. Never has he passed up an opportunity identified as a means of increasing his own power.
There will be precious little time to recover his wits about him as Rugal stalks forward, hands unclenched, ready to get a second grip on the scholar of chi. "No one owns their style... all they can do is pass it on if it is worthy, or let it die with them if it merits no further consideration..." His hands go to each of his cuffs, snapping them back into proper position with a sharp jerk of his wrists without pausing for a step. "I hope that you had a chance to pass along yours before it dies with you tonight." Another powerful step forward, the well polished shoes contacting the floor only briefly, "But now is hardly the time for regrets!"
The air seems to boil with malevolent intent.
This is a surprise to Ryouhara. Though his Shinrou Kiritsu seal still cooked the air around him, his body did not produce the kind of chi that would create this kind of ... miasma of ill intent.
Something he could taste on the wind. A corruption in his space. It's almost like -- if only for a moment, Seishirou tasted something deep in his own heart he couldn't understand. He knows, instinctively, that the strength of ancient force is marshalling against him. The tyrant of the killing fists can necessarily be afforded no less renown. The idea of his own power betraying him is deeply unsettling, but if he can only achieve his goal, it might be unimportant. A goal that seemed to be attainable until Rugal's hand snaps shut on his leg.
The next moments of Ryouhara's perception are pure spinning hell.
Rugal strikes with a viper's precision. His leg folds underneath the blow, and Seishirou twirls through the air like a crimson-shot meteor in but an instant. "G--AHK!!" Unable to twist his body in time to the blurring landscape, Ryouhara impacts cold earth with a sickening crunch, uttering a noise that would seem impossible to reproduce by a human. A language of pure agony all its own as the ninja slams through a support column, shattering it and causing it to fall as he smashes into a wall with his body, the sound of his voice only outdone by the gunshot crack of timber, marble and bone.
He twists once almost immediately, his spine broadly arcing off of the wall in silent disgrace. A blade pierces through his body just underneath the armpit, the remnants of the newly forged blade, snapped in two. He stands. He gasps as he grips the sinuous length, panting softly. But he stands and hears Rugal talk to him of his legacy.
An image of Riko Koganei flashes in his mind, tinkering with the same ninkou that his father once did, learning. His heartbeat stops.
The pause lasts only a moment. "...You're talking pointlessly," Seishirou manages in a rasp, gruesomely drawing the thin length of steel from his shoulder. The steel curve of the shattered blade drools thick dark syrup. He forces himself to stand on that torn and ragged limb, faint smoke curling from beneath his heel, possibly from some attempt to stabilize the damage to his body. The broken blade is discarded, sent bouncing and spinning across the ground, leaving thick lines of blood in its wake.
"Is it because you have squandered your own legacy..?" he asks, corvid.
He mentions nothing of apprentices, of heirs to his familial style. If obscurity cannot be the fate of the name of 'Ryouhara,' if that unattainability is the price for achieving the goals and wills of the clan, then perhaps that can be his gift to the foolish girl who would be the apprentice of a doomed man. The right to pen a destiny all her own; the right to fade into history unseen. The right of all ninja. He lies.
"In the end, there is no such thing as a style, an art. Those, and the concerns of passing on a memory, are the trappings of noble men and greedy swine alike. To seek to exalt--or to whore for immortality. Feh. Style. Art."
He leads with his good leg, his limbs trailings behind him as his body seems to stretch the distance between him and Rugal, shrinking the available space as the boy becomes a blur and covers half the distance in one step. He lands hard on his other leg, and his grimace is telling. But it doesn't seem to stop him. It seems to have the opposite effect entirely. Rugal's cuffs barely have time to settle before Seishirou challenges those ready hands again, his body all tucked into a ball as he tries to snap his faster leg out, to catch Rugal by the neck and introduce his chin to the earth. But.. it seems as if he's overcorrecting, aiming for a spot just past Rugal.
This is an illusion.
Ryouhara expects to be caught again. But what Rugal might not realize immediately is that Seishirou's speed boost comes from his entire body being folded in the heat field. A heat field that amps in intensity. In short, when Seishirou engages Rugal a second time, this time merely being close to him is enough to tear long steaming gouges in the ground from the speed displacement he generates with his chi. A corona of power, that collapses as Ryouhara violently reverses direction, resulting in an explosion of white-hot energy--and the absolute reversal of his own momentum. The reasoning for his overcorrection becomes violently clear as the so-called discarded rubbish whips around with lightning speed and tries to crush Rugal underneath the force of the explosion and his heel.
"Such words have no meaning... when the ghosts of history send their wolves!!!"
COMBATSYS: Rugal counters Shunshin Reaper from Seishirou with Genocide Cutter EX.
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Rugal 1/----===/=======|=======\-------\0 Seishirou
Those who thought the outcome inevitable would be tragically unaware of the variables in play. The speed, power, timing, reflexes of the two colliding in an explosive contest of physics. The Ryouhara had tested the capacity of the world's best time and time again. He had stooed before the will of Dictators such as Vega, pumped up with an intoxicating anamoly of psychic energy that has never before existed in recorded history. The ninja had endured the fury of a crimelord scorned by assaulting the now-fallen Geese Howard in the heart of his once-empire; a trial that left him convalescing for some time. Kyo Kusanagi, the most powerful slacker the world has ever seen was almost defeated by the tactics of the genius swordsmith.
Even once before, Seishirou had tasted the dark arts of Rugal Bernstein. Only, that time, he had a charged capacitor of unearthly levels of chi on his side. And even then he barely escaped being vaporized by the tyrant's vehement rage at being foiled by the Siuryuu and its people. This time there is no such weapon at Seishirou's disposal. No power to abate Rugal's killing intent. The murderer had architected the demise of men for far more minor slights than could be laid at the feet of the Ryouhara scion.
Denying him the secrets of the Suiryuu were bad. Equipping his own /son/ with the means to betray him sealed it. And with that in mind, the monster stalks forward in a line undeterred toward the younger man hurled with deathly force. The dust of collapsing columns billows about him, twisting as if driven by invisible currents of raw force emanating out from around the suited man's form. "Am I." he mocks back when accused of talking without meaning.
His right hand clenches, knuckles and sinew creaking. He is an old man growing older by the year. With his physique and strength, one would scarcely realize the decades of dark experience he had. But in his face it was written. The lines of pain, loss, triumph, and tragedy. The long hours in the dark silently brooding over the enemies that yet lived, the slights that had not been avenged, the betrayals of those few that he regarded as loyalists or his progeny, and... the two deaths he could /not/ prevent.
His footfalls pause when the status of his own legacy is questioned. Is that not the power reserved for a god? The power to defy mortality? If first he could prevent his own death - to make sure that his own life was reserved well past the allotment of years typically given to man - then he would have all the years necessary to undo the one loss that haunts him in the lonely hours of utter blackness. An unnecessary sacrifice that left in its wake the two Bernstein prodigys that were to be his legacy.
"Foolish boy." To most he would seem a young man. To Rugal he is a child. A child that lead his own son woefully away from him. His voice is dark; a growl that issues from the cloud of powdered column that he stands within as a dark sillouette. "You will not live to..." The footfalls resume. The two are on an inevitable collision course. "SPEAK OF MY LEGACY AGAIN!" With his next footfall, stone shatters, spidering cracks through the shrine's floor issue out from around his heel.
It's then that the two collide. Even with the injured leg, Seishirou's execution nearly defied description in its precision, deception, and deadliness. Had Rugal given pause; had he thought merely to defend himself against the onslaught, he might very well have fallen. But it is in the instant of moments like this that battles might be won or lost; a triumph or routing that turns the tide of war and creates history.
He almost reacts to the illusion. And had that transpired, the outcome could have been entirely different. But the danger in the man Seishirou faces is the speed at which he learns. All his life - a prodigy of fighting - he had needed only moments to dissect the capabilities of his opponents before he would move to undo them. Even Seishirou's mysterious art is becoming an open book to the monster he faces now; the killer who seeks his life.
With that stone-splitting footfall, the man launched into a counter attack with timing so precise as to be called prescience. In the aftermath, one would find the bolten gouges left by the burning aura of Seishirou come to an abrupt stop in the scorched stone - jagged lines suddenly scattering randomly as if the heat was suddenly scattered by a counter-force.
Seishirou might feel that counterforce in the form of a dress-shoe covered heel crashing upward along his chest with an intensity that shears the air leaving a vacuum in its wake. But the true horror of the Bernstein's signiture technique is the scythe-edged chi that trails in the wake of that foot. Capable of bisecting stone, it seeks to cleave the flesh of Rugal's 'honored' victim now. "Then let these words be the LAST YOU HEAR, WOLF PUP!"
In the catastrophic impact of strikes, a second blow comes from Rugal's other foot; similar in deadliness to the other as it arcs upward with force to launch the younger man toward the ceiling of the temple. Around the two, stone explodes from the stray forces at play, both chi and might unrestrained beyond the capacity of mere columns or statues to withstand. "Genocide-"
There would be a third strike though it might be hard to discern in the mix of so much catastrophe. "CUTTER!" It may be that third hit that does the ninja in entirely - the fatal, final strike intended by Bernstin to bring his legacy down. Rugal lands seconds later in a shower of blood mingling with latent traces of chi that can only be described as an element of savagery. Slowly the slighted Dragon stands up straight from his landing, an expression of malevolent satisfaction his visage.
The world spins in agonizingly slow relief.
Seishirou is briefly aware of nothing but the scything pain of the cartel leader's sweeping blows, arcing limbs hitting the young man like the continents moving and the plates shifting, his awareness spinning. Even so, his mind is like a trap; he cannot help but analyze the last moments of his failure.
There is still a gap in his ability and what he means to accomplish, he concludes.
In some ways, that's to be expected. It would only be foolish nonsense to believe himself the equal of someone with the years and ambition of Rugal Bernstein. The boy leapt in, his body capable of moving at speeds far beyond perception--there were world-class fighters competition fighters with less raw velocity than him--but he was facing someone with not just the boon of reflexes, but the gift of unnatural perception. Rugal didn't need to be as fast as he was, and in that case Rugal understands Seishirou more than most; Rugal just needed to see what Ryouhara was really up to.
He misjudged Rugal's personality; he believed Rugal to be arrogant, self-assured like so many other tyrants he's stood before, believed that if he attacked him with the same methods Rugal would respond in the same way, as if to prove to him that his way was worthless. If Seishirou was correct in this assessment...it was clearly not by enough.
Rugal does not grab him this time. Instead, he launches off the ground with the force of a rocket, his body twisting into what would seem to be an unnatural configuration as Seishirou's momentum begins to get the better of him. That's the problem with that kind of speed. Going this fast--Ryouhara can't stop.
The first blow is enough on its own to wrap Seishirou's light frame around the tyrant's leg, smashing into his ribs with bone-compressing force that threatens to knock his body through the marble. His fate is less that of being dislodged and more of being ripped through by a whip-like white blade of chi that increases Rugal's killing force by an order of magnitude, the sound of the rending impact secondary only to the Ryouhara genius' depleted howl. In truth, Seishirou is no longer aware of the new pain of the second and third blows.
He's already a scarlet nova in the sky.
He is a wolf pup. Hitting the stone sometime after Rugal with less of a thump and more of a wet splash, the collection of meat that used to be a capable fighter hits the ground, the rafters above still dripping crimson from the ordeal. It takes him some time to rise, his bare feet sleeping against the slicked stone. The boy's shirt was ripped straight open by the attack, and his chest is unrecognizable for the ravine of bone and meat ripped open in it. It's like he's being toyed with--he doesn't stand a chance. "...gh.." -- Seishirou chokes, coughing blood. "....as...expected of a Bernstein..." he is forced to admit, his eyes dark and wide as he focuses on his own injuries, as if to will them away. There is still a gap in ability.
But being an equal is hardly the point. It never was.
"Goh--" Seishirou chokes out something, the bloodied illusion of words only prevalent for as long as it takes for him to smile. Though it makes every part of him ache with undeniable pain, the ninja is laughing. He kicks off the ground on his one good leg now, back to the center of the forge. He unsheathes the blade at its center, a pretty tsurugi. Underneath Rugal's eye, he might be able to see that that one.. is unlike the one that snapped in half prior. The energy of the room seems to shift as he detaches that one, of the many weapons in the forge. Ninjas do not kill in honorable one-on-one duels. They were never equal to their counterparts.
"It's going to end like this, is it...?" the boy asks simply, before twisting the blade in his hand, the weapon seeming to hum as he does so, before he slams the blade hilt-first into the stone floor beneath him in a violent stroke. A pulse passes through the ground. There won't be any escape for him this time. No, not like last time. Not because he can't leave. Not because Rugal will chase him. But because he won't leave. He's facing the pure vengeance of a madman.
"If nothing else, you'll be remembered for this," Seishirou finally admits, unshouldering what's left of his shirt, letting the black fabric drift away in the hot wind. His bloody skin free, he slowly makes a handseal. And the entire shrine... begins to /shake./
But.. what is this quivering in his body?
Che, it's nothing. The instinct of a body that doesn't yet understand idealism.
It will be the last lesson Seishirou teaches to that form of his.
Ryouhara grins, as if beyond the reach of reason.
Even a pup can bite.
"..In the pages of history..they're going to call you the king of fools."
COMBATSYS: Seishirou calculates his next move.
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Rugal 1/-------/=======|=======\-------\0 Seishirou
As if reveling in the satisfaction of such a painful attack delivered, the man behind the 'R' conglomerate doesn't move forward immediately. His prey lands with a sickening impact; lacking the grace and precision control the ninja had exhibited previously. That the Ryouhara stirs at all is testament to his will to continue. Few in the world are capable of exhibiting any capacity to continue after being hit by a scythe-bladed battering ram.
The tyrant lifts his hands, tugging at his exquisite suit coat at the upper lapels, tarnished forever as it may be by the young man's blood, adjusting it back into proper position with the patience of a man who has all of the time in the world to crush his vexations one problem at a time. The injury at his neck, inflicted by the skilled precision of the human gnat he sees before him, has already sealed closed as if mended by sheer force of will.
The combined magnitude of the chi stored within the Seiryuu before its detonation was enough to topple the titan but not slay him. And here there is no such capacitor to aid Seishirou against the angered Tiger that begins to stalk toward him now. No words are uttered to mock the ninja's style of fighting. No tyranical boasts, no declarations made to put the much younger man in his place. No... words are for someone who is intended to live to remember them. Rugal's enemy is to be afforded no such luxury. "It is." the older Bernstein utters, his voice a calm growl.
How it is going to end.
His eyes, one a pit of circuits and technology, the other human and demon combined, glance over the newly furnished blade. His foot comes down against the shrine ground, marring one of the many puddles of Seishirou's blood, leaving the crimson imprint of Rugal's shoe with the Warlord's next step. The laugh seems to trouble him not at all. The madness of the doomed is something Rugal has aquainted himself with before. Sometimes all one can do is look undefeatable death in the face and chuckle at the futility of it all. At least, that is the fate of those who are not himself, the meglomaniac reasons calmly as he takes another step forward, feeling the tug of that dark presence within aching to be let loose.
The tremor that pulses through the ground with the planting of the blade rumbles like the toll of that ominous claxion that fortells all death. There is no running. Pointless. It would only sully the destined termination of his legacy. Bernstein stops a few yards away yet. The ascribed epithet provokes a deep chuckle - the rumble of a Lion finding amusement in the mouse it intends to consume. His right hand clenches, taut leather creaking, knuckles cracking.
"Ah... still you do not understand... what it is you face. The pages of history are reserved for those who have returned to the dust of the earth." His human eye narrows, brow furrowed. "Death will have no hold over me."
The shrine trembles as Seishirou completes the handseal. "An exquisite work." he appraises, his eye lingering over the planted blade. "It will find a place in my collection." He draws back, body tensing, a suble aura of black trembling out from around his feet.
"But it doesn't matter now. Nothing does," his voice issues forth with the weight of certainty. The beast within hungers, a predator ready to bring the Wild Hunt to a gruesome end as the exhilarating scent of blood hangs heavy in the air. His fingers stretch then clench close again as chi so concentrated as to take on aspects of a liquid spills from the cuffs of his sleeves and pours over closed fists.
"Come." He extends his right hand and beckons. The abundant chi that spills to the floor from the hands of the monster is acidic - the acrid smell of melting stone billows into the air in the form of miasmic green fumes. "Come and leave your final mark upon this world." It wants him to kill now. But he can control it. He /must/ be able to control it. He will keep it at bay just long enough to show who the real master is here. "You deserve that much before you die." None other alive but for the Ikari commander and his own treacherous son have vexed him like the Ryouhara scion. Tonight is a good night for vengeance.
COMBATSYS: Rugal draws upon forbidden power.
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Rugal 1/------=/=======|=======\-------\0 Seishirou
His glance is sharp, the warning gaze of a riled mongoose.
Time seems to dialate for him, a product of equal parts nerve, training, and the amount of damage he took. The whip-lean youth breathes heavily, each breath disturbing progressively larger amounts of blood from his body, each ragged contraction of his chest causing ever greater crimson slicks past shorn muscle and cracked bone, culminating in a wet pool at his bare feet.
It hardly seems the sort of end for a genius who sought to change the world, ne?
But the boy grins as if he's wanted nothing else.
"If there's one thing I hate..." The shrine rattles ominously. It seems when Seishirou plunged the weapon into the ground, the waves of energy flickering off the blade completely cut the sections of every pillar holding the shrine into segments, bright lines tracing across the stonework as if cut by a razor. "It's people who don't know... that kings and men are killed with the same knife."
"But I can't end you here."
A circular red mark appears on Seishirou's chest, lines sizzling into his flesh across exposed organs, bone, skin and muscle alike. His family sigil. His Ryuuouin explosive technique, the same he used on Alma Towazu, crippled now, except he won't resist it. Even now, stone and blood alike boils at his feet, cooking his flesh raw. He exhales softly, his breath visible as steam, his body temperature well over a hundred degrees. Pyrexic, his mind twists, his head cramps, and his vision blurs. But his expression is flat, satisfied, the prospect of his death trivial and passing to him. His heart beats like a kettle drum. "If.." he struggles with the word momentarily, attempting to keep his concentration. "..If you think for a second I'll abide your mongering a second time...you need to go back to school."
- Arinori-san. It's Seishirou. I know that I will never meet you on the path. I know you will never turn to face me. Though you died miserably, you lived a life of piety and grace. I have done terrible things. I have hurt people, cast them aside. There is nothing here or after for me, someone who will no longer exist. But if blood is the price of honor, then mine is a cost gladly paid. -
"I'm gonna show you a new world."
The steel of the blade at his side sags as the stone softens beneath it, but despite the temperature, the weapon holds its shape. Ryouhara intends to use his own body to bury Rugal and the work he bled for for two years alike. Even the tyrant king, who wears miles for an inch's earrings, will have to dig halfway to Hell to get to Shiraha. Ryouhara genuinely hopes one day the blade will find its proper place. Not in the fool's hand, but in his chest, preferably buried to the hilt. Such is spite.
"There's no more room there for self appointed immortals."
Seishirou breathes in deep, one hand raising over his bloodied chest, the only betrayal he's evinced thus far. It's suicide to do this. Agony twists his body, his mind, formerly the greatest steel but he can't consider it. Seishirou has prepared all of his life for this. Don't stop. This is what you wanted, right? So. Do it.
there is.. nothing here or after for me.
... wherever you are, I hope you understand.
mine is a cost...gladly...paid?
Ryouhara's eyes widen as he breathes out one last time.
The ensuing explosion is blinding bright, rupturing the roof of the shrine as much as it cracks the stone plateau beneath it, entire pillars sectioning off in flames and tumbling down the winding stairs leading up to the shrine in a massive stone-shattering pileup. The detonation is engineered to perfection, as if Ryouhara instinctively deconstructed as fast as he constructed. The entire shrine collapses on top of the armory, stones and smoke shooting high into the atmosphere with the explosion. The remaining Ryouhara statues that once were intended to protect the sword only last moments longer than Hiretsu's did, their own sealed energy discharging in bright flashes. In his suicidal end, Seishirou used almost everything at his disposal--the sword, the fire, his legacy, his blood. The stone beneath is flash-heated in an instant as the shrine collapses into it, stone splashing and sinking into a swamp of magma.
In a flash of light and blood, the so-called 'genius'...is done.
COMBATSYS: Seishirou successfully hits Rugal with Kawarimi Crisis.
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Rugal 1/=======/=======|===----\-------\0 Seishirou
COMBATSYS: Seishirou endures Seishirou's Kawarimi Crisis.
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Rugal 1/=======/=======|=======\-------\0 Seishirou
COMBATSYS: Seishirou can no longer fight.
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Rugal 1/=======/=======|
Log created on 00:22:50 12/29/2009 by Seishirou, and last modified on 04:08:10 02/20/2011.