Description: Not every match in Jinchuu need be a matter of life and death or a clash amongst hated rivals. Long term friends and fighting peers, Frei and Hotaru, face off against each other once again, leaving Kurenai and Nahid to antagonize each other in the meantime. At stake, something as transcendent as a wish. Three to be exact.
She had never worried much about the tournament raging in the heart of Taizhou. Given the rest of the impossible events unfolding in the region, it was far down her list of priorities. Money was not among her needs, and the things she wished for she was quite certain were beyond the capacity of any hidden benefactor to provide should she have fought her way to the summit of the dangerous event.
Her first match took place walkways situated percariously high up the looming mountains. And as that bout narrowed in on a close conclusion, the girl realized that her partner wasn't going to fight to the end either, chosing to sit once Ibuki was no longer fighting. And so Hotaru relented, expecting that she would no longer have to deal with the tournament.
Apparently the Jinchuu rules don't work that way and much to her surprise, the match finder device called for her to fight again alongside the pink-haired Kurenai. Curious, she decided to attend. Again, promises of granted wishes linger in the air as the reward for participation. Reaching the Sanctum lobby takes no time at all for while the girl had at times ventured further away from the seemingly 'safe' structure frequently throughout the week, she was already back near it when her handheld device indicated that she was invited to fight once more.
Stepping into the lobby, she is reminded again of the mysteriously steril, automated environment at the heart of Jinchuu. The storm of chaos pouring over Taizhou seems so far away once one is within the Sanctum lobby. The massive screen occupying one wall had often flipped between various footage of events playing out on the outside. Clips of fights, brackets in the tournament that often appeared encrypted with names that left many guessing as to their meaning, and occasionally vocal messages spoken as if from the grave from the ghost of Seishirou Ryouhara himself.
Opposite the screen is a large map of the region. Giant '?' marks blot out certain areas of the map - areas Hotaru had never had the occasion to notice before. "I wonder..." the girl muses. Turning from the map her eyes settle on a laser pointer balanced impossibly on its tip sitting in the center of the pristinely clean floor. Closing her eyes for a moment, she exhales. Perhaps victory in this match will secure answers after all. The promise of enlightment is tempting and in and of itself, a goal worth fighting for.
Opening her eyes again, she stretches her arms out to her sides then brushes the long, loose sleeves of the loose-fitting Chinese-styled blouse back up to closer to her elbows. "No matter the outcome, this promises to be interesting."
The subject of Kurenai's sidelining is not one she is willing to discuss--it could be anything from 'ate the fish' to 'fighting the ghost of Lu Bu in an underground caterpillar', and indeed, these rumors and more have been spread--by Kurenai herself. Still, whatever it was kept her out of it very effectively, and without a word to her would-be roommate--or at least part-time roommate.
There's been hide nor hair seen of the pink-haired girl for over a week, leading some who'd seen matches go up that Hotaru was, quite simply, going to have to face off against another team singlehandedly. And indeed, as Hotaru arrives, there's simply no sign of her partner, would-be or otherwise. That is, until the door that Hotaru just came through opens again, revealing the pink-haired ninja, striding out confidently, wearing all black, but not a 'ninja outfit' as she was before--instead, it's an all-black track suit kind of thing, though not made of the same kind of light materials that a tracksuit would be made of--looks to be made of leather. The only color aside from her hair and eyes is a white belt around the waist, and white soles to her shoes.
Additionally, she's wearing an eyepatch, over her left eye, the straps crossing her face and tied off at the back of her head. The addition doesn't seem to faze or concern her at all.
"Hello again, Futaba-san," she says, having at least learned her partner's last name somewhere along the way. To say that she's being overly nonchalant is close to the truth; behind that eyepatch, she's looking around furiously, taking in every detail to go over later, for report and for her own analysis. After all, it's -her- butt that's in this fire, not her clan masters', and while they wouldn't've sent her without being very sure of her success, she would like to have the deck--the deck*S*--stacked in her favor for any eventuality or possibility.
"So, we're to fight an old teammate of yours today, are we?" she asks, conversationally, as she draws her weapon, the whisper of polished wood against leather somehow a touch louder in the sterile environment of the Sanctum; the weapon is held in her right hand, her iPhone in the left as she peers at the screen before shutting it down and tucking the thing away somewhere safe. "I've heard things about Mr. Tsukitomi-Renard. I hope you're up to the task, because I don't imagine I'll do all that well against him," she offers, frankly.
Nahid, on the other hand, is all about the money, fame, and possibility to beat up (or, as is increasingly the case, be beaten up by) people she has never met before. She does not have any secret goals by being here. She just tagged along because she was bored, because it was interesting, and because NESTS wanted another (wo)man on the inside.
Nahid spent the morning doing not much. She certainly hasn't been practicing, although she did bother to warm up before literally just strolling into the main room with the screen. She may be going in blind, but at least she can rest assured that the people she's fighting probably don't know very much more about her: none of them have met her and recordings of her are hard to come by, too.
Her boots thunk on the floor as she approaches. She's certainly not bothering to make her arrival subtle. "Finally," she says, "I get to fight indoors, /without/ ruins, without crazy psychos on the other side - "
Nahid pauses to look at Hotaru and Kurenai. Well, they don't look like crazy psychos. That's a start, at least.
For a full few days after their battle in the sewers, Nahid probably found Frei hard to talk to. The reason for this would be that he spent a full 24 hours unconscious; though both fighters suffered at the hands of whatever beast of fear and terror was lurking in the subways, Frei left it particularly bad. The physical trauma, combined with his persistent sick feeling thanks to the chi-saturated air, was a bit much. And so, for a while, he simply stayed in the infirmary, thoroughly unconscious and dreaming... unfortunate dreams, to say the very least. The true monster that The Lone, as the team is known, faced in the sewers was their own fear, and sorrow, and pain.
Echoes of it swept through Frei's subconscious as he slept; the suffering Saint psychically projected into his mind taking on new and strange forms. Faceless Taizhou strangers caught under girders, sliced by falling metal, crushed under rocks, set on fire; in his mind's eye they become people he knows. Friends, even enemies. The message is clear: all will end in chaos and despair.
Against all probability, when he finally DID wake up, it was to sit upright in bed, staring blankly forward with his green eyes dulled for a moment, then to say in a hoarse tone, "To hell with *that*."
It wasn't long after that the matchfinder told him where to go in the typical text message way. Interestingly, it's the first time in Frei's participation in the tournament that he hasn't been sent somewhere that's an example of mass destruction. The burned-out crater that was the explosion's epicenter, the destroyed subway system, even his walk into the city along the Yongtaiwen Expressway's broken ruins. All examples of how Taizhou has been totally and utterly destroyed. Now, the message simply says "HQ", and the redhead looks around as he enters the building, which looks nothing so much as like it was taken right off a deck of the starship Enterprise. Nahid gets a nod when he sees her, and Kurenai gets a brief curious glance, particularly her weapon, since it likely echoes the cloth-wrapped bundle that he himself carries in one hand.
And finally, there's Hotaru, and the presence of both a friend and a known quantity does much to ease his increasingly jangled nerves, which considering Frei's notable calm, is saying something indeed.
Once he comes to a stop on the bizarre floor, giving a look at the perfectly-balanced laser pointer, Frei unwraps the cloth from the bokken he was carrying, and slips it into his back belt loops before looking at the three others gathered here today. "Something about how nice this place is," he says, thinking about the ruins surrounding it, "...really pisses me off."
When Kurenai enters, Hotaru's attention settles on the other girl. There's a lot that goes unspoken but for as focused as the Kenpo artist seems to be on her assigned partner, she doesn't appear to be upset in the slightest. Why did she sit out the rest of the fight? Why did Yurika call for her to aid her and subsequently, why did she /not/? No matter. Hotaru had fought alongside far more questionable elements than the pink-haired ninja in her martial arts career. Whatever secrets Kurenai is withholding, it doesn't appear her partner has any interest in extracting them.
"A friend," she clarifies as Kurenai mentions Frei. There's a certain distance to her voice, as if just the mention of the monk has brought strong thoughts to the forefront of her mind. As Kurenai continues, however, Hotaru smiles faintly, "Are you more invested in winning this one now that Yurika Kirishima isn't on the other side?" As accusatory as the words may be, the girl manages to voice the question as if it were merely an idle inquiry. Glancing toward the door as the unfamiliar Nahid steps in, Hotaru doesn't wait for a reply. "If you do your best, I'll do likewise."
Nahid's remark about the indoors is replied to with a nod. The chaotic storm of lightning and gigantic webwork of energy bridges seem far removed from this insulated, futuristic interior. "Yeah? Our last match was an invitation to fall off a cliff if we took a wrong step. I agree with you, this place seems a safe venue by comparison."
Of course, that doesn't mean that it sits well with Frei. The blue-eyed marital artist settles her attention on the monk as he steps into view. He is met with a quiet smile. There's a haunted look to his eyes; unspoken pain etched in his face that she can only guess at. "Well," Hotaru muses, "At least we don't have to worry about messing it up. It can't possibly end up looking worse than the rest of this place."
She draws in her breath then exhales slowly as she moves away from the map she had been glancing over to wave toward the balanced laser pointer, "What do you imagine that's for?" She pauses before shaking her head, "I imagine even if we knew, it would only lead to more questions..." Focusing once again on Frei, Hotaru draws her hands up, palms somewhat facing each other as one foot slips forward a little and the girl adopts one of her many fighting stances. "It's good to see you, Frei. I'm glad you're here."
Kurenai gives an entirely innocent and guileless look to Hotaru. "I don't know what you mean," she says, sounding as truthful as she can. "Ibuki worked me pretty good... I really didn't feel confident in getting between Yurika-dono and yourself. I always give my best, don't worry about that... Hotaru-san." As Nahid walks in, Kurenai turns to look at her and it's a pleasant look, if a bit, well, sharp. She is, after all, 'the enemy', in this context.
"I wouldn't bet on this being safer than the mountaintop, Hotaru-san. After all... we're talking about Ryouhara. The man probably sets traps in his sleep. You can bet he hasn't invited the four of us into the Sanctum to fight without -some- precautions." That pronouncement made, Kurenai moves away from her partner a bit, turning her attention to Frei. "I'm sure it's calculated to do just that... there's something about the room, isn't there? Some sort of... arrogance, some sort of... smugness." That's how she reads it, anyways, her glance around showing what she thinks of it, herself, as she appears to dismiss it. "But it isn't important for right now, is it?" Then she raises her weapon, taking up her stance, weapon held level to the ground, feet stood wide apart. "I think we should get started, before 'Seishirou-sama' gets impatient with us."
Nahid isn't psychic - scratch that.
Nahid isn't terribly receptive to the room's, as they say, 'vibes'. It's a room, it's clean, it has enough high-tech stuff to be worth a small fortune. Past that she doesn't get much off it, although she is astounded anyone bothered to balance a laser pointer up like that and is debating kicking it just because she /can/.
"Who knows," Nahid says, in reference to the laser pointer. The fact that it might shoot her is exactly why she didn't kick it, or throw a rock or something (not that there is a rock in here to throw, but you get the idea).
She shoots a glance at Frei, then back at Hotaru. "Fighting your girlfriend?" Nahid asks with a smirk, not bothering to take any sort of fighting stance; she loops her thumbs through two of her belt loops and otherwise doesn't do much at all. "Well, whatever, I hope you don't slack off, that's all..."
COMBATSYS: Nahid has started a fight here on the left meter side.
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Nahid 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Hotaru has joined the fight here on the right meter side.
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Nahid 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Hotaru
COMBATSYS: Frei has joined the fight here on the left meter side.
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Frei 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Hotaru
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Nahid 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Kurenai has joined the fight here on the right meter side.
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Frei 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Hotaru
If Hotaru can notice the stress in his expression, she can notice it slacken a bit as she speaks to him, and he smiles a little bit. "Nice to see you too," he starts, and seems to be about to say something else when both Kurenai and Nahid interject. The eyepatch-wearing girl speaks astutely, even a little... archaically... to Frei's ear, causing his head to tilt a little as he regards her. Then there's Nahid's question, and that makes him laugh out loud, something so uncommon to his ear in the past few weeks that even seems surprised to hear it. The redhead turns to his teammate with a genuine smile, shaking his head. "No... not quite like that. Just... friends." He looks back at Hotaru, and for some reason Nahid's statement makes him think of a surprising list of people. Jiro, Alma, K'... hohoho.
He stretches his arms over his head, linking his fingers, but when he brings his arms back down, it's to get into a fighting stance, fingers flexing, one hand hovering near the carved hilt of the bokken across his back. 'Wishes' are what's on the line, hmm. For a moment, his gaze looks down at the monitor on the floor, looking it over, and he shakes his head. "Like an old console RPG world map," he says at last, turning to look at his opponents again. "Waiting for us to unlock the secret levels, maybe? Turning all this into a game seems to be the way things are done around here, doesn't it..." It's not the first time Frei's fought a friend in this tournament. That it should happen again surprises him not. And if there's someone he won't feel too bad losing this to, Hotaru's it.
Not that he's not going to give it his all.
"...you might not know this," he offers, "but Alma's alive. Not... well, but alive. And here, for the record. I don't know if that sets your mind at ease or not." I wish it did mine, he tells himself. "So... whichever one of us it is, let's win this thing and get some answers." With a tilt of the head, he smiles at Nahid. "Don't hold back," he says carefully. "That would be a big mistake."
His cellphone chimes in his pocket, muffled. Looks like it's time to start.
"Here we go," Frei says, taking a deep breath, before ducking in toward Hotaru, choosing his target and running with the ball. He sweeps his left hand in front of him, a small burst of flame trailing through the air after it... but a sudden, drawing slash of the wooden sword surrounded by the same scarlet fire follows it. Just in case.
COMBATSYS: Hotaru dodges Frei's Feinting Draw.
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Frei 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Hotaru
"I see." Hotaru replies to Kurenai's account of the fight. Her tone suggests that she is satisfied with the answer - whether or not she buys it is another matter. But for now, it will suffice. She has to shift her focus to her ability as a martial artist in order to exercise the acrobatic, precision style of fighting she practices. Frei and Nahid's exchange is noticed but not commented on as the girl maintains the ready stance she has adopted to start the fight off.
Frei's words regarding Alma provoke a slight but definite nod. "I knew he would be." she muses softly. "Here, that is." As if the question of whether he was alive was never up for debate within her mind. "He would need to be. Just like you. Just like me." Her stance tenses, her breathing coming under strict control. "Agreed." she replies. Answers. That would be nice for a change.
The device chimes, the match is to begin. That it will be recorded like all the others goes without saying. Where the cameras are? She gave up guessing after her last fight revealed no such close as to their existance. Frei moves forward, sweeping flame with his hand before drawing his sword to follow up. Some might taunt the chi prodigy's use of a blunt weapon like that - what's the point, after all? But even as Hotaru moves with precision in reacting to his swipe, ducking down out of the way, she treats the threat of impact with complete seriousness.
Her retaliation is as fluid as her evasion, as she leans forward in her ducking avoidance of both chi and sword to sweep her right hand out, trying to hook the back of Frei's forwardmost ankle. Lunging into the attack, her left hand slams out, palm first, for Frei's sternum, as Hotaru aims to pull his foot out from under him and throw him on his back with the forward pressure of her palm.
Suddenly, the booming, thunderous sound of an orchestra explodes--not from the sound system which is probably embedded into the walls, but from Kurenai's pocket. Four staggering, deep chords from the low brass and drums, followed by snarling, wailing high tones of violin, clarinet and flute, repeated, before Kurenai blushingly puts a hand to her pocket.
"Sorry," she says, "I changed my event alarm a little." Those who are in with popular culture will in fact recognize the opening sounds of "One Winged Angel", but that's done with now--just as Hotaru and Frei move to engage. "Guess that leaves you and me, Miss Unknown Quantity," she says, in a relatively sing-songy voice. She doesn't move, though--instead taking grip on her weapon, in both hands, for a moment before... thrusting it at Nahid.
It seems a futile gesture, as there is a lot of intervening space, but the reason is soon found, as a needle-like blast of pink chi extends from the tip of the weapon, reaching in like a finger, for Nahid's sternum. One can be sure that it isn't the touch of death, but it won't be pleasant, either...
COMBATSYS: Nahid dodges Kurenai's Devil's Needle.
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Frei 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Hotaru
"Wasn't that funny," Nahid says, still with her thumbs in her belt loops. She seems supremely unconcerned; entirely relaxed.
That changes all in an instant when the phones ring. Nahid is the only one whose phone /doesn't/ ring, if only because she has it set on vibrate in her pocket instead. It's enough to jerk her upright instead of the half-slouch she'd been in before, her hands moving up in front of her.
She spends a moment to laugh at the sound of Kurenai's ringtone, though. "Funny. Could be worse, I guess; it could be rap or something. I don't know about you, but I've heard enough of that to last me a lifetime."
Keeping one eye on Hotaru and Frei, Nahid weaves left and forward as Kurenai projects a needle-thin beam of chi at her. She could take that, but she really, really doesn't want to get impaled to start off a match. That seems like a really bad way to run things.
It goes past her shoulder instead as she darts the rest of the way forward, reaching at Kurenei's arm. She just had a weapon thrust at her, one of them should still be slightly extended - and Nahid takes advantage of that to try to whirl Kurenai around before sending her rolling across the floor. "You want to try that again? I'm easy, I can handle this /all/ day."
COMBATSYS: Frei fails to interrupt Medium Throw from Hotaru with Reiki.
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Frei 0/-------/----===|-------\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Hotaru
Devious, isn't he? The fire doesn't actually die out around Frei's left hand even as Hotaru ducks out of the way of his initial strike. It doesn't surprise him; the sword-sage has fought Hotaru enough times to know what feats of agility Hotaru is capable of. To not be prepared for it would be the height of folly. However, being prepared doesn't always mean that your plans will go without a hitch. As Hotaru ducks low, Frei finishes the sort of half-spin of his sword attack, bringing his left hand to bear and attempting to turn the spark of chi fire into a pinpoint burst to dissuade her counterstrike. Unfortunately, her inclusion of the thrusting palm means she's striking sooner than he expected, and so down he goes, landing on his back on the curiously video-capable floor.
Sweeping his legs out, Frei gets back to his feet, chuckling a little and brushing himself off, getting back into stance. "Not bad, not bad," he says with a faint smile, taking a step back and reassessing. She might have first blood, but the fight's far from over. "But I've learned a thing or two since the last time we fought."
He spares Nahid a quick glance, seeing her evade Kurenai's attack, and glancing at the one-eyed Seijyun student for a moment, before looking back at Hotaru. "There's... other people here too, actually," he says, with a pointedly weighty pause. Jiro... well, 'Ullr' now. It's not Frei's place to go babbling that little secret, and he can appreciate that the former Stray Dog might not want to advertise his appearance, especially after the world thought him quite dead after the events of the Southtown siege. "Hopefully if all goes well, we can have a good laugh about it after."
A pause, and then his eyes dart to the laser pointer. It's STILL upright. "...that's downright weird."
The start of the fight is a blur of motion, with the flash of fire and blue cloth that only slows once Frei's balance has been upset enough to send him to the floor. Of course he'll be back up quickly - while the Kenpo artist is capable of a number of very strong strikes, that certainly wasn't one of them. And Frei is built a lot tougher than many might take him for on appearance alone. "Your new acquisition is evidence of that," she mentions with a nod toward the wooden sword. "It makes me happy to know that you managed to find what you had lost before as well." It's been so long, she muses, since the atrocities of war stole something so precious from the chi-sensitive man.
While focused on Frei, she has managed to pick up bits and pieces of the exchange between Nahid and Kurenai as well. Great, they're both kind of annoying, she mentally grouses. But between the two of them, only one is her partner, so that's who needs to matter to her. For now, she'll let Kurenai hold her own.
Hotaru's style has always been an aggressive, high-pressure art, leaving her opponents little breathing room as she tries to secure an advantage before her less durable body becomes subjected to too many attacks. And even as Frei rights himself, it seems she intends to continue in that way with an immediate follow up. Only when he continues after her reply does Hotaru pause for a moment, eyes blinking once as she absorbs his statement. Other people? He means other people she and he both know. Unsurprisingly, that's not a small list though and his vagueness will leave her to only be able to guess for now.
"Three wishes, huh." she muses the supposed prize on the line here. "That's two more wishes than I'd need to hope we all make it out of here in the end." That's reason enough to give the fight her all. When she takes her next step, it is to sprint for Frei. From a few yards out, Hotaru springs into the air as if aiming to deliver a flying kick to the chi-master. But her arch is too low and her momentum insufficient, the girl dropping down early to the ground, landing in a very low stance, one foot far in front of the other, her arms out at her sides.
And from that position the real attack comes, Hotaru lunging up, right palm leading as she aims to strike Frei in the chest. Her body twists to the right as she slides forward, lunging up to deliver a second, staggeringly strong palm strike with her left hand. "Yaa!"
COMBATSYS: Kurenai blocks Nahid's Whipping Wind Descent.
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Frei 0/-------/----===|-------\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/-------|-------\-------\0 Hotaru
Kurenai is slipped past and rolled along the floor--but she's ready for it, rolling with the impact to the floor and then controlling her slide so that she fetches up against a nearby desk feet first, allowing her to absorb the impact--absorb it and push off, sending her right back at Nahid.
"Mm? Did I touch a nerve or something? I didn't say anything -bad- about you, just--well, I don't know you, at all." As she speaks, she's still moving forward, smoothly stepping towards Nahid and then... her bokken moves, sliding to her back, her grip changed as she leaps--and then comes down at Nahid, slashing with a weapon suddenly charged with pink chi energy, tracing a fading arc through the air as she comes down to land in a deep crouch.
"But stamina -is- very important, isn't it?" she says, cheerily, just as she lands. Of course, running her mouth might not be the best thing, hmm?
COMBATSYS: Nahid reflects Power Strike from Kurenai with Solitary Peak Palm.
- Power hit! -
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Frei 0/-------/----===|===----\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/-----==|-------\-------\0 Hotaru
Nahid /is/ kind of annoying. But it beats the alternative - it would so be much worse to be ignored.
Nahid's face twists into an unpleasant expression when Kurenai comes up with pink chi on her weapon. It changes into a smirk, mere moments later. "Someday you will," she says, pleased. "But hey. We can't all be here for bright ideals. I just want to do my best, and if everyone else awesome was heading down this way - "
Nahid, who has set her feet just so while she was talking, delivers a straight palm thrust directly at the descending weapon. This would normally be nothing but a bad idea, except at the same time, Nahid focuses what power she has directly into that hand, making it tough as iron - probably tougher, actually.
For the first time ever, she gets a visible reaction. The invisible psionic force her body is suffused with interacts with the pink chi and causes a brilliantly bright flash and a weird ripple in said chi as it is forced right back the way it came, none of it getting within an inch of Nahid's hand as she stops the weapon with her palm.
Nahid shoves, hard, to push Kurenai the rest of the way away from her. "You holdin' out over there?" she calls to Frei - she might be in this for fame and fortune, but she /can/ work together. Really.
COMBATSYS: Hotaru successfully hits Frei with Fierce Punch.
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Frei 0/-------/=======|===----\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/-----==|=------\-------\0 Hotaru
As is usually the case, Hotaru appears to be one step ahead of Frei in the fight; he gauges the arc of her attack, looking to snap a hand into the path of that palm strike. He's not taken in by the angle of the attack, but he should know by now that Hotaru rarely only delivers the one; the second slams past his guard and into his stomach, sending him stumbling backwards until he's at the very edge of the giant video screen on the floor, grimacing and holding his stomach. Not how he would have chosen for this fight to go, overall, but he's far from done. Taking a breath, he stares forward, trying to change his thought processes. The skilled, swift Hotaru always makes him feel like a plodding tortoise by comparison, waiting to be flipped on his back and helpless.
"But even a turtle has things it can do," he says quietly, mostly to himself. If Saint's overwhelming terror barrage can't make him give in to despair, a mere punch to the face ain't gonna do it.
He glances over at the two girls, sparring over in the corner both physically and verbally, and chuckles to himself slightly. "Must be nice to be young, huh..." Not that late 20s is all that old, but compared to everyone else here, the chi sage is feeling a little... weathered. But he's got a fight to win. Glancing back at the opponent he's squared off with, intentionally or no, he weighs his options. Practically impossible to hit, but trying to catch her on the rebound is equally risky. He's just got to hunker down, tighten his defenses, and hope that his durability can outlast her speed. He takes one step forward, then a second... then a third. He doesn't run at all. Hotaru's got plenty of time to just sort of run right at him if she wants... his ace in the proverbial hole is that once he gets reasonably close, he suddenly grips the wooden sword and swings it through the air in a slicing arc, iai-style, a glittering path of metallic-looking chi following behind the blade as well.
COMBATSYS: Frei successfully hits Hotaru with Houken EX.
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Frei 1/------=/=======|===----\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/-----==|====---\-------\0 Hotaru
The crushing force the second palm strike packs provides a glimpse of one of the many facets of the Hotaru's style of fighting. The opening blows to soften the defense of her opponents before she throws her whole body into a single focused point of coorodinated strength to bring home the real strike. After delivering the two hit combo, she pulls her hands back, sliding her foot closer in, drawing herself up into a more defensible posture, right shoulder forward.
She hesitates a moment. Bolting in to immediately follow up an attack without scoping out the situation can lead to running into something unexepected. The exchanges between Nahid and Kurenai become less and less of her focus. Staying toe to toe with someone of Frei's caliber requires a lot of attention.
She can tell he's giving his next step a lot of thought and the sharpness of her own eyes suggests that she's likewise trying to predict that step of his. He has some new tricks since the last time they faced off, that much is without a doubt. And she's introduced to another varient of familiar techniques as Frei makes his next move. With his third step, Hotaru shifts slightly, drawing her hands up, preparing herself to try and weave through his attack and trade blows once again. And with that, she steps, watching his hands, the momentum of his body, attempting to read the incoming attack.
But Frei's attack isn't one she reads well, still trying to get used to the blend of styles she's observed him using thus far. As she turns, thinking to slip around a possible punch, she finds herself stepping right into the arc of the sweeping blade. The impact is solid and it sends the featherweight sliding to the side, a pained gasp punctuating the sound of the strike.
Catching herself from toppling over sideways, she grunts, spinning back toward Frei. A slight shake of her head and faint grin is her way of biting back the pain caused by her misstep. Another glance is cast toward the other two girls. Looks like Kurenai suffered a setback there, the Futaba girl muses. She'll have to keep an eye on that. But immediately she's looking back at Frei and taking her next step.
Again Frei faces a charging Hotaru; this time the girl suddenly leaping forward, hands first, into a single tumbling roll before springing up at the monk's side. Both hands go for his sword using hand, attempting to get a tight enough grip on his forearm that she's able to lift his arm up, step in under it while turning her body around, before yanking his arm down in a bid to twist Frei off balance and drop him to the floor again in one smooth, fluid motion with a technique that depends more on manipulating balance and posture than anything resembling brute force. "Ha!"
This is -not- going well at all. Kurenai is hurled back away from Nahid. "Every time you act... every time you react... I'm learning something about you," she remarks. It isn't meant to sound menacing or confident or overconfident, though the words could be construed that way. It's just fact. Now she knows a little something more about Nahid that she didn't before. Having landed on her back, she flips back up to her feet, holding her new stance, the bokken slung across her back.
"So, soon you -won't- be an unknown quantity... and in fact, I bet I can stop calling you that now, can't I, Nahid?" See, she -does- study her opponents. Sometimes cursorily, sometimes obsessively, but she does study. As she is now, waiting for Nahid to come to her. She isn't quite beckoning her over, though the thought crosses her mind, yet there's something about her stance that seems to invite Nahid to come make a fight of it.
Nevermind the fact that Nahid's gotten the only significant attacks in for this exchange--Kurenai's confidence hasn't been damaged yet. Battered, but not damaged. Then she grins. And she -does- beckon. "Bring it on."
COMBATSYS: Kurenai calculates her next move.
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Frei 1/------=/=======|===----\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/-----==|===----\-------\0 Hotaru
Nahid expects to have her name known. It's on the list, after all. "You could have stopped a while ago," Nahid says, finally untensing her fingers from their almost painful-looking straightness, the muscles and joints in her arm and hand shifting slightly as she relaxes. Her entire stance shifts, from the flat, locked-in-place one she had been using to a more mobile one, almost bouncing on her feet.
She watches Kurenai just as intently for a few moments. Eventually, though, her face splits into a grin. "Thanks," she says, "but what if I want to give my partner a hand? He looks like he could use it. RIGHT FREI?" she yells, which may distract him but is actually supposed to keep Kurenai guessing as to which way she'll go.
Nahid ends up attacking Kurenai anyway, and from the air; she uses her more mobile stance to take some running steps forward and then leap, descending foot-first in an almost diagonal aerial kick. It lacks finesse, but it does have power to make up for it. If she hits Kurenai, she springs off and regains some distance, moving in Hotaru's general direction; if not, she lands a little hard and has to hop to recover.
COMBATSYS: Frei endures Hotaru's Ten Ranku-Tou.
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Frei 1/---====/=======|===----\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/-----==|=====--\-------\0 Hotaru
He's hard to kill. That's the truth; even fighters who specialize in overpowering strength have noted, once or twice, that Frei's resilience doesn't even seem to make *sense* in a weird way, since he's not that buff, and sort of a dork. But it's... a tortoise's strength. If you want to hit him, you have to get in nice and close, and if you're not careful, he might just be able to roll with what you did, and afterwards there's a chance -- not a guarantee, but a chance -- that you may just regret it.
Hotaru's a very skilled fighter, so she will probably notice the signs, and they're actually the things that might save her after this. The first is the slight... crackling in the air around Frei, particularly his right hand, even a change in the air pressure in the room. Just slightly, nothing major. The other is that her attempt to grab his arm is way, way too easy to accomplish. He puts up a token sort of oh-noes dodge, but his heart's not in it, mostly because it's a feint.
That doesn't make what comes after any less painful; Hotaru absolutely succeeds in her attempt to put Frei down on the ground, the redhead's legs scythed out from under him, the hiptoss sending him down to the rather hard ground with a resounding *WHUMPF* noise...
...followed by a resounding *WHAM!* as Frei twists, slamming one foot down on, of all things, Hotaru's SLEEVE, pinning her in place. And then she probably notices that the aura of chi he had been slowly gathering is actually getting quite a bit nastier. The fact that he says to Nahid, blithely, "I'm doing alright, thanks," doesn't help either.
He's only going to be able to keep her there for a second or two, but hopefully that's all he'll need. The wooden sword comes out, held horizontally in front of him, and the sword-sage draws two fingers across the blade with his other hand, the wooden weapon suddenly coming alive with coruscating bolts of blue lightning. "O ruler of the stormy skies... blue-scaled dragon who dances in the clouds. Honor our pact and appear before me!"
Now he has to let go, stepping backward. It gives Hotaru a window to react, but the question is, will it be enough? The lightning around the blade becomes a raging stormy aura around Frei, mirroring the stormy weather outside, taking the rough shape of a serpentine dragon twining around his body. Bringing the blade back, Frei finishes the invocation of whatever spirit-beast he appears to have summoned into being. "Divine thunder, shake the heavens! Seiryuu!"
The blade is thrust forward, but it's a formality. The real thread is the lightning dragon, who with a disturbingly real roaring sound, looks to encircle and enclose Hotaru in its thundering jaws completely.
COMBATSYS: Hotaru parries Frei's Shinra Banshou!
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Frei 0/-------/-------|===----\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/-----==|======-\-------\0 Hotaru
She's already mid-attack when she begins to realize the magnitude of energy Frei is gathering. She has always respected that special connection the monk has with the world around him. Chi isn't just power to be flung around recklessly for the sake of inflicting harm or destruction with him but rather he had a certain understanding and respect of what it was he was borrowing and that tempered his use of such power in such a way that Hotaru had always found admireable. And right now, she realizes she's about to experience the other potential side of such masterful manipulation - the combat applications of it.
Committed to her attack, she goes through with the classic Kenpo-styled throw, leveraging positioning over force, for the sake of taking Frei off his feet. But as she lands, getting ready to quickly spin herself back up to her own feet and continue on, she finds herself stopped short by Frei's quick reaction. How did he twist out of that so fast? Earth chi, perhaps?
Whatever the secret may be, she finds herself stuck far longer than the normally mobile fighter cares for. With a touch, Frei channels lightning into his wooden sword as the Futaba girl tries to twist herself free. This is something big; that much she can sense. The only chance she has to not experience the full storm front of Frei's ability comes in the moment he has to reposition himself to deliver the attack. A dragon is unleashed, closing in with terrifying speed, its jaws of crackling energy unleashing a roar that rattles the building as it bears down on Hotaru.
Were she even the slightest bit slower, there would have been no means by which to escape the encircling Great Wyrm. But the girl leaps, springing straight up, managing one of the greatest vertical ascents of her life right as the summoned spirit-beast dives for her position. It's part reflex - instinct honed by the dedicated training and avid practice the young fighter has always made part of her life - and part luck that has her leaping path take her right through the coils of the drake right before they would have closed around her.
It is at the apex of her jump that it becomes clear that she didn't leave empty handed, her right arm encased in a shimmering blue aura as Hotaru borrows a small amount of the chi Frei brought to bear in order to send it hurtling back toward him as a shimmering blue bolt of concentrated force! Only upon releasing the projectile does she drop back down toward the emaculately clean floor, appreciating quite well her close brush with a crushingly strong technique.
COMBATSYS: Kurenai fails to interrupt Heavy Kick from Nahid with Heaven Splitter.
- Power fail! -
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Frei 0/-------/-------|=====--\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/----===|=====--\-------\0 Hotaru
That attack... -should- be easy to deal with... but no. The angle that Nahid comes down at, perhaps, or something... Kurenai sweeps her weapon low, prepatory to ripping into Nahid with a rising uppercut slash--
And is kicked cleanly in the face, sending her tumbling to slam against a desk, in a bad way, cracking her back against it, unleashing a yelp of pain, and a fighter that is down for the moment, just rolling to her knees, shaking her head. Something's wrong... it shouldn't be happening like this... <<Pull yourself together, Takayanagi! You're not out of this yet--don't act like it!>> Gritting her teeth, she pushes herself back up to her feet, resisting that urge to rub her back where it got cracked. <<There's no way she's got you figured out. You can do this.>> Letting out a hiss of breath, she recovers herself, then tries to recenter while she has a chance.
Nahid flips back and lands on her feet, not even entirely cognizant of how close she came to having her delicate* torso blasted by a rising uppercut slash accompanied with her least favourite thing ever: chi. Especially in girly pink.
( * not delicate )
"What's the matter?" she asks. "Can't keep up? It's cool, I'm good at what I do; it's normal to wish you were as awesome as me." Nahid pauses, debating whether to throw in a verbal cheap shot. Nah. She can save it for later. "Anyway, I've gotta go save someone, be right back!"
Nahid never actually quite turns her back on Kurenai but she does shift her body slightly so she can watch both Kurenai and Hotaru at once. It's going to sting if Hotaru turns to deal with her, she knows, but Nahid also knows that Frei could use a hand out there, and who knows? She might keep getting lucky.
"Hey, midget!" Nahid calls, an instant before her fist whistles toward Hotaru's back, accompanied shortly by the rest of a running Nahid. "Think quick!"
COMBATSYS: Frei blocks Hotaru's Hakki Shou EX.
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Frei 0/-------/------=|=====--\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/----===|======-\-------\0 Hotaru
Well. It was a gamble, Frei considers to himself. And he has to appreciate the grace of Hotaru's evasion, which is pretty impressive indeed. The idea had been to overwhelm the evasive fighter with sheer power before she could get out of its range, but the kenpo fighter proves that she's capable of dealing with attacks of such magnitude regardless of what leads them to her. However, if she can borrow from the storm of lightning chi that swirled around her, the person who called it into being certainly can too. The incoming, spiralling sphere of chi that is Hotaru's signature projectile slams into Frei's upraised palm, his face tight with concentration as a nimbus of crackling blue lightning -- the final remnants of that strike -- swirl around it. Energies clash in streaks of dark and light blue, and while Frei can't cancel Hotaru's attack out entirely, he can at least minimize it so that the harm it causes, crashing into his upraised forearm, is bruising rather than crushing.
Of course, the fact that Frei lowers his arm after that, clutching his elbow with the opposite hand. He boasted a little bit to Nahid, but it's proven to be a little empty. He managed to land one good hit so far, but Miss Futaba has been racking them up by comparison. Considered individually, he actually hasn't been hit terribly hard, but in aggregate they're quite nasty. But somehow, he's happy; in the whole time he's been in Taizhou, nothing has made him even remotely cheerful, except perhaps Nahid's unexpected and gratifying step into the breach in the sewers, which the redhead suddenly regrets that he never told her how much he appreciated that. It may be that Hotaru is the first time he's fought an opponent where he feels a sense of security. Certainly, he expects any 'wish' she asks to be granted will be something WORTH being granted. Green eyes flicker to Kurenai for a moment. He's heard a little of what she's said so far. Nothing... patently offensive, and she seems cheerful enough. But you just can't *know*. Is she going to 'wish' for some terrible? Would Nahid?
And speaking of, she just... leapt face first at Hotaru. He grimaces at this; not because Nahid can't take care of herself -- she's proven that -- but because, he realizes, she'd stepped into what he was starting to feel was a duel of sorts. He seems surprised at that revelation, and clears his throat. "As good a time as any to make your acquaintance, I suppose," he says to Kurenai, putting his hand on the 'hilt' of his wooden sword. "Should I give you the whole two-swordsmen-in-the-rain spiel?" He means it as a joke, though some part of him says he's going to regret having said it.
Or maybe he'll regret the attack he makes instead? Taking off toward Kurenai at a run, Frei twists toward the end, suddenly ducking low, and makes a drawing iai-style slash that would scythe through Kurenai's legs, a trailing haze of blue-white frost not only knocking her over, but making getting back up a little tricky, too.
COMBATSYS: Nahid successfully hits Hotaru with Strong Punch.
- Power hit! -
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Frei 0/-------/------=|=====--\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/----===|=======\=------\1 Hotaru
Landing in a three-point crouch from flinging the angled projectile Frei's way, Hotaru pushes herself back up to standing quickly, just in time to notice the monk's ability to ward off a significant portion of the chi blast's force. The girl grins faintly. She wouldn't expect anything less from him. But there's more attacks where that came from. Ears ringing a little from her close brush with catastrophic amounts of chi, she draws her hands up, readying another fast charge in Frei's direction.
But partially tuning out Nahid and Kurenai's exchanges has a cost, and the ringing in her head doesn't help her notice the other girl's change in focus at all. There's a shout - something that sounds like it's meant for her, if stature is any indicator, and Hotaru starts to turn too late, defenses not what they should be. The impact sends the featherweight staggering, arms flailing as she finally falls, only to catch herself on the ground, shaking her head and releasing a soft exhale. That got her attention, at least, as she stands upright and spins around to face Nahid...
Only to notice Frei moving to give Kurenai some pressure. The girl can understand why he'd do that. That's just one of those little details about the monk that she's always considered respectable. But she can't leave him to attack her partner unhindered - not with the kind of match the pink-haired sword user has been experiencing. Exhaling a little, looking like she'd certainly appreciate the opportunity to kick Nahid back for the midget remark, Hotaru instead bolts toward Frei, coming in at a side angle to his attention.
"Ready yourself!" she warns, as to not completely blindside her friend before springing into a short hop, spinning into a pair of rapid, windmilling strikes at chest and shoulder height, before landing. All her forward momentum and every bit of her muscle strength carries over into a single, one handed palm strike then, as Hotaru jams her right hand out for Frei, her left hand slamming out in the opposite direction to provide just enough counter force to let her keep her balance - and with that, she attempts to land one of her hardest single hits the girl can manage. "YAA!"
COMBATSYS: Frei successfully hits Kurenai with Unbalancing Draw.
- Power hit! -
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Frei 0/-------/-----==|=======\==-----\1 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/----===|=======\-------\1 Hotaru
This is exactly what she -didn't- want to happen.. but given Nahid's dominating success on the battlefield, perhaps it might be for the best that she's not facing the NESTS dynamo. She was on the verge of violating one of her many 'number one' rules--never let it get personal. Never let them get to you. That's her job--to get to her opponents, not the other way around. But... then Frei attacks. The quip, the slashing strike that upends her again, ass over teakettle... she's embarrassed. Hotly, fiercely embarrassed. She holds no illusions about how she ranks in the annals of fighterdom--she's barely a blip.
But she's finally let that rule fall away, and she releases a cry that's as much pain as frustration as she flips to her feet, betraying none of the pain that she's feeling as that icy chi clings to her legs, almost as if it were sticky. Honestly she doesn't know who to try and vent her rage at; she's not seeing red, just yet, but she's very close to it. And Frei--well, Frei -is- right in front of her. That makes him a very convienient target. Loosing restraint, she utters a fierce kiai, before charging the sword-wielding monk. It is perhaps the least 'smart' thing she could do, ever, because she -knows- how powerful he is... she'd be better off attacking Nahid.
Still, she comes at Frei with a full on rush, a shoulder strike aimed for his sternum, a blow meant to stun, to let her inside his defenses, where she can hammer at him with knees, with elbows, with the hilt of her weapon, with short jabs and thrusts, all the weapon strikes suffused with her pink chi, until she aims the final strike, whereupon she leaps back and then lunges forward with a thrusting pass aimed for the very same spot she aimed for, the sternum.
That last thrust is accompanied by an even bigger upsurge in power, not just surrounding her weapon but seeming to extend and expand it--a brief beam that would transfix Frei and possibly be thrust past him into the wall behind him.
Nahid, for all that she looks like an unathletic punk, hits like a truck; her fist, on impact with Hotaru, yields about as much as your average brick wall, the flesh rigid and unbending.
Her knuckles all crack as Nahid relaxes her fist, no longer abusing the joints and locking them in place in such a painful-looking way. "Heh," she says, following Hotaru's rush at a run, apparently going to slam into her back.
She doesn't. Nahid jumps again, coming down on the /far/ side of Kurenai. Her boots thump with enough force to threaten to muss the flooring an instant before she spins back around, fists up, arms ready. "I don't even know which one of you to go after. /Yet/."
COMBATSYS: Nahid focuses on her next action.
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Frei 0/-------/-----==|-------\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/----===|=======\-------\1 Hotaru
COMBATSYS: Frei dodges Kurenai's Devil Dancing.
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Frei 0/-------/-----==|-------\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/----===|=======\-------\1 Hotaru
COMBATSYS: Frei dodges Hotaru's Soushou Shin.
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Frei 0/-------/-----==|-------\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/----===|=======\-------\1 Hotaru
With a sweeping motion, Frei's wooden sword twirls once, then is slipped slowly back into his back belt loops with all the gravitas of a samurai replacing katana to its scabbard. He breathes out, slowly; although he's done his best to incorporate the swordsmanship his family has been known to use for centuries, it's still rusty in some ways, entirely new in others. His strike hit home, but there was no small amount of good fortune behind him doing so. He takes a step back, breathing in and out slowly, before he hears Hotaru's shouted warning. It's a courtesy she wasn't in any way obligated to provide, and one that, given the outcome, she may wish she hadn't done.
That Kurenai would likely try to strike him back is no surprise, considering her other option was to cross the room away from Frei to try and attack Nahid, it's a choice he would have made too. Hotaru coming in from the side complicates things... but a tiny part of Frei suddenly seems to speak up, reminding him of how he fought *without* his chi skills... by reading the situation, honing his awareness, and focusing not on speed or strength but on understanding and quick decision making. Trying not to panic, to clear his mind and focus, Frei reaches... well. Simply put, a Zen-like moment of incredible clarity. From the *outside* he barely appears to move, threading in and out of Hotaru and Kurenai's repeated strikes with a slightly dazed look in his face, using the minimum amount of motion until finally, he takes one final step back, the paired palm strike and beam of bright pink energy passing by him on the left and right, the end result being that the red-haired fighter is, surprisingly, unharmed by two attacks that, had they hit, would have left him quite likely thoroughly unconscious.
It ends with Frei -- now paying the *physical* cost of that brief and terrible moment of clarity -- making huge, deep, even raspy breaths, staring into the faces of his attackers in as much disbelief as anything else. But they're close by, and he needs to seize the moment. Hoping to strike Hotaru before she can get away, he doesn't do anything fancy; he lashes out with a quick, force-empowered jab to the stomach.
COMBATSYS: Frei successfully hits Hotaru with Quick Punch.
- Power hit! -
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Frei 0/-------/----===|-------\-------\0 Kurenai
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////// ]
Nahid 0/-------/----===|=======\===----\1 Hotaru
There was no partial-commitment to the attack launched Frei's way. Sure of her strike, she put her all into it. Which is why, when the chi-prodigy slips into an almost trance like state of precision evasion, Hotaru is caught momentarially off guard. The heel of her palm strikes through nothing but empty air and the girl blinks for a moment even as she starts to try and snap her hand back to take defensive measures against the anticipated retaliation.
Frei, in his present state, is a step faster already, however, and the energy-infused jab connects solidly, pushing back, perhaps, against the very momentum Hotaru had tried to use against him. A soft gasp of air escaping her lunges is her audible response as she surrenders two feet of floor space before catching herself again.
Reeling a little from the pain of the last to strikes, her mind races to make a snap judgement as to what her valid options for recourse needs to be.
With much of the match having gone by, the time left to give it her all is slipping past quickly. If she's going to make a strong attack, now's the time to do it if any. Slamming her left foot against the floor, the girl drives back at Frei like a blue and white blurred bullet, a point blank detonation of suddenly manifested chi providing the force needed to empower her next attack.
In an instant, she has already slide into a low crouching position just in front of Frei, arms out at her sides, "Ten-shou-!" The transition from moving forward, then crouching, then rising into a crushingly strong double flip kick all happens in the blink of an eye. And with that speed comes power - power enough, perhaps, to lift even the well grounded Frei from the ground long enough for the girl to drive him back to the ground into a sliding pin, the air alive with building chi as the girl tries to pin the monk long enough to deliver the point blank detonation of energy that has managed to secure her victory over countless other fighters in the past. "Ranki!"
Frustration blossoms anew. She should have expected it; she lost control, went after the wrong target, and was thoroughly shamed in a matter of seconds. She stumbles past Frei, overbalanced by her last strike, and wheels around... then just sinks to her knees. She's sitting seiza now, a last-ditch, desperate attempt to find... -something-. To her, fighting has never been a spiritual thing--it's been a thing of calculations, of lines of force and probabilities, of angles of attack and areas of defense. But she's being taken apart in this fight, all her skills and training washing up to nothing.
She isn't even evincing her frustration visibly now; it's transcended the tantrum that was her last attack. So she sinks to her knees, her weapon laid across her knees, and she... tries to find that focus, that inner peace. The old man always told her it would come to her eventually, that the fusion of mind, body and soul would happen... but it hasn't yet. She needs it to happen, here and now, if there's any hope of salvaging this fight at all--of salvaging her -pride-. She had tried to wall it away; 'You're still a baby fighter, don't get your hopes up high, don't puff yourself up. Don't let success get to your head.'
In a moment where Hotaru is doing her damndest to take Frei out... Kurenai does nothing. Or does she? An unfocused fighter is the worst kind of fighter, and being unfocused, being wild and rampant, isn't her style, not at all. <<_Focus_, Kurenai. You can _DO THIS_.>> Or can she? Despite the stern mental tone of voice, it's clear her confidence is faltering, at last.
COMBATSYS: Kurenai calculates her next move.
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Frei 0/-------/----===|-------\-------\0 Kurenai
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////// ]
Nahid 0/-------/----===|-------\-------\0 Hotaru
Nahid got her moment to prepare. She was watching, keeping her eyes out, ready to react if one of them came at her - but none of them do. Hotaru goes after Frei, as she expected; it's not anything Nahid wants to get anywhere near, to be honest, that looks pretty dangerous over there.
Kurenai, on the other hand, goes to her knees.
Nahid realizes, conciously, that Kurenai is not trying to mock her. Rather the opposite in fact, because Kurenai isn't doing so hot; if Nahid was the kind of person who felt sorry for her opponents she might feel vaguely guilty. But she isn't, and she doesn't.
"What, you're just going to take a break?" Nahid says, not quite angrily but close. "Kneel down and pray? That's not how this place works!" She brings her foot back and swings it forward, the faux-spike studs on the front catching the light.
It is not, at least, very hard... if only because the last thing Nahid wants is to accidentally make someone puke on her leg by hitting them in the gut. She saw that happen on TV. It was gross.
COMBATSYS: Frei blocks Hotaru's Ten-shou Ranki.
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Frei 0/-------/--=====|-------\-------\0 Kurenai
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > /////////////// ]
Nahid 0/-------/----===|-------\-------\0 Hotaru
What happens next is quite interesting to watch. Frei knows that Hotaru will do her utmost to finish the fight; one of the real benefits of her style, in Frei's eyes, is that the constant flow of attacks means she can overwhelm an opponent and bring any fight to a quick conclusion. Frei, on the other hand, has to outlast his opponents and pick and choose his moments. This means he has to be ready at any time to defend against that master stroke that will spell the end. This attack she's sending his way might just be it, and he braces himself to deal with it. Unfortunately, 'braced' does not mean guaranteed success, and Frei's attempt to force himself to stay on the ground after the flip kick slams into him doesn't exactly work, and airborne he goes.
However.
Knowing your opponent is key, and Hotaru's use of this personal technique actually works to Frei's advantage in this case. Even as he's flying through the air, the sage is gathering energy into his hands. He can't exactly control his fall much, and even if he could, what's he going to do in midair? No, his chance will come... on the ground.
She's got him pinned. But as Hotaru seeks to deliver that massive burst of chi that will seal the deal, Frei suddenly manages to thrust his hands forward, palms out, with an inarticulate "aaaaaAAAAAAAAH!" Hotaru's signature blue chi erupts outward, slamming against an invisible, rippling barrier of force as Frei attempts to, quite frankly, push the attack away. The spillover is impressive as force meets force, neither quite able to yield, but Frei isn't really prepared for this, while Hotaru executes her attack flawlessly. The sword-wielding fighter grimaces as the last traces of Hotaru's strike slam against his body, driving him into the floor, but at great cost, he is able at last to keep himself in the fight for just a moment.
When he stands up, he realizes that the backlash of clashing forces cracked the video screen floor. He blinks, then turns to Hotaru, and blinks again. He manages, against logic, to vocalize a "...", before shaking his head with a helpless smile.
Every muscle in his body aches; he'd really like to take a break for five seconds and sort things out, but he knows that he doesn't have that luxury right now. Hoping that Hotaru is equally bewildered -- and exhausted -- he ducks forward, looking to grab her wrist, then spin her quickly through the air and let go, sending her flying with a burst of windy chi to speed it along.
COMBATSYS: Hotaru blocks Frei's Medium Throw.
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Frei 0/-------/-======|-------\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/----===|-------\-------\0 Hotaru
She figures out his defense in the midst of the attack; countering her immense build up of chi with an explosion of his own borrowed energy. With gritted teeth and furrowed brow, she manages to crash through the negating chi just a little before pushing down hard and springing back onto her feet, sliding to a stop a couple feet away.
At Frei's pause and blink, she grins back, looking exhillerated at the exchange of attacks between the two of them. Being able to test herself like this is what all those years of practice have been about. And it's an experience she relishes to share with a friend of so many years like Frei.
"Guess they should've made it a little tougher," she observes before readying her own defenses. The fight has been demanding, the exchange of attacks of all kinds requiring precision timing to deal with, or just good ol' fashioned grit to weather through. She's still standing for now, and she'll give it her all while she can.
When Frei makes his move, he won't find her guard diminished as he reaches for her wrist and in spite the burst of chi she has to weather as a result, Hotaru counters his grip with one of her own, kicking into the intended throw to take herself into an arc up over his head before dropping down behind him.
Her other hand goes to wrap around Frei's neck - low enough as to avoid actually choking him should she land the move, as she uses her left foot to kick his feet out from under him and slam him hard to the ground, using her own falling momentum to power the technique. "Hah!"
COMBATSYS: Kurenai counters Light Kick from Nahid with Hell's Rejection.
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Frei 0/-------/-======|=------\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/-======|-------\-------\0 Hotaru
"I'm not -praying-," she replies, her voice oddly calm. As Nahid draws her leg back, Kurenai is already rising, going into a low stance, her weapon suddenly not where it was--not across her knees--but in her hands, drawn back at head-level as she rises to a one-kneed stance, her right leg still on the ground, the ninja herself halfway risen up on her left foot.
As Nahid's foot is slamming forward, Kurenai's bokken is, too, in a remarkably similar attack. But where Nahid aims to take it a touch easy on the other girl, Kurenai is not feeling any such charity, for any reason at all. Her thrust is swift, fast, and sure, and her reach is what wins the day, as she makes contact with Nahid's bellybutton, thrusting her arms out to complete the attack, knocking the other girl away.
It is but a small victory in a world that requires a much larger set of victories... but it's all she has right now. She's back up in stance, by the time she's completed the thrust, drawing her weapon back to shoulder level, letting the tip bob with her movements. She offers no taunt, no verbal sparring, knowing that Nahid, while not coming away scot-free, still is in far better shape than either her or her partner Hotaru.
Speaking of whom--Kurenai glances over at the blue-haired kenpoist. "Are you alright, Futaba-san? Yurika-dono would never forgive me for letting you come to harm. You're very important to her." True? Not true? Who knows? Probably Kurenai herself doesn't.
"Holy shit," Nahid says, catching the chi burst and counterburst out of the corner of her eye. Maybe that distracted her from Kurenai. More likely she was just a little too slow.
Nahid lets out a sound closest to 'whoof' than anything else as the air is literally just smacked out of her, causing her to recoil back several steps. The mark just to one side of her navel is already reddening; Nahid may be able to strengthen her skin, but catching her by surprise makes it difficult to do that.
"Heh, about time," Nahid half-says, half-gasps. "You do hit pretty hard with that thing of yours! So let's - pick up the pace a little, huh?" She brings her hands up, palms open, hands stiffened into immobility and near-invulnerability.
She comes in surprisingly fast, a palm strike with her left hand followed by a chop from her right. At no time do both hands reach forward at once; she always keeps one of them back, presumably for defensive purposes. Frei is on his own for a while.
COMBATSYS: Frei blocks Hotaru's Hantentou.
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Frei 1/-------/=======|=------\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/-======|=------\-------\0 Hotaru
Unexpected, to say the least, but considering her reflexes and her stature, Frei should have known better than to try and match grappling with Hotaru. She might have the satisfaction of seeing genuine surprise (well, rueful surprise) as she gets him around the not-quite throat, then intends to kick-slam him into the floor, but at the last possible second Frei rights himself as he heads toward the ground and ends up landing feet-first rather than head or back first, which helps quite a lot to keep him from slipping into unconsciousness... though it really does look like that's where he's headed soon, as instead of walking backwards from Hotaru, he sort of... stumbles backwards instead, grimacing and clutching at his forehead a little.
"Heh... you know," he says to his opponent, looking up and brushing red bangs out of his eyes, "I'm glad it's you right now. Maybe I needed a reminder that I have to keep pushing myself if I want to see this through. I..." He pauses, then shakes his head, indicating Nahid with a gesture, "...*we* saw something... pretty terrifying, in the subway. To be honest, part of me saw it and thought I couldn't do this anymore, that... that it was too big for me." Briefly, he remembers telling Alma the very same thing back in Kyoto, what seems like forever ago now. That he was scared, that all of this was taking place in a realm Frei had no purpose being in.
Closing his eyes a moment, Frei holds out his hand, and seven small motes of white light appear in it, swirling around each other chaotically. When he opens his eyes, it's to smile. "Maybe I'm just stupid that way. You have to beat me down pretty hard before I rally, I guess... and you've really been succeeding at *that*," he says to Hotaru, laughing a little afterward. "But I have to see this through. Not even for... for Jiro and Alma, or the people of Taizhou or anything, but because I said I would and because there's so few people who can, I think."
Having said all he desires to say, Frei gets on with the business of seeing this through. With a flick of the wrist, the seven lights streak out toward Hotaru in a rough line, then shoot downward... not at her, but into the ground. With a shout of "...Ha!", Frei brings his hand in an upward motion, and the spaces where the spheres dropped into the ground suddenly erupt upward in pillars of light, looking to sear Hotaru with radiant damage (save ends).
COMBATSYS: Hotaru effortlessly dodges Frei's Hokuto Rekkoudan.
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Frei 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 0/-------/-======|=------\-------\0 Hotaru
Frei's ability to keep from being dropped off his feat leaves Hotaru wondering if he's subtely manipulating some earth chi to keep himself well rooted to the ground in some way. She pauses to watch the monk recover, impressed as always at his ability to weather an incredible storm of relentless attacks. Just attacking him is wearing her out, let alone the staggering hits she's taken throughout the match. Stopping for a moment to catch her own breath, she watches the red-head evaluate his own motivations.
"None of this is going to be easy," she agrees, her tone subdued, as if she's half-distracted wondering just what it is he and his partner experienced in the subway. What unpleasant things lurk beneath the streets of Taizhou? " And who's to say what is left to come in this twisted warzone. But you can do it." she continues, pulling herself together, standing up straight, hands in front, palms roughly toward each other. "I've seen you do many great things, Frei. Seeing this through will just one of many similar accomplishments for you."
She laughs shortly at the remark about applying the necessary workover for him to really pull himself together, "You knew I wouldn't ever make it easy either." She slips one foot back a little, body tensing, as instinctually she prepares for the shifting of chi happening from Frei's direction. Part of the girl's success in fighting has been due to her ability to read incoming attacks based on the styles and patterns of her opponents. It lets her stay one step ahead, to compensate for not being able to weather the same number of blows as her peers.
Understanding this aspect of her demanding style of martial arts is the only way to understand her escape from Frei's well designed attack. Hotaru stays put as the spheres fly out, seven orbs of light that drop to the floor around her. Hotaru tenses, crouching slightly, and then the ground erupts, blindingly bright energy shooting upward in the form of an unescapable barrage.
Unescapable, that is, but for the narrow opening between two of them that the pig-tailed fighter leaps through, twisting her body into a pirouette as the chi explodes behind her. Her conversion from leaping to freedom into a forward sprint loses not a bit of the momentum she had already generated from her evasion. And it is with that momentum that she charges Frei.
Perhaps she catches him off guard long enough to secure a grip on his own arm with her hands. Or maybe he's left open long enough by this aggressive assault that she's able to launch into the rapid series of quick kicks up the front of him, using his thigh, stomach, chest, and shoulder like unfortunate steps to be ascended before springing into a backflip back toward the Sanctum floor. "Ya, ya, ya!"
COMBATSYS: Nahid successfully hits Kurenai with Stone Hand Soul.
Glancing Blow
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Frei 0/-------/-------|==-----\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 1/-------/=======|=------\-------\0 Hotaru
She slips one blow--but not the other, the right chop cracking across her jaw, dropping her to one knee. "Sorry," she mumbles, through a suddenly very sore jaw, "All out of Pace... just got the generic brand picante sauce." It seems pretty nonsensical, and it is, and that's at least partly because Kurenai is wavering on the edge of bad health and unconsciousness. It even takes a moment before she blinks her eyes, seeing Nahid (at least one) in front of her.
"... still here, huh?" she says, almost resignedly. "Right... guess it ain't over 'til the fat lady sings, or something," she says, blinking rapidly a couple of times... then twisting, putting herself through a three-sixty degree turn which brings her weapon around at head level for Nahid, going from Kurenai's left to her right--an attack further potentially followed up on by an attempt to continue that spin, to hook her right leg around Nahid's neck and slam her face into the ground.
Despite her logyness, her mind -is- still working as fast as it can. The question is, will the body cooperate?
COMBATSYS: Nahid blocks Kurenai's Charged Combo.
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Frei 0/-------/-------|=------\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 1/------=/=======|=------\-------\0 Hotaru
Kurenai's body cooperates enough to spin the sword around, at least. Nahid catches it with her bare hands; though the flesh has the approximate yield of stone, she feels her wrist twist in a way it shouldn't as she slams it away from her. The chi doesn't help. That stuff stings!
Anchored like this, she can keep from being thrown, though being kicked in the face is not an impossibility. Nahid leans backward to try to avoid the worst of it, because a boot to the head is never pleasant no matter who you are.
"I figured that'd put you down too," Nahid says - and with little fanfare, sweeps one leg horizontally to smash into the side of Kurenai's. It's not /too/ hard, but Nahid figures that dropping her will encourage her to stay down. After that, she can deal with Hotaru...
COMBATSYS: Hotaru successfully hits Frei with Shin-Jou Tai.
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Frei 0/-------/---====|=------\-------\0 Kurenai
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Nahid 1/------=/=======|====---\-------\0 Hotaru
He can't help but shake his head sadly as Hotaru weaves through the narrow gap in his attack... sadly because of course, he wants to connect, but he can still respect her for having the ability to do so. The redhead is reflective about the situation, and even murmurs something barely audible as he considers the situation. "Sometimes the mountain wins," he murmurs, watching his opponent, "sometimes the wind." In a weird way, Frei vs. Hotaru is a bit like watching erosion, sped up. Wind and waves will wear down the mountain, over time. The question is if the mountain can endure until the wind gives up. Today... well, the wind didn't give up.
She's running back at him, but the sword-sage's forearms and legs ache with the constant battering that fending off Hotaru's strikes has required. There's no way he's going to be able to soak another hit... he's got to buck up and get out of the way. Thankfully, he's just as alert and energetic now as he was at the start of the fight... maybe more. Sadly, Hotaru's speed is undeniable in this instance. Frei backsteps away from her, but he doesn't make it far enough; the first of Hotaru's 'steps' lands on his shin and from that point, getting away from the strike is basically impossible. One, then two, then three steps, and the flip, and Frei is left to stumble backwards across the TV-floored lobby of Sanctum, eyes squinted shut in pain and a hand pressed down over his stomach.
He spares a second to look at Nahid and Kurenai. Good... Nahid seems okay. Perhaps she can still pull it out? But as far as Frei's concerned, the win or the loss doesn't matter much. As he said to Hotaru, what's important is that he keeps going on, and he's pretty sure he can at this point. "Nice of you to say so," he says to Hotaru's compliment, voice a little breathy with fatigue. "Hey... do me a favor, okay?" He starts to stand up straight, a little wobbly, but manageable. His hand comes up and he points it forward, palm out, his other hand gripping the opposite elbow. "Whatever wish you make... make it a good one."
He's only going to get one shot, and even that probably will be too hampered by Frei's flagging stamina to do much good, but if he can just give Nahid one last chance, it'll be at least a little bit of repayment for what she did for him in the sewers. "And... I don't have to make it easy for you, either." His hand flares blue-white for a second, and then the air around Hotaru starts to chill quite rapidly... it's not the near-instant flash freeze he can usually do, but the sudden storm of ice is still quite quick. Hopefully the numbing burst will strike home.
Afterwards, the sword-sage ducks forward a bit, and then ends up sitting on the floor, clutching his stomach with both hands. Not quite unconscious, but thoroughly out of the fight.
COMBATSYS: Frei can no longer fight.
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Nahid 1/------=/=======|=------\-------\0 Kurenai
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Hotaru 0/-------/---====|
COMBATSYS: Hotaru dodges Frei's Hatsuyuki.
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Nahid 1/------=/=======|=------\-------\0 Kurenai
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Hotaru 0/-------/---====|
And so ends another match between the two. Far from the first, and, Hotaru hopes, far from the last. There will be time again for such thrilling duels in months to come once they all safely return home from this ruined place. Hotaru lands gracefully, following her acrobatic backflip, feet touching lightly against the ground as she releases her breath. From the moment of evasion to her careful landing, she had no chance to even breath.
But now that part of the fight is over. Surviving the steady, consistant onslaught from Frei was one part of the match. Now to learn of the style of Nahid. She doesn't have much time to figure it out either. The other girl has been persistant in dealing with Kurenai's attacks. Given the ability the pink-haired ninja exhibited against rival ninja, Ibuki, the fact that Nahid has held up so well is a testament to how capable she must be.
"Yeah." Hotaru exhales, pausing, resting her hands on her knees to proper herself up for a moment after flipping a pig-tail back over her shoulder. "If it comes down to Kurenai and me, I will." Frei is not without his parting gift, however, demanding Hotaru cut her rest short as the air around her bristles with a snap of energy. "I know," laughter is in her voice as Frei makes his last attack. Not a mocking sound but rather one of understanding the exchange between them for what it is; that need to challenge each other, for their own sake, and for the benefit of the other.
Kicking into a backward hand spring, she lands just outside the radius of the cold phenomenon in a three point crouch. The mist of the flash frozen air dissipates and the Kenpo artist's focus shifts to focus on Nahid.
In a moment, she'll rejoin the fight and the match will resume at its aggressive speed even if it does come down to being between just the two of them.
COMBATSYS: Hotaru gains composure.
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Nahid 1/------=/=======|=------\-------\0 Kurenai
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Hotaru 0/-------/-----==|
COMBATSYS: Nahid successfully hits Kurenai with Light Kick.
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Nahid 1/-----==/=======|===----\-------\0 Kurenai
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Hotaru 0/-------/-----==|
She's going down--but she's not going down easily. The kick slams into her side, and she smiles, briefly. "Really thought... I might be able to pull this one out," she remarks, to no one at all. Certainly not to Nahid, who has earned a place on a very short list--not that Nahid would care about that. Kurenai herself hasn't really determined the existence of said list.
She will, when she comes to, but for now... she stiffens her spine, with the fading embers of consciousness she has, and she charges at Nahid, aiming to slam a shoulder into her, and follow up with a midsection thrust of the bokken. After that--after that stumbling attack, more desperation than skill invested in it--then she can fall over, fall to her knees, and at least have the comfort of rest and semi-unconsciousness.
If she could, she might almost apologize to Hotaru. This fight was clearly -not- her best, and she can't deny it...
COMBATSYS: Kurenai can no longer fight.
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Nahid 1/-----==/=======|==-----\-------\0 Hotaru
COMBATSYS: Nahid dodges Kurenai's Demon's Charge.
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Nahid 1/-----==/=======|==-----\-------\0 Hotaru
If Kurenai was moving at the top of her game, still, Nahid would have been easy prey. She's slowed down by her own injuries, sore, stiff. Not tired, though; she's paced herself pretty well.
But no matter how stiff she is, Kurenai got the short end of that stick. Nahid moves backwards, not punching Kurenai in response so much as guiding her around with her hands, avoiding being charged by letting her charge the spot next to her. "Sorry, kid. Maybe next time," she says - and then she focuses on Hotaru.
Hotaru, who hasn't quite been running circles around Frei but has certainly been more than holding her own. Nahid knows she's not quite in that class... but that doesn't stop her from trying.
Darting forward with as much speed as she can muster, Nahid leaps and spins as she approaches, delivering a whirling flying kick. That's all well and good, but she loosens her joint as she does, then snaps it back; her heel whirs through the air a lot faster than it really ought to. "Coming through!"
COMBATSYS: Hotaru effortlessly dodges Nahid's Falling Water Reach.
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Nahid 1/-----==/=======|==-----\-------\0 Hotaru
Hotaru did not have the opportunity to watch the fight between Nahid and Kurenai as closely as she would have liked. On some level, she chides herself for not moving to aid her partner as much as she might have been able to. Maybe Kurenai would still be standing now. But Frei was every bit her own peer and someone she had to apply the full gamut of her skills against in order to stay even a fraction of a step ahead. As fast as she may be, she just couldn't be in both places at once.
But now Nahid has her whole attention and the Kenpo artist, battered some, isn't finished with this match yet. The other girl makes her move, charging in before kicking up into a spin kick thta is deceptive in its trajectory. "Very well," Hotaru muses, watching the attack closely, reading every nuance of the movement, then making her own counter-step to avoid it.
Had she been even a fraction later, she would have missed the twist at the end - the point at which Nahid's limb moves as it shouldn't have been able to, and would have been clocked in the head for her trouble. But as it stands, she scrapes by unstruck, her pig-tails trailing a split second behind.
Her evasion is minimalist, making it so that she loses as little ground as possible, leaving her extremely close to Nahid's landing point to launch her counter attack. She doesn't even exactly turn around, instead kicking her right leg out into an arc that trails from her side to behind her in an almost reverse roundhouse. But it isn't the sweeping leg that Nahid need worry herself about, but rather the swath of azure chi that billows out in its wake to deliver a point blank attack. "KYA!"
COMBATSYS: Hotaru successfully hits Nahid with Kobi Kyaku.
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Nahid 1/--=====/=======|====---\-------\0 Hotaru
Nahid hits the ground with one foot leading and lets it whirl her around so that she is dealing with Hotaru's attack from the front, not the back. It is about all that protects her, honestly; if she hadn't done the fast turn, the leg and the wash of chi it kicks up would have hit her right in the rear.
Instead it hits the side of her hip with enough force to send Nahid staggering to the side with a yelp but not /quite/ enough to knock her over. She might be able to strengthen the skin and joints of her hands, but she has not yet managed it with her hips, and she's going to have a hell of a bruise there tomorrow.
Hotaru can't feel Nahid starting to gather her power; it isn't chi, it doesn't look or feel like it. But all that energy that Nahid suffuses her body with gets focused - shoved, really - into just one of her arms, focusing on the hand. The fingers start to twitch and vibrate; the pressure in the palm becomes overwhelming as Nahid shoves it at Hotaru's stomach, fingers spread, with a grunt rather than the scream of effort she usually puts out.
It impacts like a jackhammer, or perhaps a speeding car; enough force to literally pick up and launch someone much bigger than Hotaru is as Nahid's elbow and wrist ache under the strain. Nahid herself looks much more comfortable when her muscles are not forced to hold more power than they really should be able to; her entire right arm is sore from shoulder to fingertip now. Even more if she hit, when the palm of her hand feels like she just hit a stone wall. Or worse; Nahid can break walls down if you give her long enough.
COMBATSYS: Nahid successfully hits Hotaru with The Mountain Stands Alone.
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Nahid 0/-------/-------|=======\-------\0 Hotaru
Nahid wasn't the focus of Hotaru's attention for most of the fight. Not with having to paying attention to Frei every step of the way. Thus it is that she hadn't realized one very important point - the unknown element of the fight wasn't fighting with chi. Sure she had noticed the very rare flash of energy here and there in the exchanges with Kurenai, but when fighting against someone with such overwhelming capacity to manipulate chi as the monk, it's easy to miss not sensing the other fighter's energy signiture.
Here and now, however, it's quick obvious, and Hotaru's eyes widen slightly with the realization that the power building in Nahid's forearms isn't as readily defended against as Frei's. All the same, she draws her arms up, turning her side toward Nahid, as she tries to fend off the strike and reduce it to at most a glancing blow. No such luck, as the other girl strikes lower than Hotaru had prepared to guard against, the imbued fist impacting beneath her arms with crushing force.
The impulse of the contact provokes a started yelp of surprise from Hotaru as the smaller fighter is knocked into the air, folded over by the blow. Even disoriented by the jarring pain, Hotaru manages to curl up into a flip that allows her to take control over her unintended flight and then slam her feet down to slide into a skid across the sanctum floor. Coming to a stop, Hotaru rests her hands against her side, requiring a moment before she can suck in her breath once again. Exhaling, she shakes her head quickly. "Some punch," she observes under her breath.
Winded, but not out, she charges right back, however, springing into a horizontal cartwheel that has her attempting to kick Nahid with her feet in passing. She'll land on her left foot before kicking off into an equally swift second cartwheel, trying to strike the other girl solidly!
COMBATSYS: Hotaru successfully hits Nahid with Medium Kick.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////// ]
Nahid 0/-------/--=====|=======\-------\1 Hotaru
"It's a hell of a punch," Nahid agrees, still trying to get some feeling back in her hand that isn't 'tingly pain'.
Perhaps the distraction is what leaves her open. More likely Hotaru is just better than she is; for all Nahid's astounding performance tonight, she's still not terribly experienced on the world stage. Sure, she's practiced for years, but practice isn't quite the same thing.
The first one of the cartwheeling kicks catches Nahid on the arm rather than dead center. It is enough to stagger her slightly, though, and leave her wide open for the second one, which /does/ hit her solidly in the gut with enough force to send her reeling back almost a yard. She hit the bruise Kurenai left there. It stung.
But she stays up. Not by much, but she does. Nahid's lips curl back into an almost feral grin. "Not out yet, midget," she says, essaying a quick step forward, then a second - and then her leg snaps out at maximum extension, jabbing at Hotaru's gut with her heel to give her a matching bruise to Nahid's own.
COMBATSYS: Hotaru effortlessly dodges Nahid's Falling Water Reach.
[ \\\\\\\\\\\\ < > ////////// ]
Nahid 0/-------/--=====|=======\-------\1 Hotaru
The two cartwheeling kicks connect before Hotaru lands on her right foot, spinning down into a crouch, arms at her sides for balance. The girl seems to be sticking close to Nahid, taking a chance that she can out-step the other girl's attacks with her own renown speed. Given the strength behind the other girl's techniques, she knows she can't slip up much more and stay standing. Between the attacks she's weathered thus far, she's got her own fair share of aches and pains.
She maintains this position as Nahid grins back, meeting her eyes with a focused stare of her own. "How did Frei get stuck with someone so rude, I wonder." She grunts, "I have a name!" She doesn't get to speak much more on the matter as Nahid makes her move and Hotaru rises up, as if lunging into the kick, willing to take the chance of trading blows perhaps.
But at the last second, when it seems she's about to take a heel to the stomach in a most painful manner, Hotaru spins out of the way of the attack, weaving even closer in against Nahid in the process. In the same instant, she's barely airborn, her hands flaring to light with a sapphire blue chi. In the space of time faster than an eyeblink, Nahid will find herself targeted by two sets of rapid, windmilling palm strikes, each blow charged with a touch of chi that leaves blue, spiraling trails in the air through the path her hands follow.
Should her assault break through the other girl's guard, Hotaru will finish by driving her shoulder into the other girl with enough force to possibly send her sprawling before springing up into the air and diving back down into her opponent, her entire body aglow with that same bright, vibrant chi for one final crashing impact.
If she manages, she'll slide to a stop a little ways later, the burst of energy dimming rapidly as she ceases to focus on it.
COMBATSYS: Hotaru successfully hits Nahid with Sou-shou Tenrenge.
[ \ < > ////////// ]
Nahid 1/-======/=======|-------\-------\0 Hotaru
"Yeah, but I can't remember it."
And that really tells you everything you need to know about Nahid.
Nahid has never had to fight anyone so /fast/ as Hotaru. She barely has time to respond to her kick going wide by planting her foot again, using the momentum to take a step forward - directly in the path of the windmilling palm strikes.
That hurts. The chi makes it worse; Nahid does not have any idea how to defend herself against it short of using her hands to force it away, and she already blew her chance to do /that/ when she got so close. It sends her reeling, then rolling when the shoulder impacts across the ground - then grunting, painfully, when Hotaru slides her across the ground for quite some distance on her back.
It is all Nahid can do, at the end, to reach up with her tensed left hand. She doesn't punch so much as swing, discharging every iota of power in her entire body in one impossibly strong strike... which causes her eyes to roll up as she passes out, exhausted, having used her psychometabolistic powers to torment her muscles more than she ever has before.
COMBATSYS: Nahid can no longer fight.
[ \\\\\\\\\\ <
Hotaru 0/-------/-------|
COMBATSYS: Hotaru blocks Nahid's The Mountain Stands Alone.
[ \\\\\\ <
Hotaru 0/-------/-------|
The Kenpo artist's assault is relentless and reflects one aspect of her fighting style - an unending flurry of blows that keep her opponents on the defensive in hopes that it cuts down on their chances to smack her down effectively. One of the fastest fighters there is, the girl isn't so good at taking hits from opponents. In this case, staying close to Nahid seems to pay off as her aggressive combination of attacks lands cleanly.
She slides to a stop in close proximity of Nahid, exhaling as she finds herself exhausted by the grueling match and sudden burst of exhertion on her part. She's only barely starting to push herself up into a standing position when Nahid launches another one of her crushingly powerful punches. This time Hotaru is ready, however, more aware of what it is she faces than the last time.
Drawing back, the girl raises her hand palm forward and braces it at the wrist with her other hand. It happens so fast as to be easily missed - the flicker of chi, the last burst of energy Hotaru can possibly muster for the match, that manifests in the form of a small barrier between her and Nahid's psi-imbued fist.
Even with such defenses, the barrier of chi is shattered and Hotaru is sent staggering backward, arms flailing as her guard is smashed right through again. The girl loses ground, sliding to a stop, wincing at the pain in her forearms after weathering another one of Nahid's punishing attacks.
But she's still standing, and for a moment it looks like she's ready to charge right back and take another shot at beating Nahid even if she can barely breath after the last exchange of attacks. But as her eyes focus, her vision clearing of the blurriness that was threatening to overtake her. The girl exhales, stumbling forward only to catch herself with her hands against her knees. "Well," Hotaru murmurs. "I guess that's that." In any normal tournament, she would understand this to be the part where she could wave to the crowd and walk off to the locker room.
This isn't any normal tournament though, and upon perceiving that her team achieved victory, the girl just looks a little unsure as to what should happen next. Taking in her breath, Hotaru stands up straight again, pressing both hands together and bowing her head, "Thank you for the challenging match, Frei, Nahid. And thank you for sticking it out, Kurenai. I'm sure we'll be pulled together again soon." With that, the girl shakes her head, wipes her brow with her forearm, and takes off toward the doors leading further into the sanctum. She has a change of clothes and a shower waiting for her back at her room.
COMBATSYS: Hotaru has ended the fight here.
Log created on 18:10:32 05/23/2010 by Frei, and last modified on 14:00:18 05/31/2010.