Great Dojo

[Kotomine_Rin]

Vega

The ground screeched as the claw circled madly around his steps, and with no warning, he dashed right under the falling warrior. Ducking like a serpent, he already his fangs upwards to cut the man's back as he fell.  If nothing stopped him, he'd dash to the other side and use the wall to jump above the man before he regained his footing.

[yinsukin]

Young man

The young man recoiled at the slash, but maintained his position as he fell, all up until the end, landing with perfect grace on the ground.  He took a stance, arms up ready to defend against his assailant.

"I'll admit, i'm impressed.  No wonder you lasted so long against Vanilla.  But your a fool if you think the art of chi is as easy as a game of survival with that woman."

[Kotomine_Rin]

Vega

As his leap carried him to the ceiling of this stone arena, he mused with a voice as sweet as honey.

"Chi... hrm, so that is its name. How intriguing, I had heard of it a few years ago - back in my own world, under that Ferdinand's employ. It's a facet of eastern martial arts, is it not? At the time, I believed it was nothing but a hoax... but perhaps..."

Before the stones could deform and crack around him, he already hit the wall and bounced off it with a kick - changing the trajectory of his strike to slash at his calf and jump back into the air. Using this constricted arena, he was dashing from wall to wall... using his jumps to deliver shallow cuts on his body.

"It matters not. You can show me more of that power as you die fighting. I am done playing games of survival; Tonight, I live." 

[yinsukin]

Young Man

Strange he felt wet.  A red liquid trickled from his fingers into the ground.  The white gee he was wearing became red with the blood flowing down his back.  Light stings pumped along with the blood in his body.

Cuts, blood, damage.

Whips


An open sky, the entire world laid out before the young man's eyes.  The sun, the skies, the clouds: they all seemed so different now.  The heavens which always seemed so close now felt so far away.  The tall built young man now felt so small.

The strange thing was he should have felt beaten, bruised, sliced to ribbons.  Yes, a loss like this was normally punctuated by the deep wounds and broken bones, yet it was only his spirit that fell.  Mind falls before body perhaps, or maybe body gives out when the mind fails.

"Damn it all...."


Slashes clinged as they struck the iron like aura, the young man focusing his energies on defense.  Muscles tensed and became supernaturally hard, the very energy of the world around him flowing into his feet then spreading around his body.  There wasn't even a shallow cut this time.

"Whether you survive or thrive...."

A hand rose and with it the ground.  Outlines of dozens of circles coated the ground around them before rising into the air.  Blood splattered, a claw mark appearing on his chest.  In that moment, one blow penetrated his armor.  However, in that moment, the air would be filled with a chunky blizzard of boulders.

"..thats not your choice!"

[Kotomine_Rin]

Vega

...! As circles appeared beneath his feet, he only had a moment to act. However, he already showed that trick - and because of that, he was able to defend against it.

The cage of stone shattered like paper, and with it, a storm of boulders erupted from beneath them both. Without delay, he dashed and latched onto the bottom of one of the stones, using it as a shield to avoid hitting the wall,  and before he knew it, he was back amongst the heavens. Surrounded by rocks that threatened to erupt and crush him utterly, he suddenly noticed it. A boulder must have scraped him on the way, his claw-arm was bleeding ever so slightly.

My bones and muscles are fine. But I can't get too careless. Despite this display, he seems to be a classical fighter type. I need to avoid an extended infight.

But a stepping stone is a stone, no matter how you phrase it. This ability was worth nothing more than trash beneath his feet, and it's only value was elevating him to new heights. So he jumped across the boulders, keeping an eye on his opponent to reposition himself.

[yinsukin]

Young Man

He's playing it cautious.....  But so am I....  The first one to make a false move will be at a disadvantage....  How will you react to this?/i]

It wasn't the same trick as before, rather this was the equivalent of a feint.  The man bounced around the rocks, but he had already been doing that.  There was a radius he occupied, a cage he had trapped the young man in.  It was a beautiful technique, but just predictable enough to be taken advantage of.  With a slamming down of his hands, the rocks clumped together into a massive dome, trapping them both.  The dome began to shrink, forcing the battle into close quarters.  Vega's acrobatics were impressive, but they meant nothing in a close quarters beat down.

I call check.

The young man took a battle stance, arms raised above his head, knees slightly bent.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Vega

Oh? Before he knew it, the world turned upside down. He only had a moment to realize what was happening, and when he did, he smiled.

CRASH!!

Now, not even light could escape. A slight tremor warned of the shrinking arena, but what cut the silence was a dry chuckle... and the sound of two hands clapping. Vega was standing above the man, hanging upside-down while applauding his entertainment.

"Marvelous. Not an ugly performance in the slightest." The masked man sounded pleased, and with a snap of his finger, some kind of object appeared - not that his opponent could probably tell from this distance while in the dark. Yet in a moment, his claw was lit ablaze like a brilliant star.

He dropped the lighter at the man's feet, enjoying the echo of the thud on the ground.

About two seconds... at the speed of its fall... I see. So that is the distance I need to cross. And it seems to be shrinking...fu fu fu. Without warning, the matador was already on the move, running across the ceiling to slide down with his claw. The sparks, the feeling of metal against stone-

"But do you think it's wise? To trap yourself with me?"

The scent of sweat and battle. That was beauty. Arching and swirling, the claw harked for the man's neck.

[yinsukin]

Young Man

Something metal?  Its small, light, perhaps a box carrying something, he thought, keeping his eyes focused on the man.  He wouldn't be distracted by this man's tricks.  This sort of petty redirection would work on him!

"Wisdom is overrated," he said, catching the hook of the claw with an outside block.  The man leaned back, raised his knee and prepared a side kick to the face.  "What matters is the willingness to act!"

This moment would be the one that decides the flow of this battle, perhaps even the outcome.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Vega

His burning claw had been blocked flawlessly by the man's hook - with no warning to the hurricane that foretold of the man's monstrous kick. And yet, the moment it reached Vega's head, it phased through him.

Was Vega some kind of ghost!?

Not in the slightest. He shifted his knee to evade the kick with as little movement as possible. This kept his axis in the same position, giving off the illusion that he didn't move at all. And as the meteor kick overshot its target, his other hand struck above its gastrocnemius muscle. The hand that wasn't burning, that hadn't been the focus of his attacks until now. The one you'd least suspect to tear straight through a tendon.

But Vega's fingers could pierce straight through a peer's bone, and sever their limbs. If he aimed it right, he could at least snap that behemoth's joint. Simultaneously, Vega delivered a sweeping kick to unbalance his foe, as he only stood on one leg.

[yinsukin]

Young Man

A sweep?  It wasn't strong enough to...

A warm liquid trailed down his calf.  He knew that feeling all too well: blood.  Something sharp had pierced his leg, dug into the muscle.  It hurt to move, but it wasn't any harder.  The cut was shallow.

The young man suddenly saw the sky above him, the eyes within the mask looking down on him.  Catching his hands on the ground, he pumped the earth with mana, causing the earth behind Vega to draw dozens of circles.  With his cheek pressing into the ground and his hips in the air, he sent a side kick aimed straight at Vega's face.  Meanwhile, spikes shot up from the earth, threatening to skewer the matador from the back.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Vega

A kick... from this unstable position? The earth trembled, barely warning him of the incoming spikes - but the foot was already launched to intercept him. With a cold gleam in his eyes, the masked man's hand darted through the air like a wave before zipping by the foot. No, something was different about this.

Did you think striking was all I could manage?

Rather than clashing with the blow to intercept it, he gently stroked it with a guiding hand - and threw the force of his foe's kick haywire. With Vega's own strength added to the blow, he forced the man to hurl upwards, only to throw him against the spikes with a followed-up grab. To defend against their piercing power, he'd go as far as using his own foe as a shield.

[yinsukin]

Young Man

Huh?

The man's leg was suddenly off course.  All he saw was the leg off to the side.  There was a cold gleam hidden just behind the mask.  He couldn't tell if that was focus or some sort of passionless murderous intent.  It was at this moment that the man understood the true terror of fighting a personality like this.

But thats not all-

Before the thought could be finished, the world began to spin.  Spikes sank into the young man's back, his entire torso limp in the face of the pain of the spikes sinking into his back.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Vega

It's over.

But he didn't stop in his tracks for a second. Taking full advantage to seize the moment, he ran like thunder after the hurled man and performed a cartwheel flip to close the gap with a single leap. With the momentum of his body, he launched himself and slammed upside down on the man's chest, sinking his claw into his ribs.

Even if he could survive this, his strategy had already been executed. This was only the final step before the fall.

[yinsukin]

Young man

Yes... its over.

The man suddenly sprung back to life mere moments before the claw reached his ribs.  Blood spluttered from his chest, shooting into Vega's face.  A hand wrapped around the man's forearm, yanking it to the side.  His palm vibrated fast enough that a low hum filled the air.

Magnitude 6!

The truth was, he only started learning magic recently.  The magic was as strong as Vega's blows.  Powerful, but not strong enough on their own to do vital damage.  Indeed, while his own spikes pierced both his chi defenses and his skin, it stopped once it hit his bones.  If the attack had been aimed somewhere squishier like his stomach or a pressure point, it would have done far more lasting damage.

The young man's legs came up, each thigh attempting to wrap around the man's hips.  Assuming the counter move succeeded, he would  Use only the sheer strength of his abs, he would fling him behind him in a perfect moon like arc, slamming him face first into the ground behind the spikes.

[Kotomine_Rin]

Vega

"WHAT!?" His body instinctively tried to back away, but he was one step too late. Without solid footing, he couldn't change his momentum in time. That is why those limbs snapped around his body, trapping him with all their might. "How dare..."

And like the moon, his opponent rose again.

The slam that launched him straight into the ground was unlike anything he ever felt. The air didn't even get to boom before his body hit the ground and caved it utterly. And yet, with a graceful struggle, Vega rose again, unveiling his face as he turned around. The blow was so terrific, it managed to shatter a quarter of his mask, revealing a hateful eye, wide open and filled with psychotic glee.

SWOOOOSH!!

"I felt that." His mask broken, it had managed to save his flawless expression from a bloody fate. But what came next was a man darting through the spikes to misdirect his opponent, shifting his momentum unpredictably to confuse him.

The claw's blades launched from the gaps in the man's vision, aiming for his eyes, jugular, liver and stomach.