trans_9 | Choose your destiny! Flawless victory! [Inevitable Tournament Arc]

No sooner did the Obs Deck descend to Arena Planet LXIII, and the crew allowed to disembark, than they were met by a veritable cloud swarm of cameras. Sleek, elegant things that might have been living, might have been machines, maybe were even magical... but were definitely nuisances as the swooped around to capture video of the crew at all conceivable angles, close up and far away. Their every move from this point on would be on camera.

In front of a small crowd of retainers stood what appeared to be a great circular orb whose only distinguishing features were a nose, and what appeared to be the most overblown mustache ever, which actually appeared to be supporting that two-foot-diameter orb at shoulder height to a tall man. Then the orb took a couple of steps forward,revealing that no, those were actually just really, really hairy legs. A seam cracked open on the creature, and in a voice loud enough to echo across the broad open plains without any need for amplification, it bellowed, "AND NOW! STRAIGHT FROM THE TRANSMIGRATION NINE VESSEL! OUR NEWEST COMPETITORS! FRESH TO THE STAGE OF BATTLE, BUT NO STRANGERS TO WAR--"

It went on like this for some time.

Under cover of this introduction, a small man that to all appearances seemed to be the love child of Richard Nixon and a particularly aggressive Furby stepped forward, and in a bored businesslike tone recited, "Welcome to the tournament. There will be one battle per day. The arena in which you battle will be determined by random draw. Our medical crew will perform all healing necessary and ensure no deaths so feel free to not hold back. Please refrain from accepting any bribes or favors from on-planet spectators--"

"--ARE YOU READY?!" the orb bellowed even louder than before, completely swamping the smaller man's recitation. "THEN STEP THIS WAY!"

And so saying, the orb and its procession began a clearly well-choreographed procession towards a large, medieval-looking fortress that hung dramatically just on the edge of clear vision. (Conveniently, this procession passed several large advertisements.)

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A full moon.

Kyladriss bared her teeth in a humorless smile. Unless her opponent took similar advantage from this stage, the battle was practically won. For all it was probably illusion, she could feel the light of the full moon on her. She walked into the arena with her runeblade already in her hand, bone shield spinning around her. She was more than ready.

The foe she faced, for a moment, appeared to be nothing but a mummy -- a humanoid form wrapped entirely in bandages.

But then a bright gleam of silver cut through those bandages. From inside the wrappings, the blade curved up through them, until they fell away. Revealed now was an oddly pretty young man, his hand casually wrapped around the grip set into a massive crescent blade.

"Well. You aren't much for looks, are you?" he said with a cold smile. "I predict... I will win without you ever touching me."

He didn't think the nearly-seven-foot werewolf was anything special to look at, did he? Kyladriss would teach him to respect the Ebon Blade. "You should not make such boasts," she said. "One might be compelled to prove them wrong."

She concentrated on her death-sense and reached out, feeling for the strings that bound him in life. Once she felt them she grabbed hold and yanked, a shadowy hand extending from her arm and wrapping around him to pull him within her range. She readied her blade to strike as soon as he landed.

That wiped the smirk off his face in quite a satisfying manner, but he wasn't a total pushover -- no sooner did he realize he'd just lost the advantage of range than he brought Kaigetsu, the crescent moon sword, around to shield his front and parry her blow. As soon as he had his feet back underneath him, he launched his own attack, a blinding series of blows that moved the massive sword as if it weighed nothing more than moonlight in his hand.

Kyladriss parried or dodged the blows as fast as they came in - when one landed, it was thankfully consumed by her bone shield. He's fast, she thought.

If she couldn't land a proper blow, she could wear him down. She charged an unholy rune and loosed it, laying Death and Decay beneath their feet. The circle of unholy blight spread out around them, boiling red on the ground. To follow that up she struck with Outbreak, laying her diseases on him. Let him parry that.

"Ugh!" He shoved her back hard with his blade, at the same time pushing himself away so he could scurry backwards out of the Death and Decay. "What did you DO!?" he shouted through chattering teeth, sweat tinged with blood rolling down his forehead and cheeks. "You crude! Insolant -- bitch!"

In a fury, he hurled Kaigetsu at the death knight like a massive boomerang, the blade a lethal blur of shining silver as it spun through the air towards her.

The insult did not bother her. She'd been called worse - much worse, and not all of it in the heat of battle.

That blade singing her way through the air, though, that was a problem. Unable to dodge the blow, she raised her sword to deflect as much as she could. It took the rest of her bone shield, and to her surprise the force of it pushed through even her defenses. Thankfully, she was wearing armor, but the blow still bruised, and now he had too much distance on her.

She could not grip him closer for at least a few more seconds, but she could slow his movement. She charged another rune, one of frost this time, and sent Chains of Ice down her sword. He was fast, but Kyladriss had her worgen nature and the full moon on her side. While his movement would be slowed by the chains, her speed doubled as she tapped into that power to close the distance. One unholy rune and one frost rune down. She still had her blood runes, and she charged her blade with one, striking for his heart.

She almost had him. She SHOULD have had him -- then the whirling blade slapped back into his hand like a boomerang returning, and he knocked aside her strike with a furious smirk. "Chaining me down?! All you can use are your powers!" he said, eyes bright even as disease coursed through his flesh. "When it comes to swordsmanship, you have nothing!"

Kaigetsu became a blur around him again, its massive, broad blade striking from all directions at once.

Kyladriss could parry the blows from the front, but the blows from behind impacted - more than impacted, they hurt.

Something like that needed to stop. She had no idea how much of what he did was magic in any way, but she was getting tired of listening to him. "You talk too much," she growled, her back still stinging. She made a clenching motion with her hand, casting Strangulate. It didn't particularly matter to her whether or not it stopped him from from hitting her, but at least it would shut him up for a few seconds.

She charged her sword with death runes and retaliated, exhausting all of them with death strikes. She needed her blood shield. More than that, she needed to heal the damage he'd done to her.

Such was her foe's indignation on finding his breath no longer coming properly that she punched clean through his defenses at last, laying open a broad line on his cheek as he yanked his head back out of the way from more lethal consequence at the last moment. With the chains of ice adequately dissipated to allow it, Tsukishiro vaulted backwards, landing on the far edge of the platform. Or was it the edge? It was very visible beneath him.

His confident smirk had vanished, replaced with a sick, bloodthirsty glare as he yanked his sash free from his belt. "It isn't enough to just win now!" he sneered. "Now I need to make you suffer!"

With that, he drew the sash around himself. For a moment, his crescent blade shone like another moon in the sky... and then disappeared along with its wielder, swathed by the cloak's power of invisibility.

Stealth, was it? Kyladriss had a few tricks to deal with that.

She couldn't drop Death and Decay again for the moment; she'd used all her death runes building up her absorption shield. Blood runes, though - those she still had.

She knew better than to get near that edge, so she stood near the center and called a blood rune, sending it boiling out across the platform. If that didn't find him... well, she always had another one.

A wise strategy! An excellent strategy! And if it failed, it was only because Tsukishiro had chosen to launch his attack from air.

The sash billowed out from around him as he appeared behind and above her, almost perfectly silent as the massive crescent blade descended for her.

Choose your destiny! Flawless victory! [Inevitable Tournament Arc]

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