As time goes on again and again....

[Tenmatsu Tenimi]

((OPEN TO THE NEXT TO POST HERE))




Standing 7'5, very muscular build Tenmatsu stands on the road to the Citadel, his only weapon in his hand. His clothing is torn and battered, The shirt itself is black leather with red blotches all over it, torn and ripped. The pants themselves are same material with red blotches down to the knee then they somehow stop. the pants are of a cargo jean type yet made of leather. Along with the clothes there he also wears a chameleon cloak to help him blend in with the environment. The cloak is jet black yet in certian light it looks blue, in others red. The cloak can button down all the way the front of it, it has sleeves for his arms so he can wear it like a trenchcoat in the cold or when he wishes his body not to be seen.

"So.. this is the famed Citadel eh? Nothing fancy about it from what I see. What about you Sao?" as he looks down to his side and there stands a small Egyptian cat, pure black fur with glowing red eyes. "Tenmatsu, are you sure that this is the right place?" Sao says standing there eyeing Tenmatsu who is eyeing him back and smirking "Sao, I know this is the right place, if I want to become stronger, then this is the place so yeah"

Tenmatsu then grips the handle of his scythe tighter and turns his head forward and starts walking, passing other challengers as well. He stops and turns back to Sao and raises his hand and salutes him "Farewell friend, I shall be back shortly alright?" Sao blinks in acknowledgement and walks in the opposite direction for the time being.

So he gets to the Citadel and the old doors swing open, creaking loudly, hitting the wall behind them with a loud BOOM Tenmatsu then walks in raising his scythe to an attack stance, the handle now in both hands. But just as he gets no more then 10 feet in the door does a robed and small monk stop him "Hello, Demi-god of death, come to make a challenge?" Tenmatsu's eyes then widen and his jaw drops "Ho--how do you know who I am?" as he grips his scythe now tighter as if to strike the monk down for knowing who he is. "We the Ai'Brone monks know all that is to be known. Now please, follow me as we find you a room for you and your opponent."

Tenmatsu follows the monk but keeps his guard up, eyes ever wandering left and right down the hallway. They go left, they go right, they go up stairs and down stairs untill they get to a set of giant oak doors, about 3/4's the size of the entry doors "Demi-God, your arena awaits you, be cautious, the arena's around here are never the same so be warned" and with that, the monk left Tenmatsu to ponder and think of an arena.

Few moments pass and he opens the doors to the inside of a clock tower, to represent that Tenmatsu has been around through the ages. He looks at the tower full of gears and bolts, the kind you would see in a clock tower, the whole tower is now the battle field and a graveyard. So Tenmatsu walks to the middle of the giant coil in the middle and sits, knees bent over one another and arms crossed as well and closes his eyes, awaiting his opponent..

[Azazel Relizic]

Azazel walked up the long pathway to the Citadel, the place was huge.

“Hmm, how am I going to going to get money here?” Azazel thought to himself. He looked around, there were hundreds of people outside the Citadel, no doubt waiting to test their skills and prove their worth.

“Its pointless to come here, there is no way to get money here.” Azazel turned around and walked away, back down the long road into the small town that was outside of the citadel.

He was walking through the town when he saw a little shop, he started to think about how hungry he was, “Some meat would be nice” he said, with a grumble in his stomach, he turned and walked into the “restaurant”, it was a run down little shop, “probably don’t even have meat here” he thought.

Behind the counter was a young female, 24 by the looks, she smelled of liquor and cigarettes, probably from working here, there was no one else in the tavern, she looked a little excited to see someone come in.

“Good evening sir,” she said running up to him, “please be seated, ill have a menu out to you in a minutes, is there anything I can get you to drink?”

“Don’t think you have o negative do you?” he laughed as she looked confused, “ never mind sweetie, Ill just take some water.”

“yes sir” she said, running off to the back, she came back out with in a couple of minutes, bringing out a cup of water and a menu, “here you go sir,” she said giving the menu and water to Azazel

“Thank you but I wont be needing this, he said, handing her the menu, I want a hamburger, raw, if you will”

“Yes, sir,” she said, a bit confused, but she walked back behind the door and Azazel heard her muttering under her breathe, “ could anything get more weirder” she finished with the raw meat and brought it out to Azazel, with a smile on her face, “ here you go sir” she said handing him his hamburger.

“thank you sweetie,” he said, taking it from her and started to eat his food.

She stood there and watched him for a couple seconds, amazed that he ate the food raw. After a while she left and went behind the counter again, “if you need anything, just tell me.”

Azazel nodded his head, not really listening to her, there was another conversation he was hearing,

“So no one has been able to beat him?”
“its not that, no one has faced him.”
“Why?”
“Have you seen him? He’s huge, over 7 foot tall.”
“Wow. 7 foot? Is he good?”
“Don’t know, he’s just really intimidating, he carries around a scythe as a weapon.”
“Sounds like it, I wouldn’t want to face him.”

That’s when Azazel decided to go back to the citadel, maybe he could find some money there after all. He finished up his food and walked out the door,

“Umm, sir, you have to pay for your food” the female said as he walked out the door,

Not paying any attention to her, Azazel kept walking, motivated by the new challenge. He walked up the path to the citadel, the same people were there, but they talked about this new challenger,
“He is so huge,”
“ I heard he unbeatable”
“I don’t think he will be able to die.”
“All this for him and he hasn’t fought yet?”

As Azazael walked up to the door they swung open on there own and the was a Monk standing in the middle of the doorway,

“I know what you seek.”
“Then take me to him”
“As you wish, follow me”

The monk turned and walked down a long hall, up stairs, down stairs, it felt like forever, but finally he stopped in front of a door,

“This is it, who you seek is in here, but I warn you, the battlefield is already set, not even I know what it is, Good luck.” And the monk turned and walked away, leaving Azazel at this door, He reached for the door but it swung open and Azazel walked inside to face his opponent.

[Tenmatsu Tenimi]

At the sounds of the doors creaking open Tenmatsu stood straight up as he wipes the dust off. "Hello, you must be my opponent. My name is Tenmatsu Tenimi." At that he places his left arm across his lower stomach and bows in honor and respect. Tenmatsu then takes his scythe and stabs the handle into the ground so it stands straight up. He stands there, placing his hands together and cracking his ancient knuckles one by one."Ahh finally someone who thinks they can best Death himself." he says eyeing his unnamed opponent carefully


And with that said Tenmatsu grabs his scythe by the handle firmly with his right hand and pulls it out and goes and grips it with his left hand as well now. "This fight is for you, Agaiga" he whispers to himself, closing his eyes for a brief few seconds. His eyes shoot open faster then a flash of lightning and stares his opponet down, memorizing him, taking mental notes of things on the person. for example the weapons and where they are,like the five foot sword "got to watch for that" he says to himself.


As they stand there, no sound except that of the giant gears and bolts can be heard "So shall we dance or shall we waltz?" Tenmatsu says carefully studying the room, the location of the teeth on the coils.

Few moments pass and Tenmatsu then leaps up to the next highest coil and stands there eyeing his opponet now. "Lets dance compadre." he says loud enough that it echos through-out the arena.

[Azazel Relizic]

When Azazel walked through the door he noticed that the arena was in side a building, a clock tower to be exact, seeing the gears and bolts and all the stuff. In the middle of the room was his opponent, he was exactly like what everyone was talking about, he was over 7 foot tall, wearing all black, leather by the smell of it, and he had the scythe he heard people talking about. He was standing with the scythe in his hand, "Hello, you must be my opponent. My name is Tenmatsu Tenimi." Azazel didn’t really care what his name was, he just wanted to get the fight over with and get his money, if there was money involved, he hoped there was, he hated being sober, brought the thirst back, even stronger every time. In a swift movement he stabbed his scythe into the ground, and started cracking his knuckles.
"Ahh finally someone who thinks they can best Death himself." Death, hmm, probably not, maybe related to death, but definitely not Death, he still had a scent, and if they have a scent then they were still alive, probably just a Halfling, a demi-god, as they like to call themselves. "This fight is for you,Agaiga" he whispers, thinking that Azazel couldn’t hear him. Azazel started to look around the room, looking for advantage points, seeing some he starts to calm down his breathing and heighten his senses, “There could be a possibility that this could be interesting, but we shall see” he thought to himself, The demi-god said something else but Azazel wasn’t paying attention, he was too busy widening his horizon, his look at the whole arena, listening to every sound, every echo, it helped him decide where things where, like the echolocation , that bats use, he wasn’t sure if it was from the werewolf in him or the vampire, probably a mixture of both. With a start the demi-god jumped up on the next coil and waited for the fight to start.

“O, sorry, let me introduce my self first, I am Azazel Relizic, that’s all you need to know about me,” Azazel said, reaching for his throwing daggers, not his best skill but worth a shot for a distraction, with the blink of an eye, he had one unhooked and thrown towards the demi-god.

[Tenmatsu Tenimi]

((permission to bunny Tenmatsu granted as well))

As the dagger flies towards him he stands there as if he wanted to get hit by it; but at the last moment he sidesteps the dagger which hit the wall behind him. Tenmatsu looks back at the dagger and smirks and thinks "cheapskate move."

And with that thought in mind he starts to make his move and runs towards his now named opponet who looks like a worthy challenge.

As he gets within range of Azazel, Tenmatsu brings his scythe up and behind his back at an angle as if to cut his opponet in half. All that is on his mind right now is how well can he fight at this time and era.

Tenmatsu then stops running point blank and vaults over Azazel by using the scythe to stab the ground and heft himself over his opponet to get behind him. So now that he is behind his opponet he goes in for a quick grab, Tenmatsu's right arm around Azazel's neck and his left arm under Azazels left arm and over his right fist; hopefully causing his opponet to choak and lose his breath for a second; and a second is all it takes to either decide who wins, or who loses.

[Azazel Relizic]

The demigod had Azazel in some kind of choke hold, but it didn’t matter to Azazel since he was part vampire, he didn’t really have to breathe, but he liked to do it, made him feel normal. The demigod tightened his hold on Azazel , Azazel simply grabbed his arm and removed it, there felt like there was a steel arm wrapped around his throat, this demigod was strong, really strong, but Azazel managed to get out of the hold and jumped up to where the demigod just was, and when he was in mid jump he pulled out his two fighting daggers, the Vampiric teeth, he landed in a fighting stance, his left leg stretched out, his right leg bent at a 90 degree angle under him, arms in a defensive poster in front of him, waiting for anything, he had to be careful with this demigod, could be more dangerous then he thought.

[Tenmatsu Tenimi]

"pathetic wench" as Tenmatsu realizes his grip was broken. So he got free, proves he can fight. Tenmatsu then closes his eyes and places his right hand around the grip of his scythe and grips it, and grips it tight and lifts it up so that the blade is facing Azazel. He then raises the staff part of his scythe and grips it tight a little lower with his left hand. As he grips his scythe tight he raises his eyes and glares at his opponent who is not human "what are you?" he says mockingly.


As he says that he slowly walks to the edge of the giant gear, that is the arena he closely looks around for anything that can be sliced with this scythe; as he looks around something catches his eyes; a small gear that when knocked off will cause a chain reaction, causing gears and bolts and everything else around to collapse. So slowly not trying to give his plan away Tenmatsu slowly walks towards the gear, scythe in hands, ready to slash.

[Azazel Relizic]

"What am I?" Azazel repeated, more along the line of to himself than to anyone else. "That's a question I've heard for such a long time, I'm not really sure what I am." Memories of his fellow Lycans laughing at him, shunning him, turning him away from them, the Alpha male was the only one that would stay with him, through his horrific change. But they wont laugh again, not at him, different memories came to him now, this time memories of slaughter, murders, corpses burning, the smell of burning fur. "Enough of this, let us…Dance…. As you said" Azazel said, "I will supply the music." Looking up at the ceiling he let loose a howl that shattered the windows, cracked the gears, and shook the very foundations of the tower. Going back to his fighting stance, the gears wobbling, ready again for anything to happen, from any direction.

[Tenmatsu Tenimi]

Tenmatsu drops his scythe and tries to cover his ears from that 'things' howl; he does but his ear drums are already pounding away by the time he covers them, also while trying not to get hit by the glass from the windows. After the howl which turned the arena into a tomb for them both now.

As the glass falls and the howl dies down, Tenmatsu kneels down slowly trying not to move too fast due to a now pounding headache and grips his scythe with his right hand and stands, shaking but still standing. Raising his scythe to his side so it stands even with him he eyes this 'thing' that is his opponent. "Now I know what you are... You half-breed." Tenmatsu says now bringing his scythe to his front, gripping a lower part of the staff with his left hand and gripping it tight.

As he grips it with both hands he then slowly walks backwards, stepping on the glass, pieces cracking and breaking under Tenmatsu's weight till he gets to the other side and takes a second look around and sees gears shaking, bolts wobbling, coils spinning. He then turns his attention back to his foe and smirks "Yes, let us dance" as he takes a running start to his opponent; scythe poised to attack or defend

[Azazel Relizic]

As the demi-god began running toward Azazel, something he wasn’t expecting, usually when he unleashes his howl his opponent is stunned for at least 10 seconds afterward. So this was unusual, but the demi-god had his scythe ready to attack, in the running position, Azazel ran and jumped off the gear he was standing on, but the gear was wobbly, so when he ran and jumped it pushed down and threw off his jump a little, instead of landing behind the demi-god he landed about 5 feet to the left of him, “Damn it” after taking the shock of the land, he used his right foot to push off and lunged at the demi-god with his left dagger out, ready to strike and the right ready to follow up, he didn’t really think about what could have happened if it went wrong

[Tenmatsu Tenimi]

The wolf-vampire had made his move now, and was shocked that Tenmatsu is able to move; Tenmatsu could tell by Azazel's face; eyes wide jaw dropped.

"Not expecting that.. good" He says out loud to himself keeping his eye on the prize, Victory over him; and victory is the only path Tenmatsu will take out of this fight.

As the thing jumped down and landed out of the sight, and somewhere Tenmatsu did not predict. He lands 5 feet to Tenmatsu's left while the the gear that is the main arena wobbled left and right, throwing Him off balance, which means that Azazel could strike now.

And strike is exactly what he is doing, so as soon as he jumps down he quickly grabbed a dagger from his left side and charges Tenmatsu; eyes wide, light fading from the arena slowly which means the sun is fading; which is a good thing, hopefully........

As the thing lands to Tenmatsu's left he charges, dagger in hand running fast and agile. He gets up to Tenmatsu and goes for a slash across the lower torso, fast and deep.


Azazel manages to scrape against Tenmatsu's skin; cutting fast and hard, hard enough to cause a scar, a permanent scar...

Tenmatsu then grins and smirks as he eyes Azazel, Eyes bulging and glimmering from the dying light.

Tenmatsu then quickly brings his left hand, releasing it from the grip on his scythe handle and goes in and tries to either grab Azazel's right arm or his neck; either or will do. If he gets the neck, hopefully break it; The arm will simply jsut break and be useless for the rest of the fight...

[Azazel Relizic]

The demi-god let go of his weapon and this was the time that Azazel needed to take advantage of, but the demi-god was to fast, faster than he thought, the demi-god grabbed Azazel’s arm and with a grip like no other he snapped the bone in his forearm, the pain was there but Azazel never showed it, he snatched the his limp arm out of the demi-gods hand and with the left hand he slashed at the demi-god again, this time close enough to do more damage.

[Tenmatsu Tenimi]

Tenmatsu was successful, he at least was able to turn the tables and turn the advantage to his side.

Now the only bad thing that happened was he left himself wide open for an easy kill move that could easily end this for him. An attack that could nearly cuts his lower neck right open, right where the neck becomes the chest. Tenmatsu eyes start getting redder and redder every second thinking "I won't won't let that happen again." So he eyes Azazel and all of a sudden Azazel suddenly slows down; 1.5 his normal speed which then is enough for Tenmatsu to dodge the slash; which was aimed for his neck. If that would of hit, It would of been the end of Tenmatsu. But alas, the claws hit his neck, and elave a cut about as long as an average middle finger; but not life threatening.

As time slows, He bends down; knee's bent and right hand still gripped on his scythe. Bending down gives Tenmatsu the oppertunity to strike; and strike where it hurts and will hopefully cripple Azazel. By cutting the tendons in the back of the feet. So Tenmatsu arches his scythe around behind Azazel's legs and drags the blade against the ground and goes in to cut the tendons.

[Witchblade]

Storyline

Continuity: - 0, 0 Story, hello story, where did you go? Okay, joking aside, there was very little to no backstory for this battle. There was no story development during the battle and I learned nothing of your character’s stories during the battle. I just want the two of you to know, that even if it’s a random Citadel battle, you can still throw in tidbits of information about your characters past, what they’re doing in the present that brought them to The Citadel and maybe what they plan on doing when they leave. Make small things in their current opponent remind them of old opponents, or friends, or family. There are tons of ways you can add storyline to a battle, you just need to creatively think of them. Also, Azazel, just so you know for your own information, The Citadel lies within Radasanth, a rather large city. So he’d have to first leave Radasanth before he can find some small town nearby.

Setting: - 2, 2 Neither of you did a very good job of describing the setting. Tenmatsu, if the building seems so normal and not very fancy to your character, then have him describe the place. It’ll give the reader an idea as to why he thinks it’s so normal. Also, describe the areas he’s walking through and fighting in as he’s doing it. Don’t just say his eyes wandered left and right and there were stairs in that direction, and a door ¾ the size of the one he walked in (which helps very little considering you never gave an exact height for the front doors anyway). Azazel, you need to really use your setting descriptions to your advantages as well. You tend to just say there were doors and gears and things that moved and hey, I think I’m standing on some wood, but that doesn’t really help give the reader a good image of what’s going on. In a battle, the surroundings should be used, which was attempted here but not to the full extent. Your setting is not just your canvas, but your stage! You may have seen me say that before, but that’s because it’s true.

Pacing: - 4, 4 Most of the thread had the same pacing, because both of you write the exact same way when you’re battling and when you’re just walking around enjoying a sunny day. In moments of tension, try shortening your sentences to give that heightened, intense feeling. Try using stronger action verbs and don’t write things in a passive way. That should help improve the pacing of your threads. Completing them would also help in that category. If the thread had been finished, you would have received a higher score here, but since there was not much of a climax or an ending, the score will be lower.

Character

Dialogue: - 4, 5.5 Both of you need to improve your dialogue skills. Tenmatsu, saying some like ‘Ahh, finally someone who thinks they can best death himself’ is in a way character ego boosting. It’s something that doesn’t even need to be said, and if you were about to fight someone in real life, would you really look at them and say ‘ahh, finally someone who think they can best Paul of the tone Dragon Gang himself.’ I very, very highly doubt it. My suggestion would be not to take your dialogue cues from anime, it’s definitely not going to help you in realism. (If you don’t take your dialogue cues from anime, I apologize, but anime does do that sort of thing). Another thing is names. If you pay close attention to the way you talk with your friends and family, you’ll notice that you don’t use people names very often, usually only to get their attention. With that being said, there’s no reason to continuously use your characters names in conversation, it doesn’t seem natural.

Azazel, your dialogue is a little more natural, but you need to try using tags on it. You don’t have to do it all the time, but it really helps with the emotion behind the words and also what you’re character is doing body language wise while he’s talking. More than 50% of how humans interpret what is being said to them is through body language. So, try tagging things.
“Then take me to him.” Azazel said as he stepped aside.
Just something simple like that.

Action: - 3, 4.5 Okay, Tenmatsu, there is no way your level 0 character has enough strength to simply break the bones in Azazel’s arm (or neck) simply by grabbing it and squeezing. That takes a lot of strength and an exceedingly strong grip. He could have broken his bones by grabbing his arm and twisting it until it snapped, mind you. Also, if someone like Azazel released a howl as strong as he did (not that he has the ability to) your character would most certainly be stunned. Your equilibrium is in your ears, so if your ears are messed up, your balance is going to be a little messed up too. Just because Azazel wrote in his post that he expected Tenmatsu to be stunned longer, doesn’t mean he was actually standing there with wide eyes and a slackened jaw staring at him. Most people don’t do that in battle. That’s also unapproved bunnying of Azazel’s character.

Azazel, as I mentioned in Tenmatsu’s paragraph, your character does not have the skill required to howl loud enough to shatter glass, crack metal gears and shake the foundation of a building, nor would any level 0 have an ability that strong. Make sure that any skills you’re using in battle are ones you already know, or if you’re learning a new skill you’re not overpowering it.

Persona: - 3, 3 I never really got a great understanding of either of your characters in this battle, probably because there was no backstory understanding, so there was very little persona understanding as well. I will say this though, to the both of you. The Ai’Bron monks may know a lot of some things, but they aren’t God, they don’t know everything and I doubt they’d know your characters names and what they seek simply because they walked through the front door. They’re not omniscient, but you as the writer are. That also goes hand-in-hand with Tenmatsu somehow knowing that Azazel is a half-breed simply because he howled. Maybe he likes to howl at the moon, maybe he hung around with wolves a lot, maybe he’s from a tribe that worships them or perhaps he’s just a werewolf. How do you know he’s a half-breed? Nothing he did even suggests that he’s a vampire.

Writing Style

Mechanics: - 3, 3 CAPITOLIZE THE FIRST LETTER IN THE FIRST WORD OF EVERY SENTENCE! That is basic grammar and you really, really need to start doing it if you’re expecting to get scores in this category above a 4 or 5. Both of you have run-on sentences, commas where there should be periods and fragmented sentences.

Technique: - 3, 3 I highly recommend that both of you stop naming how tall your characters or other characters are by saying they’re 7’5. It breaks up the flow of your writing, not to mention most numbers under one hundred are written in text form and not number form. So, if you absolutely have to add in that kind of information, then he’s seven feet, five inches tall. Another things is repeating what’s already been said in the post beforehand. Try to avoid this, there’s no reason for it. The reader has already read it, now you’re just given them the same information twice. Unless there’s some emphasis that needs to be done, don’t do it. And if there’s emphasis, put it in Italics. Azazel, when writing fantasy, keep in mind that Althanas wouldn’t have the same terminology that we do in our world, so o negative blood is something your character wouldn’t even know, unless he’s from earth.

Clarity: - 5, 5 Because the descriptions for actions and setting were rather lax in your posts, things did get kind of confusing, especially when all of a sudden the sun set. I didn’t even know there was a sun in your arena since it was never mentioned. Clarity will improve as the other areas of your writing improve.

Wild Card: - 2, 2

Okay, this may sounds a little harsh, but a judging to be ‘as in-depth and detailed’ as possible while not having finished the thread is rather annoying. It takes hours to write an in-depth judgement and how is a judge supposed to write a complete in-depth judgement if the thread isn’t even finished?

Total: 29, 32

Winner: Azazel Relizic is the winner!

Rewards:

Azazel receives 375 experience and 75 GP!
Tenmatsu receives 100 experience and 75 GP!

[Taskmienster]

Exp and GP added!