There's Beverages Available Afterwards {open}

[Alexa]

The battlefield was set and the monks were satisfied with their job, the place they had created was dangerous and hard to manuever in. Things like that made sure that people enjoyed the show.


***

As Alexa stepped through the portal and onto the battlefield, she was surprised by what she 'saw.' The ground was cold, very cold. The Elven girl was horrified to find that she had stepped out onto ice, and in addition, there were small rocks or ice chucks about the size of her fist had been strewn about the surface. With her limited vision, only able to see the cold in the most literal sense, everything seemed in a haze. Hopefully, when someone else entered the arena, they would be warm enough to be outlined in her vision.

[Anila]

Why the Citadel?

Why the hell not?

It had been only a few days since Sakurazuka Anila had left her home in Akashima, and she hadn't had an opportunity to spar with her fans since then. Of course, she doubted any opponent in the Citadel could offer her the same grace and skill in a fight as her brother Keiji could...but in the Citadel, death wasn't permanent...so she could do as she never had with Keiji. She could choose to not hold back.

The short, raven-haired Akashiman noble held her fans easily as her maidservant braided her hair, and when the long coil fell from the silent woman's hands, Anila stepped through the waiting portal...

...onto a sheet of cracked ice. That didn't much bother Anila, she'd walked through snow in her tight traveling suit before, and she'd walked on ice. After all, she hailed from the mountains of Northern Akashima, where winter was the harshest season.

The cold air cleared out the impurities, making a perfectly clear field, and Anila saw her opponent across the way, looking around as though dazed. Perhaps she was unfamiliar with winter. Either way, it mattered little to Anila, who stood several meters away.

She said nothing, made no introductions. This was a fight, and she flicked her wrists, opening her naked fans with a deadly shiiiiiiiiiing.

The battle had started.

[Ashiakin]

(Edit was to fix a typo.)

A pine forest groaned like an ancient door as a cold wind shook through it, carrying the stench of the trees across a sweeping hill before depositing it in the midst of the frozen lake. Ashiakin did not stir as several pine needles floated down into the white strands of his hair. He was crouched behind a large rock, fingers delicately toying with the string of his bow while he kept a careful watch on the two figures in the misty distance. The chill of the wind did not seem to phase him--on the contrary, his dead blue lips curled into the smallest of smiles.

There were few who loved the cold the way he did. If he was lucky, neither of the combatants before him would be accustomed to fighting in such weather. To Ashiakin, though, it was the only way to really fight.

One of the figures before him made a move, spreading open fans with a flick of her wrist. Quickly, Ashiakin knocked an arrow to his bow and drew back the string, blue eyes settling on the woman who had extended her fans. He let the arrow fly.

It soared through the white mist, its ghostly hiss all there was to trumpet that combat had been initiated. Ashiakin did not wait for the arrow to strike. He knocked another to his bow, aiming at the other figure in the distance. The element of surprise was quickly fading. He knew he must use it while he could.

[Alexa]

There it was, another figure. Lightly outlined in the cold she saw. It looked like the figure of a woman, and as the fans came out, Alexa figured it was. There was nothing stopping her from surprising her enemy. Quietly, Alexa focused hard on a series of small rocks that lay in front of her.

They began to slide, three of them.

She started them on their way, sliding along the ground with the swish sound that was unique to stone on ice, towards the woman at the opposite end, hoping they weren't deflected by the time they got there, Alexa let her concentration slip, the rocks continued along the slippery surface gracefully. The girl hoped that her opponent would be thrown off balance and hurt herself. If she wasn't Alexa would need to find the time to melt the ice with her control over temperature, but it didn't seem that she'd have the time.

Briefly, she thought she saw an arrow, then it was gone. Maybe it was just the snow playing tricks on me...

[Anila]

Three small rocks started sliding across the thick ice, and Anila made her move, dashing forward. She hadn't seen such a puerile attempt at an attack since she was a young girl. Sliding rocks was a game played on the lake during the winters, and a dull one at that.

She made sure to keep her body upright as she ran toward her opponent, a disruption of balance would cause a definite slip and fall...and even if her opponent seemed pathetic, a fall could be lethal.

As she started forward, Anila heard a whistling sound, and suddenly there was a sharp tug on the end of her braid, and she felt the thick coil coming around. Instinctively, as she saw the tip of the arrow coming around at her from her right side, she brought Uindo up to block it, letting it trail along behind her, with the rest of her hair.

A quick step brought her over the small rocks, each roughly the size of her fist, and she let Uindo in her right hand guard her left hip, while her left hand came up to her right shoulder, preparing a deadly double strike from her pair of fans. She'd worry about the archer later.

Moving targets were hard to hit, and she intended to be very mobile.

[Ashiakin]

Ashiakin stood carefully, his aim not wavering from the other woman. He had spent much time traversing the Salvic wilds and felt he was more accustomed to walking on a frozen lake than most. He strode froward, the mist that enshrouded the two figures in the distance slowly evaporating from his sight. The woman he had fired upon had evidently not been struck, but that did not deter him. He let his second arrow fly toward the woman he had not yet attacked.

Quickly, Ashiakin stowed his bow in a sling on his back, knowing that it would be of little use from him in these conditions. With a flourish, he yanked his long sword out of his sheath, the sun's light barely reaching the metal blade as it filtered through the cold fog. He sprinted forward and then let himself slide across the ice. Somehow, he maintained his balance with effortless grace.

To stop himself, he put his foot down hard on an incoming rock and let his other foot slide into another, bringing his slide to a sudden halt. Just as one of the rocks Alexa had pushed went sailing past Anila and toward him, Ashiakin flicked his hand. The rock sailed into the air, hurtling toward Anila's back as she advanced on Alexa. He brandished his sword and crept carefully forward.

[Alexa]

Alexa saw the woman dodge her meager attempt to trip her, she was graceful, that was for sure. What confused Alexa though was the other woman raising her fan, when suddenly she heard the whistling and clink of an arrow on the steel. So there was an arrow! That worried the girl, seeing that there was little else she could do, she decided the put the rocks into the air this time. Now, she concentrated especially hard on two of the rocks, one began to slide along the ice and the other hurdled in the air toward her headly. They weren't moving fast but it could give Alexa the time she needed to make her next move.

Alexa's cloak flitted about, her hood then falling down at a sudden gust of wind. They make this place very realistic, these monks... Her eyes were now revealed, their scarring and decay was evident. Her opponent would see the damage. She then looked at the woman was, but she shifted her vision about ten paces closer. Concetrating on heating the air above the spot she saw would hopefully make it wet.

If the ground was wet, it would be slippery. The girl only needed a minute before the ice would begin to melt.

[Anila]

Anila almost recoiled at the ugly mess of scar tissue that inhabited the place where the Elven woman's eyes had been...or worse, were, but her disgust did not stop her charge. If anything, it made her more determined to exterminate this creature so that she didn't have to look at her anymore.

Another rock started coming for her, this time airborne, but she moved her head to the side. She didn't notice the rock coming toward her feet, but it was small and her strides were long, and Anila's foot made the rock clatter to the side as her toe came down right under where it was sliding.

What she HAD somehow missed was the white figure stepping out onto the ice and hurling a rock at her, and that slammed into the center of Anila's back, knocking her off balance as she got within striking distance of the other woman. It sent her into a spin, but Anila was a dancer, and let herself move with it. Merely a moment into the spin, she sliced Uindo through the air to make her spin balance so that she was oriented once more the way she wanted, and then she lashed out with Hagane while stepping down forcefully -- both an attack upon Alexa and a stop to her overly-forward momentum.

[Ashiakin]

Ashiakin grinned with satisfaction as he watched the rock collide with Anila's back, but his lips quickly twisted into a frown as she easily regained her footing. His strike had not seemed to deter her--contrastively, it seemed to have given momentum to her attack on Alexa. Neither of the pair seemed to be concentrating on him, however, and he knew that in that lay an advantage.

He crept forward across the ice, moving as fast as he dared, both his arm and his sword extended as to balance himself. As he neared the two, he saw Anila attack Alexa with the blades of her fan and knew it was time to act. I'm not exactly sure why all of this is happening, he thought. But this battle will soon be over.

Ashiakin leapt forward past Anila and went into a controlled slide, aiming a slash of his sword at Alexa as he did so. He figured that while she may be able to defend against a single attack, she would not have been reckoning on two--if he could take one of them down while she was distracted, killing the other would be all too easy.

[Alexa]

As Anila's fan came down at her, Alexa curved her lithe, Elven body to avoid it, she had been partially successful as the fan ripped through her cloak dangerously close to her skin. What came next she was not expecting though, another figure slid to her, casting his sword in the air to her. She tried to move her hips as a whole to pull her body away but was too late, the sword cut the flesh on her left thigh.

Alexa let out of a yelp and staggered, she tried to roll to get away and see what was going on, she had been surprised by the attack and was disoriented from the searing pain that now pulsed through her leg. It took every bit on concentration she had to fight it off which wasn't good, if she couldn't concentrate she couldn't use her mind to move objects.

As she rolled the right, she put her feet down, trying to stand up. All she accomplished then was having her feet slide out and landing on her stomach and gave out a groan in pain, her leg throbbed even more now. The only thing that kept her from yelling more was the cold on it from the ice she now lay on. As she slowly stood up she saw what had attacked her, it wasn't a person either...

[Anila]

She'd missed, and that annoyed Anila beyond words. But the other, the strange demon-kin that held his sword had taken her down. He was the real threat, and the newly-balanced Anila twirled her fans, watching the pale figure. He had a bow slung across his back...so he was the archer...and the man who had thrown the rock.

Keeping her feet on the ice, Anila slid her left foot forward. Her fans slid closed with a soft sheeeeen, but could flash back open in an instant. This was the real fight, the heart of battle. The blind girl wasn't a threat, so long as one kept a lookout for the little rocks she sent sliding, as well as the little rocks underfoot.

The wind whipped over the frozen lake, sending snow blowing wildly around the arena. Anila's braid stirred in the wind, letting the arrow lodged in the knot at the end of her hair swing freely.

She waited. Waited for the demon to make his move.

[Ashiakin]

Ashiakin steadied his feet and turned as he felt his sword slice into flesh. Alexa had been wounded and knocked to the ground, but Anila was calmly waiting for something to happen without initiating anything on her own. Ashiakin sensed that his challenge would come from Anila, but he did not want to underestimate the other: she had, after all, shown a deft competence with magic.

This was why he advanced on her when she was down. Moving as quick as he could across the ice while still being careful, he struck out at Alexa with his sword just as she was bringing herself to stand. The mythril blade cut through the cool air as if it had wings, its foggy surface roiling as it swept for Alexa's midsection.

But even as he did so, his eyes were barely on her. His gaze was fixed on the more distant woman, the one he deemed more dangerous, seeing if she would move.

Although Ashiakin was dressed as a gentleman who was about to attend a ball, he showed neither deference nor courtesy. There was a cold malice in the way he fought, as if he were an elemental force governed only by a calculating will to continue existing.

[Taskmienster]

This thread has been waiting for over a year. If you would like to complete it, or work on it further, you can PM myself or another staff member and ask for it to be moved. However, till that time, it will be resting in the Citadel Archive forum.

Thanks,
~Task