rashness | XXII

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XXII

[Voice]

[A drawn out yawn before...] What did I even miss... [Rin is up now, for the first time in... a while. He'd been sleeping a lot before then with intermittent periods of being awake for short hours. And now, for once, he doesn't want to sleep more. Not the lead because he's really hungry, having not really eaten for the past three days... or seen Shiemi or Skarmy in the house. Or anything. Really, the thing which immediately stood out when he finally got up and wasn't sleeping was that someone (probably Eleanor) had put a huge stack of homework by his bad.

That said, he's eating cereal now, and isn't feeling the need to nod off again despite being up almost an hour (he even showered) which is why he's using his journal]

Sorry, uh, work 'n school people and Wolverine. My bad - I guess I got really sick or something. Shiemi was takin' care of me most of the time too so sorry to any of her friends. [A pause as he chews his cereal and...] Who wants to do... anything? I've actually been sleeping way too much and I wanna stretch my legs.

[ And anyone can tell him what he missed, win-win.

Which of course means there's sidebar action as he goes to Seventh Heaven, next door, the Dome, the Item Shop and other assorted places to see what's what.]

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[ Jeez, are we starting already?! When the shadow moves though, he draws his sword and transforms - the first thine he does is leap thirty odd feet into the air on a standing jump to get atop one of the trees, in hopes of avoiding that whole thing where he seemed to get stuck before. He'll counterattack from there ]

[ He did say he was ready.

The shadows don't pursue him up the tree. It's too much effort for not enough gain, and she mostly uses them for movement, anyhow. Instead she aims another attack up at him, this one directed at the branches beneath Rin's feet.

If he falls and gets hurt, it's indirect enough that she shouldn't take the damage herself. ]

Alright, let's do this! [ And he leaps off the tree, before the next attack impacts. His flames light up more bright as he brings himself down off it in a bit of a frontal roll, trying out his new idea: to launch a wave of blue fire off from his sword in her direction. He'd never try it on a human, but this is ~~Satan~~ Saten, and she's shown she can handle herself.

The downside to this if, of course, he'll need to touch down within her mass of shadows]

[ And she's well aware that she doesn't want that touching her. The full wave of flames makes it too wide an attack for her to want to shield herself against it; it's better to just get away.

She crouches down, and a moment later she's vanished into the darkness. Saten wants to keep Rin off-balance, so when she reappears, its about ten feet away and behind to his left. It takes a second for her to regain her bearings and realize where Rin's landed.

Might as well go with what worked before, and she tries to snag him with her darkness like before. ]

[ but he was expecting that. Sort of. And given his flames can burn anything, he just unleashes a strong burst of them around him as soon as he feels the darkness creeping up to snag hi, figuring that this will prevent it from causing problems, like last time. ]

[ Not entirely.

Though it does weaken the tendrils, they're being sustained by her energy, so they're replenished even as they're damaged and thus don't burn away completely.

Her forte is not, in fact, long-distance fighting, so even though she has the ability to do so, her versatility with it is rather limited. And since the needles were ineffective last time and Saten hasn't yet been worn down at all, she's going to try the direct approach.

A couple seconds later she appears behind Rin, this time only feet away from him. Far enough to not be caught in his flames when she's re-solidifying. She quickly lunges in, darkness in her hand formed into a long, thin blade, risking the flames in order to try to get a slice at his right arm.

Even if she actually manages to cut it off, she's not worried about the synchronization. When she has enough power she can reattach her own limbs. ]

[ Does it connect?! ... It does connect because he didn't have any sort of awareness that she was there until it's much too late. However, the flames he had been using before now were controlled - and when the blade connects, he does let out a large wail of pain -- but more importantly, a sea of blue fire shoots out for over fifteen feet in all directions around him, burning pretty much everything within that area.

But it also makes him drop his sword because he's a rightie. So you know, that's nice.

Ow ]

[ It would be nicer if there weren't suddenly flames everywhere.

Saten was aware that her attack might get immediate retaliation, but she wasn't expecting that. It sears pretty much her entire front before she vanishes again, gone before she's even had the chance to pick a destination. Luckily for both of them, she goes for about the farthest edge of her current darkness from Rin, not wanting to give him the opportunity for another follow-up attack.

She's glad that she didn't take his arm off entirely. She wouldn't be able to handle suppressing that on top of the burn. She'll just be hanging out over here, waiting for those flames to settle down, healing what she can of the burn while letting her right arm bleed. She's a leftie. ]

[ Rin, of course, it burnt too. And his arm is damaged for a moment. But as the flames sear around him, the quickened healing his gets from his demon form kicks in. Even as he bends over to pick up Kurikara, the cut on his arm is already sealing up, and he manages to get a firm hold of it. The fire doesn't hurt him, though the synced up burns with her did - not that they don't heal up too even as he turns to look around for her as he gets up. He also exhales, to try to calm down. Don't loose control more, don't-- actually-]

Are you okay?!

[ He calls out to the air ]

[ The question makes her jaw clench. Concern. She doesn't need his concern. Even this damage is still on the level of what she can deal with, and she's far more mobile than he is; she can draw this fight out if she's pushed into a situation where she needs to take the time to heal.

He has more raw power than Saten is used to dealing with. The fire is a weapon she's never had to develop countermeasures for. But all she needs to do is avoid taking too many hard hits at once, and she can last. How long can he sustain those flames? ]

Don't mock me!

[ From this distance, she doesn't mind if he locates her, plus the trees remaining around her obscure her shape a little. She should have enough warning on anything he tries. ]

[ He turns in that direction, and snarls a little. Ugh. He was just trying to be nice, at least-! ] I'm not mocking you!

I'm just seein' if you got hurt too much! I lost my cool there!

Don't underestimate me either!

[ Sorry, Rin, she doesn't appreciate your attempts at being nice.

She's healed a good portion of the burn, though, which means she's ready to take to the offensive again. But how to get around that fire of his...

Might as well work with what she has for now. Trying to snag him again. ]

Okay, fine! [ He laps off the ground to rush towards her. He tries to force his way through and get closer to her. But it might not work - actually, he's fleeing with the snag closer behind him so it's not really that good ]

[ She waits a couple seconds for him to get closer. Suddenly she rushes towards him herself and throws up a wall between the two of them, hoping to if not have him collide into it at least slow him down enough to be caught. ]

[ And he does.. Boom. Or well, he might shatter it, might just collide - it's a wall of dark shadow things so who knows. Either way, if it doesn't just collapse to slow him he'll try to jump over it.

Either way, yes, momentum slowed ]

[ She's being more careful about how she balances where she puts her strength, so even though Rin hits it head on, the wall cracks but holds.

Which means she's going to redouble her efforts to snag him, especially given that the distance between them has closed a good deal with that move. ]

[ Ow- ow. Man she's such a hassle with these things He's snagged again, but tries to cut the tendrils there. Come on, come on... ]

[ Then she's going to try choking him like last time. ]

[ Sort of expecting that, his goal is to cut through the things with a flaming sword. He's cut through stone and metal with this technique before, but he doesn't know if there's something you can cut through the whole thing or...? Crap, he can't get caught here ]

[ That mostly depends on how close to his neck he's willing to put that sword. The ones holding him down aren't her priority so they can be broken pretty easily, but the ones she's focusing on are right up against his throat. ]

[ He is not. But he does cut the ones holding him, then tries to pull himself up while pulling it back with one hand to curl up and get out of it --- which doesn't work, of course, and now he's sort of hung himself a bit. Ach- ]

[ Yes, ow, she feels that too. Wow that was stupid of you. Saten steadies herself, then tightens the grip on Rin's neck. Give up already. ]

[ No he refuses. He keep struggling with the one hand while holding his sword and finally, a little desperate and low on air, he uses what he can of his strength to lift the sword arm up to the base of the thing around his neck. What if he tried to cut it lower-- not that he can see where he's going from this angle though - and he's getting blue in the face ]

[ It might have been enough to get through it, but it's about that moment when Saten's vision swims. She can't risk making herself pass out.

Around the time Rin swings, Saten lets the darkness dissolve and quickly inhales. The sudden oxygen comes in a rush, but she doesn't want to give Rin enough time to react. One... two seconds to regain her balance, and she's going for his throat again. ]

[ He inhales fiercely too - because he was getting woozy. The swing ends up missing even his neck, but more importantly - he against shoot fire in all directions for a wide area to hold off the immediate counter attack so he can leap up in the air - hopefully to avoid just being hung again ]

XXII

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