2025-12-07: The Flame, The Sword
- Log: 2025-12-07: The Flame, The Sword
- Cast: Tatsuya Sudou, Shiryuu Ryouhara
- Where: Club Harai, Sumaru
- OOC Date: Dec 7, 2025
- IC Date: Aug 22, 2012
- Summary: Did you think this was going to be your triumph? It's not even Tuesday..
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
'To seize 'opportunity' for myself... 'Gingitsune' must die.'
A famous underground DJ operating out of Club Harai. The pulse-pounding beat of the club has been vicious these last few days, or so the patrons have said. Club Harai is actually a sprawling music scene heavily converted from what appears to be an old warehouse, an industrial shrine to breakbeats filling three sprawling floors with pulsing laserlight and ancient, obscure fabrication machines.
Crates of old grease and reels of wire are vandalized haphazardly with fluorescent paint, some as fresh as 'today' as the club pulses with seething inner life. Lights from the overhead rig sweep the main dancefloors below with vividly colorful light as the synthesizers rave, hallowed ancient instruments used in razor-sharp digital sampling in intensely oscillating waves.
Everything was more aggressive, they said, as if he had something to prove.
The man on high, the silver fox in the booth at the distal end, flanked on either side by vast monitors on mechanical arms, separated from the crowd by sprawling catwalks and bridges. He's been here every night, they say, and doesn't go anywhere else. Part of the floor has been shut down for a remodel, forklifts parked on the floor and wrapped with dangerous-looking string lights.
Ravers have climbed it, and are currently using the cage to dance. Not very OSHA approved. But then, nothing really is, in a place like this.
<Pose Tracker> Tatsuya Sudou has posed.
The Ravers rave.
The Dancers dance.
The music plays on.
Nothing changes, except that one moment he wasn't in the crowd and one moment he was.
One moment all the dancers had features, the next they were nothing more then shadowy figures. The ever delicate taste of the supernatural hangs in the air.
t The Joker Killer glides through the crowd until he is standing in front of the booth, the spotlight finding him. The shadows still dancing, warped faces with smiles and eyes visible despite the shadowy forms they've taken.
The Joker killer pulls forth a white fedora and places it on the paper bag, before performing a decent 20 second rendition of Michael's Smooth Criminal dance before pointing at the DJ Box.
The Joker killer's voice echo's over the music as if he stole a microphone from somewhere, while holding the pointing pose "I am here to solve a fox problem. So come on out and you can die among your peers."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
And then, everything crawls to a standstill.
The light burns, instead of glows. Warped, harsh, vicious. It takes only an eyeblink, he marvels, for the world to turn upside down. The fox looks up through the crowd, to the single beast ascending the stairs. Past rows of black silhouettes, past the mundane things meant to stop and control the crowd. Until he's there. Right there.
The fox watches the display impassively, as the music writhes like a stuck insect on a pin. Silent, wordless -- aside from the words in his songs, the DJ has never been known to actually speak, as eerily quiet as the grave. The mundane faders and equalizers at his fingertips no longer hold any control over the beat.
But then.. they never have.
The mask tilts downward, dark as the Killer cuts a rug right in front of his booth. And Gingitsune's hands raise slowly, an inch above the controls. It takes everything he has, but the tremor in his hands vanishes.
It's a small, hallowed trickle, but the music flanges hard, as if a throat swallows. The lowpass filter causing the distortion to the rhythm is strangled in place.
[ it's like blood, count every drop -- ]
"....so." the sound ripples, his vocal track clicking into unseen place. Lights are still running, though they no longer have any telltale source.
"...you're the one they called 'Old Maid.'"
He steps away from the booth, onto the catwalk across. Deadly, anonymous. An expert, exquisitely crafted mask turns to face .. paper, and pure nothing.
Chilling. ".... I've been waiting."
<Pose Tracker> Tatsuya Sudou has posed.
Joker killer visibly winces at that term, the old maid. Looking off into the crowd he shouts to No One, "YOU SEE! I tried to go with boogie man , baba yaga, the crazy murder, I almost have it with the Joker Killer. Can't you just make that one name go away. I swear people think I am here to sew them a quilt or something."
With a heavy sigh The Joker Killer turns back towards the fox and rubs his face through the bag, the fedora somehow staying in one place, " Listen here grey fox, I have come to kill you and...wait? Waiting for me?" The head tilts and a question comes forth, "What do you mean waiting for me? Unless...is this a trap?! Are you the grey bait?"
The Joker Killer chuckles as he then looks around, "Ok Akabane-san, Suou-kun! Fake joker! All of you bring it on!" A sword is drawn from the trench coat, in a way that the sword shaped object would never fit within the trench coat and Sudou holds it ready for combat.
All he gets is crickets of course as none of them are here that Sudou is aware of.
Turning back to the target The Joker Killer speaks up, "Just curious? If this is a trap, where's the ambush because if there is no ambush, well this is just a very cowardly move."
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
Oh. He doesn't like that name.
"...apologies."
The silver fox seems uncomfortable, as if caught in some strange faux pas. A hand raises to his mask, the muzzle of the smooth wood dipping to touch his fingertips. For a moment, it's an eerily genuine gesture from the overdressed fox. At least, until he pauses.
"...wait." What is he saying?
The young man steps forward, and is about to say something until JK turns, talking to the darkness. "Iih--" .... the man in the mask sighs, waiting for him to finish. It's not hard to see the offense he takes when the killer starts rattling off names. One in particular.
"....Forget the name 'Akabane,'" he starts anew.
"If that name becomes nothing to you, nothing else today will matter."
"...I'm the only one here. The only one you have to worry about."
A steel blade uncoils from his sleeve, flexible, and in sections, a long razor chain clicking loose one link at a time. "...I will erase every one of your names, one by one, until you submit."
A wind ripples through, as he starts to swing the weapon in a low, skipping circle, sending little sparks ripping from the catwalk. "You see..."
"....I've been waiting to kill you."
A chime rings out, loud, straight and pure when he reaches to his back and unshoulders the red bag laid across his shoulders, revealing the hilt of a sword. A whirling halo of black feathers ripples around him with a gunshot of steel clicking loose.
And then he cuts right through it, with a chain microblade aimed with eerie precision, shooting through a gust of wind right for the Joker Killer's center of mass.
AS: Block Best! Tatsuya Sudou takes 61 Slash damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Magatama Cipher.
<Pose Tracker> Tatsuya Sudou has posed.
The Joker Killer doesn't raise his sword, instead he raises his hand and lets the blade pierce his hand. A smile is given as he looks at the part of the sword that is through his hand as if he is examining the weapon as a hand ornament. He even tilts his hand left and right, "I think it clashes with my nails. " A gasp is given before he pulls his hand back from the blade, and now looks at the hole for a moment. If he wasn't wearing a paper bag he might even lick the wound.
The Joker Killer looks up from his hand, remembering what he is here for. "Huh? Oh do you know Umie-chan? Telling me to forget about her? Is that perhaps out of jealousy?" Sudou chuckles as he takes his bleeding hand and runs it along his sword, smearing blood along his own blade. " She doesn't know you did this does she? Tsk tsk tsk." The Joker killer chuckles as he examines the mess on his sword.
The Joker Killer looks back at Silver Fox, " I could call her right now. Let her know. Hey is it cool if I kill your boy toy? Do you think she would even realize it's you? She might let you die for your own stupidity."
A swipe in the air is given and the sword bursts into flames, Sudou grasping the flaming sword with the bleeding hand. " They have sent armies after me, and you think you can do it yourself." Shaking his bag no he adds, "Well fortunately you won't have to live with this mistake long."%
The Joker Killer's movements are both aggressive and not, the action is aggressive, the killer's body moves forward, the killer's flaming sword is brought down in a diagonal slash, but there is no aggression behind it. It is the same as if some clerk was welcoming someone to their shop, Sudou is simply going through the motions.
AS: Avoid Best! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 21 Fire damage from Tatsuya Sudou's Burning Slash. Resist!
AS: Poison added!
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
His wrist turns, tension tightening the blade of Juurishojin in the mad killer's flesh. Temporarily bound in place, that fox hauls tightly on the line of the whip-like microblade, reaching around to grab the sectional chain between cutting sections to keep control over it, to keep rein against the killer on the other side of it.
Stupid. It was foolish to think he could negotiate a swift end to this. Resolve steels the boy, an impassive mask of restrained annoyance against the Joker Killer's taunts.
It only shows in his voice, when he replies.
She doesn't know, does she? "....yeah." That's about the shape of it. He's going to die here. "....maybe."
"But I'm not anyone important.."
KUH--! The boy whips fast on his knees, whirling away in stance-switching steps the moment his blade is loosed, sneakers skipping over the wire of the catwalk. The chainblade snaps and sparks as it whirls, skating across the steel support structure as the killer comes down with an immolation blade. "!!" It's hard to get clear, and the blast of fire ignites his clothes almost immediately as the boy whirls. It burns the jacket away from his sword, the red bag igniting like so much flash paper. A quick grip saves his hand, catching the sword by the hilt as his scabbard burns, as wooden boards start to form around them.
He flips, stepping off the catwalk only to catch some sort of ancient wood bridge sitting at a physically impossible angle, purely for the purposes of walking -up- it. The catwalk extends via these ancient bridges, stabbing through the club in abstract angles as he slips his sword out of the flaming sheath, as he whirls, wind and the whip of blades mitigating the lick of fire at the back of his neck.
"...I'm no friend. No soldier--"
The black blade of Bankosoujin rises as he rolls back into the killer's space, sparks snapping off of a lighting fixture overhead as his whirling blade on the opposite hand continues. Sparks rip through the substructure, catching hidden wicks aflame with that trail of fire. Wait. Eh?
The DJ doesn't say anything else, as the beat shreds hard. As he tries to cut the madman open with a katana with a blade black as night, ink flowing from it. It'll blot out the light. Just enough.
The light from the explosions that start to go off, one after the other, ripping the club apart. The boy doesn't say anything else.
He doesn't have any time to think up anything appropriate. He's busy.
AS: Counter Worst! Tatsuya Sudou takes 124 Slash damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Bankasoujin. Critical Hit!
AS: COUNTER! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 62 Slash damage in return for his attack!
<Pose Tracker> Tatsuya Sudou has posed.
The black blade swings and hits it's mark. The Joker Killer doesn't even try to stop the blade, instead he lets the black blade sink into his shoulder as the paper bag's smilie face stares at the attacker. " Just a poor love struck kid, trying to be the hero for the damsel." Sudou tilts his head and flexes his shoulder, making sure the Silver fox's sword can't go anywhere before he raises his own sword and stabs it toward the gut of his target.
The stab is given, Shiryuu's blade is freed and Sudou ducks away from the blade and backs up. He is about to charge forward when the explosions begin. "I hate to break it to you kid. You are not the hero meant to kill me. No, you pale in comparison of that kid. He would never of tried something so cowardly. "
Sudou doesn't charge forward, instead he continues to back up until an explosion goes off again. This explosiobn encompasses Sudou, and depending how aware of the battlefield Shiryuu is, he'd realize he didn't set that explosion.
From the fire laughter can be heard as Sudou walks out, any bleeding having stopped. "Round 2. Fight!"
AS: Take! Tatsuya Sudou takes 77 Recovery healing from Tatsuya Sudou's Burning Spirit.
AS: Atk_Up added!
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
For a spinning instant, one scintilla of time, a wooden fox mask is inches from a scrawled smile.
The steel is hot, a snakebite in his gut. Committed to striking the madman down, there's not a lot the silver fox can do to stop the killer from simply binding the sword in his body and running him through with his own. As explosions ripple around them, blood spatters across old wood and old steel as Gingitsune is speared with the flame. Fire crawls from him as he ragdolls away from the madman, a sudden, -violent- burst of red erupting from behind his mask as he barely manages to fall back.
He lands on his back heel hard, losing balance and bouncing across the catwalk haphazardly, chaotically, before the explosions rip through Club Harai. Fire unzippers the entire roof to the open air in an ear-bleeding string of explosions. He's dimly aware that the explosions didn't kill the killer.
To the contrary, he seems to add to them.
A few moments later, the fox comes to. A soft groan as the boy takes a long time to get to his feet, as the Joker Killer steps out of the flame. What kid? "ugh.." the fox groans. "Who are you even talking about.."
It's so hard to focus on his words. "...."
"...you're wrong," he manages, barely. Some of his clothes are still smouldering, he's dimly aware. Something in the fire he can't extinguish with normal jutsu, must be. The blade of Bonds of Black skips across the lines of steel as he gathers his feet beneath him. An icy thread of defiance slides into the back of his voice, as a powerful surging beat trickles into the sky. Club Harai lays open like a wound, and music bleeds from it openly. Though the speakers burn, the show still goes on.
"I wouldn't know anything about 'love.'" Derision drips from his jaw, as openly as the blood, as he forces each word around the hole in his gut.
He's already moving. The effort to speak is monumental.
"It's just my right to crush that girl before anyone--!!"
Round 2. The silver fox is first in one position, and then his knee is where his mask once was -- an inch in front of the Joker Killer's face. A knee thrust, shot off like a cannon. The DJ moves exactly as fast as the beat. An instant passes, and he's tried to hit the man in his face. Kick his leg out from underneath him. And then whirl around, gripping the raw edge of his blade to slam the spine of it across the Joker's neck.
Blood rips down the boy's palm, as he gets a deathgrip on his own swordblade. He means to strangle the killer there. Get behind him. hold him in place long enough. Maybe he can flip his blade, and cut JK's throat by pulling with both hands. That's the plan. An option, anyway.
If fire won't kill him, if that man doesn't seem to notice stabbing, then sawing through his neck should work in a pinch. Let's see how that goes.
AS: Shiryuu Ryouhara spends Limit on Exploit! Shiryuu Ryouhara can use another Weak skill this round!
AS: Take! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 0 Recovery healing from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Track 3: Lock TF In.
AS: Atk_Up, Rage, and Regen added!
AS: Block Worst! Tatsuya Sudou takes 59 Strike damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Ryouhara Ninjutsu. Critical Hit!
AS: Block Worst! Tatsuya Sudou takes 59 Strike damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Ryouhara Ninjutsu. Critical Hit!
AS: Block Worst! Tatsuya Sudou takes 44 Strike damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Ryouhara Ninjutsu.
<Pose Tracker> Tatsuya Sudou has posed.
The Joker Killer clenches up as the fox on his back will not just let up. His hand goes up and blocks the blade from his neck, and more importantly to protect his paper bag. "Are you serious?! "
Tatsuya Sudou is grumpy, this guy isn't even a good guy. He wants to... just... "DAMN YOU! Have some fuckin' class." A tighter grip is given to give himself room to breathe for a moment as the paper bag rises off his head.
From beneath the bag the Joker Persona rises up and while the persona is also wearing the paper bag, it means that beneath the paper bag is....another paper bag.
"You come off as a creepy stalker like all that, not even a classy one." The Joker Killer shouts as he gets angry, the Joker Persona is shuffling cards. Then it leans forward and places the Joker card between the two. The joker on the card winks at the Silver Fox before it blows up seperating the two.
Before the smoke even clears The Joker Killer is charging toward the Silver Fox, trying to slug him. "How dare you make me the hero of this story!"
AS: Tatsuya Sudou spends Limit on Exploit! Tatsuya Sudou can use another Weak skill this round!
AS: Avoid Best! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 169 Almighty damage from Tatsuya Sudou's Joker Wild.
AS: Avoid Worst! Shiryuu Ryouhara takes 98 Strike damage from Tatsuya Sudou's Sonic Punch.
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
A flaming support beam drops through the air, tumbling down into the club below. The sounds of all-out fighting fill the air, the huff of breath, and the ring of steel. The fox is glued to the madman, trying to strangle the life from him. It crumples that bag as he tries to hook the blunt side of the blade under the man's jaw, to pull it tight. But the larger man is fast, and a hand is locked onto that black blade, leaving them in a grip of four hands.
"Get... over yourself..urgh..!!"
The boy's bloodsoaked grunt is thick and wet with exertion as he hauls hard on the blade, pressing a knee into the madman's back in a blatant attempt to break the man's fingers. Alas, the madman is stronger, and it's not to be.
Admittedly, curiosity is what killed the cat, and the slow, chaotic rip of that bag off of the man's head gave the fox just enough pause to get his stranglehold broken. Not by mortal means, but by the haunting visage of supralunary power, a bemused ghost giving a sly wink before dropping a guillotine of cards between them. Though the boy is able to break the hold in time enough to avoid being blown to pieces, the subsequent explosion launches him end-over-end to crash roughly through the aged, ancient wood of a bridge intersecting the catwalk. The crash arrests his momentum, leaving the boy bleeding and stunned on his knees, his hand struggling to correct his grip on the sword on the ground beneath him. Blood spatters the catwalk, spatters along his blade. The mask is charred, black, the delicate painting warped and bubbling from the heat.
He manages to get up just long enough to get punched square in the middle, right over the previously-healing gut shot. It comes too fast, and the line of Bonds of Black swiping through the air is clearly meant to enforce distance, to arrest momentum, and to give him just a second.
"Urgh---" this .. isn't going well.
But then.. really...
'How dare you!' "... life isn't fair, is it," the silver fox observes coldly, grim behind his mask.
A single skill card is flicked into the air, glowing cerulean blue before it disappears in a shimmering mist.
The jangle of ancient chimes stirs the wind, held by a mechanical ghost dancing somewhere just beyond the bridges. A single stroke of a staff longer than many are tall churns that wind into a storm. A rolling storm, that cuts into the space between them, and into the mist. Once the wind twists, a rare sheen of glittering ice spills into view, tendrils of crystalline rime forming vicious points as the conjured, alien spell chases down the Joker Killer, forming hissing points in the dark, and cutting the sightline between he and the Silver Fox. Just one blink, the DJ is out of sight.
It's enough. The wind twists, and turns, labyrinthine and whimsical in its way. And then the boy appears, having skipped the entirety of the space between them. He moves in an eyeblink, circumventing physics as if 'space' didn't mean anything at all, to get behind the killer. A deeply unfair pincer attack, sandwiching the Joker Killer between the wild, ink slash of his blade, and a chasing spear of impassive, encroaching ice.
AS: Shiryuu Ryouhara spends Limit on Shock Noise! Recovery_Wall applied to Tatsuya Sudou!
AS: Block Worst! Tatsuya Sudou takes 169 Slash damage from Shiryuu Ryouhara's Setsuna.
AS: Tatsuya Sudou is unable to continue fighting!
<Pose Tracker> Tatsuya Sudou has posed.
The Joker killer is caught between ice and a creepy brat. He didn't try to run from it, he simply embraced what was going to happen and did his best to soak what he could. The blade slash, the icicles embed, and blood turns that nice beige trenchcoat red.
The killer stands there unmoving for a moment. He doesn't fall or move he doesn't waver. The Joker persona doesn't fade either. Then the Persona speaks, "You lazy bastard. You fell asleep again didn't you?!" The Joker whacks Sudou's head who groans a little that doesn't move.
The Joker Persona cracks it's fingers and draws for puppet strings and begins to puppet Sudou. The Joker Killer body twists and turns in inhumane ways as it looms before Gingitsune. Through Joker Killer's body a voice that is not his nor the persona's is heard. "He who tries to twist the rules and destroy my vessel , I shall punish you today."
The body crouches and pulls forth from the ground a giant gnarly Claymore, pulsing with black flames, that looks like it should not be wieldable by even the large man behind the paper bag. The body of the Joker Killer raises it over his head and the Joker persona reaches out to touch it but stops and imitates having cut itself on the blade. The Joker Persona then waves at the Silver Fox.
The blade is brought down in a single swipe towards Gingitsune, the black flames spreading and being thrown everywhere.
The slash cuts through the club.
The slash cuts through the fire
The slash cuts through shadows
The slash cuts through the identity of Gingitsune.
Finally, the slash cuts through the supernatural space itself, the black flame burning it away and the one who use to be known as Gingitsune is left standing in the club where this all started.
The Joker Killer is no where to be found.
AS: Shiryuu Ryouhara: Loses 52 HP from Poison! Gains 48 HP from Regen! Atk_Up and Regen removed!
AS: Shiryuu Ryouhara's turn has ended.
AS: Shiryuu Ryouhara: Loses 47 HP from Poison! Poison removed!
AS: Shiryuu Ryouhara's turn has ended.
AS: Shiryuu Ryouhara is unable to continue fighting!
<Pose Tracker> Shiryuu Ryouhara has posed.
There. The critical point is right there. The boy behind the mask can taste it, the iron haze in the air. It really shouldn't take much more. It can't, can it? His eye aches. Every limb feels like a sinking ship, his hands are numb, and the hilt of his sword feels like a lump of ice in his hands.
He's weak! Through the chest, the boy reminds himself, bracing the cap of his hilt against his shoulder, in an attempt to get just that slight extra push, until -- "!!"
Suddenly, it's all gone, and the fox looks up to a grand and vicious jester, no longer at all being controlled by the person below. Instead, it's the opposite, and strings run tight, driving the boy back as the lurching, zombie-like creature his target's become turns on him, producing more dark, warped steel from the pit. Eyes behind that mask widen, as he tries to force iron into his hands, iron into his bones, iron into his will. No matter whee he goes. Follow him. Kill him.
He finds only blood and pain, and nerveless nothing.
'what if,' a mind suddenly preoccupied with awful ideas is forced to think, 'he was never alive?'
Gingitsune steps back, gutted in awe and by steel.
"What the f..."
And then everything else follows.
It's minutes later when the tinge of kegare leaves the air. When the skies open up, the madman is nowhere to be seen. The sky is dark, impassive, uncaring of the smouldering, gutted heap the club has become. Blood sprays across the catwalks, collapsed and wretched, ssteel struts reaching up into the sky like a dead spider's legs.
The sky doesn't care. Slowly, it begins to rain. Patters of water, at first, causing the industrial grime to run filmy down the stretch of crossmembers. Then, harder, pattering across the concrete, and stifling the curling dust and smoke.
Rainfall soaks into burned and scorched fur, diluting the blood on the ground. A boy, one amongst many, lays there, somewhere underneath fallen iron and steel.