507/Courtyard Clash 2014

Courtyard Clash 2014
Date of Scene:	27 August 2014
Location:	Castlevania
Synopsis:	Setsuko Kaminagi meets D in the courtyard of Castlevania. Violence ensues.
Cast of Characters:	232, 255

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D (232) has posed:
    The road to Castlevania is empty and dark.

    The Great Mountains give way to a long and twisting route framed in gnarled trees, jagged rocks, and treacherous pitfalls. A high, thin wind gusts along the trail, disturbing the fragile tree branches into a skittering, abrasive chorus. There are no other travelers risking the road, and the sense of isolation only becomes more oppressive as one draws closer and closer to the distant keep -- a feeling no doubt heightened by the sky's steady darkening.

    No matter what time it was when Setsuko embarked on her latest journey, by the time her combat sense has led her to Lord Dracula's doorstep, no daylight remains. Surrounding Castlevania is an eternal, pitch black night watched over by a full, bloody moon. She had been here before, hadn't she? It shouldn't be too surprising, then, that nothing's changed since her last visit.

    Ahead, the courtyard stands empty for her exploration.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Setsuko knows where she is going. She has known since she crossed the border into the world that Castlevania currently occupies. She has, after all, been here before, more than once. And if there had been any, lingering doubt that D has fallen far indeed, knowledge of where she's going banishes that doubt entirely.

    This time, she doesn't even have to guess. She knows this is where she'll find D.

    Of course, the converse is also true; the moment that Setsuko arrives in this world, that arrival is almost certainly noted. She is a living beacon of divine presence, a bonfire of divinity that can be felt for dozens of miles around by anyone with even vague supernatural sense. It isn't something she can suppress for very long when she even bothers to try, and tonight she isn't bothering.

    The hoverbike travels high and straight, the swordswoman unperturbed by her isolation... if anything, heartened by it. She has grown used to moving alone in these past few years. To being on the move, without travelling companions. Marching right into the stronghold of the Confederate field marshal? Somehow, she feels more comfortable doing so without bringing anyone else with her.

    When the demigod sets her vehicle down, it is only long enough to dismount, and then she sends it to the skies again. A high holding pattern, where she can call it back down if need be. Then, she calmly turns, striding towards Castlevania and into the courtyard. Unless something attacks her, she intends to walk right to the middle of it, rest her right hand on the grip of the sword at her side... and wait.

D (232) has posed:
    Castlevania is a foreboding place. Viewed from a distance, it is like some grand monstrosity at rest, waiting for the right opportunity to stir, to strike, to devour. Its dark windows are like countless watching eyes, and its great black doors an open, hungry maw. The many spires and towers rising up against the night sky are like the black thorns of a savage king's crown. To approach requires courage; to go within requires conviction.

    The ominous airs are not deterrent to all creatures, of course. The master here has marshaled around himself a vast, nightmarish army comprised of myriad horrible creatures who suffer no ill effect at calling Castlevania home. Born of the night, these beings have made the ominous castle into their infernal paradise. Beyond the doors lie maze-like halls populated by shrieking spirits and shambling undead, twisted demons and other things darker yet. The greatest of these is Lord Dracula himself, his legendary power all but unrivaled except by the most uncommon kind of challenger.

    Once, Lord Dracula's enemies had been few and predictable, limited to a single clan of upstarts he could anticipate from afar. How many times had Dracula's plans been foiled by a mere man and his holy whip? Enough by now that Dracula had certainly taken special preparations against their interference; however, that had all transpired long before he stepped into the Multiverse and found himself beset by far more varied and dangerous foes.

    To counter those threats required cunning, patience, and creativity. Dracula had never before been so challenged, or so rewarded by his successes.

    Stepping into Castlevania's courtyard now is one whom Lord Dracula had only recently defeated. A tall, broad-shouldered man draped head to toe in a black uniform and a melancholy aura, the figure emerging to greet Setsuko had once stood alongside the Union in defying Lord Dracula's menace. Perhaps more memorably, he had been at her side in her own quest less than a year ago, lending his blade to her cause without question. He had in him a noble heart, despite his frigid exterior, and had seemed to develop an appreciation for her -- or at least her competence. Why, then, does he look so different now? What had happened to change his demeanor from the aloof to the utterly uncaring? Why does he look at her without any feeling at all?

    Setsuko has no doubt come seeking answers to these questions and others.

    Castlevania's doors close behind him. The man in black, the dhampir named D, takes three steps forward, and lifts his right hand to the curving sword hilt rising up behind his shoulder, his movements fluid, graceful, and marked by the kind of intent Setsuko would never have known him to possess. Not for her, anyway.

    "I must ask you to leave." His low voice is a gelid murmur, unrelenting, dangerous. "You are not welcome here."

    The truth of what transpires behind the veil is far more complicated than Setsuko may be able to discern, of course. She is recognized by him, and recognition creates not only a conflict, but the fleeting sense he views her through two sets of eyes. The malevolent power residing in his weapon doesn't permit the past to take hold over D's judgment, of course, or it wouldn't be a very thorough curse at all; however, for a moment he is gripped by the feeling he not only knows her, but respects her and cares for her in a manner rare for him. Drawing out the memory becomes like trying to hear speech through deep water -- he can hear it, but he cannot make sense of it, the words diluted and indiscernible.

    His brief confusion is seen only in the too-tight way he grips his sword.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    "There was a time where the same could be said of you," Setsuko replies, her voice calm. "By your own choice."

    The eyes that meet D's gaze are clear and blue, not an ounce of hesitation in them. Her focus drifts only when he moves, and only long enough to catch those movements, to analyze his posture. Even now, the demigod takes his measure, watches his every move. Here, in the heart of enemy territory, at the very seat of power of an immortal who would kill her without a second thought, she prepares herself without wavering. Her stance doesn't sway. Her hands do not tremble. She fixes D with that calm stare, and it becomes clear immediately that she doesn't intend to leave.

    "I think that you know why I'm here, D. Of all those in the Union struggling with dark impulses, you were the last I expected to fall. You have millenia of experience. Next to you, I am but a child, both as a warrior and as an immortal." Even her voice has nothing in it but calm resolve, heedless of the danger before her - even as she admits it herself.

    "And even now I can see you hesitating. I have to know. What happened to you, D?"

D (232) has posed:
    "I am only as you see me, Miss Kaminagi. I am here because you have trespassed, and because I have been asked to stand in your way."

    D's tight, tense grip relaxes to a more natural and graceful state, remaining readied, but less reflective of his smothered turmoil. "Yes, I think I understand why you have come. You thought me your friend. You thought me capable of serving a greater purpose, a greater good. Does it dismay you to be proven wrong?" The voice he uses is not the voice she remembers; he is distant, disaffected, almost speaking as if he recites memorized words. Though he could be taken for venomous or hateful, he is neither. He is stating what he must in order to crumble any compassion she may hold for him. But why?

    "It was my fate to fall, Miss Kaminagi. Now I will not tell you again -- go. You are not wanted here. The Lord of this place has forbidden your presence, but his disdain for you does not move me to kill you if it is not necessary. You may still go."

    There -- a shred of mercy, if she cares to see it as such. But it might only be pragmatism. He is a practical man, as a Hunter.

    The stance he takes is subtle. Tension enters his shoulders and arms, and the weight on his feet shifts in balance. Though he seems not to move at all, Setsuko's eyes are sharp and skilled enough to spot the minute changes in the way he carries himself. To someone of her gifts, he'll appear as ready to strike as a snake doubled back on itself, but to anyone else's eyes, he is a statue.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Blue eyes finally close, for a moment; but the gesture is no more or less than one of disappointment. "You know me better than that, D. And I know you better than that."

    The swordswoman finally moves, and it is slow and deliberate. If she wanted to strike without warning, her movements would have been much faster, much more sudden. Both of them operate on a level of reflex far beyond human. For her to operate at a speed even a human could follow with ease, is for her to send a message. That message begins with the drawing of her blade, the slow looping flourish that brings it up into a ready stance. By the time it settles into place before her, where her left hand can take hold as well, she is faintly aglow with that rippling divine aura that is her signature.

    The message in her movements is open challenge, despite her already-vast disadvantage.

    "My name is Setsuko Kaminagi. Lieutenant in the Union Armed Forces, Elite Division. Last General and Heir to the Kaminagi Warrior Clan. Holder of the sword of the Forgotten God of War. And I swear, whether you're too addled or too corrupt to answer me, if your lips refuse to speak I will have the truth out of your sword-arm. So as a traitor to the UAF..."

    Setsuko's tone grows cold at last, killing intent flooding her gaze, her stance, even her voice. There is no bluff in it. She means to try and end D. "Draw your sword."

D (232) has posed:
    "As you wish."

    The ever-present shadow disguising his regal countenance flickers in betrayal of the disappointment D endures. He knows Setsuko to be a limited challenge to him, despite her divine gifts and superhuman traits. To kill her will bring him no satisfaction at all.

    "Condemn me for a traitor if you will, but remember -- nothing I give of myself is permanent. Life is transience and change. Any vows I gave to your Union would have eroded in time." The move he makes is deliberate. To draw his sword holds significance for him; D has never drawn his weapon without an intent to use it. As Setsuko embraces her own determined purpose, so D must embrace his, preparing his heart and soul for an act he would find regrettable, had he any heart left open to Setsuko's influence and significance.

    His sword does not shine as it had. Gone is the pure, silvery incandescence limning its razor edge in even the darkest hours; now, the only light to grace the weapon is a faint, ugly red -- either a reflection of the moon above, or a reflection of its inner thirst. The crimson hue shimmers down the sword's length as the dark steel is pulled from its scabbard as if blood already stains it.

    And yet to D, the weapon is his erstwhile companion, closer to him than any friend, any lover, closer to him than even the carbuncle.

    What of the carbuncle, anyway? It's not like him to be so silent...

    The same red light ignites in the depths of D's frigid stare, briefly giving him the look of a wild and hungry animal. He lunges forward, a streaking shadow, the tip of his sword dragging sparks from the courtyard's flagstones as it dips behind him, only to swing up and to the left in a vicious diagonal slash across Setsuko's defenses.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    A chill wind blows, the growing and billowing aura around Setsuko issues a soft whisper like the rise of a strong updraft, but for her part, the swordswoman is silent. She does not respond to D's words immediately, instead settling into a wary ready stance, watching his every move. It is the appearance of that sword which most draws her attention at first, but she forces herself to watch him. To watch the way he moves, to gauge the intent behind every tense of muscle. To know his mindset as a swordsman in the way only a divinity of War might.

    And then as he lunges, she responds at last.

    "That's not true!" Setsuko's voice rises into a yell, but not so much due to vehemence as the simple fact that she is exerting herself. But she lifts her blade up to meet him head on, sending out a shower of sparks both crimson and azure. Simply bringing her weapon up to parry the blow takes every ounce of speed and reaction time she has, and her aura suddenly flares into a silent thunderhead around her.

    She does not follow her words up immediately. Instead, she pushes forward and drops low in the moment that D's swing is still following through, pushing off of his sword with her own to try and push herself under his guard and lunge past - and in doing so, draw a vicious slash along his right side. "There is at least one permanence to life! I've seen it with my own eyes."

D (232) has posed:
    "And what permanence is that?"

    D sucks in a breath and forces himself through a violent burst of speed. His weapon is aimed too high to parry Setsuko's slash, but he excels in feats of agility and strength; both are displayed in the way he manages to sidestep and turn at the same instant. What should have been a devastating connection is reduced to a rib-skimming cut. His skin and muscle part before her sword as easily as the threads making his shirt, and a thin, red gash appears, immediately soaking D's side in a gush of red.

    The Hunter's left toe touches down and turns a tight semi-circle.

    Snapping his blade in almost a reverse motion of the strike which bore it upward, D brings his weapon down toward Setsuko's hip and back. The way his cloak flows behind him like some living shadow helps to obscure the feint; its rippling hem shifts one way, and D's weight another. While she might expect the edge of his sword to come down where it is aimed, in the midst of his strike, he flips his grip and punches his black-jeweled pommel at her jaw, instead. Connect or not, he thereafter moves backward, somehow bounding across a ten-foot gap despite only appearing to take a single step.

    At this position, he flips his sword again, and holds it vertically before his face, ready. His eyes are narrowed, his lips parted around a slight, exerted breath.

    The blood leaking from D's side already reverses its course, being drawn back into his wound.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Setsuko sees it coming. Her instinct for battle is second to none. But she can't keep up with that instinct. Her own reaction times, her own speed, fall behind it, and behind D besides. The blow combines with her own movement to send her tumbling and rolling across the courtyard. By the time her skid loses its momentum at last, she has gathered herself enough to turn herself through a somersault and come up on her feet to face D across the distance.

    But her jaw is cleanly broken. Without hesitating, she reaches up to push sharply on it, with a hiss of pain, setting it back in place. Then she spits out a gout of blood, and settles both hands on her weapon again, silent arcs of blue lightning dancing around the nimbus of her divinity.

    "You."

    And then she is running. Though she may not be as fast as D, she still moves far more swiftly than an ordinary human, a comet on two legs crossing the courtyard in a flash. Her sword trails behind her and low until the last second, and she brings it up in an uppercut backed by all that momentum and all her superhuman strength. But that is merely the first blow, a second following it on a downward diagonal, and then a third and fourth in simple, battering strikes. Each strike comes with a step, each attack an advance. It is a steady and straightforward style, powerful, suiting her perfectly. And each strike fills with her determination; every move she makes is driven by that need to know, the desire to bridge that gap and find the truth, even if it kills her, even if it kills D.

D (232) has posed:
    Blood. The pungent smell is drawn deep into the dhampir's nostrils as if savored. It sticks in his throat, plays across his tongue, and stirs the centuries-old hunger D had kept contained inside an iron vault of discipline and principle for all his life, until more recent torments had convinced him to relax his vigil. His stance straightens, and his head tips back so that his widened, intensified gaze appears directed down the length of his nose. Without question, he is startled by the way the simple scent of it affects him, but not to any lasting distraction. As Setsuko begins her charge, D appears to regain his focus.

    A lurid, hungry light plays along the curving length of the dhampir's dark sword, running from tip to crossguard. The gleam lingers where the weapon is sharpest, and is reflected in D's shadowed, unfeeling eyes.

    The divine storm wreathing Setsuko advances on D like rolling tides, like surging thunder. He feels the flagstones shiver beneath his feet at every stride Setsuko takes, as if Castlevania itself shudders in awe. Even he is briefly taken by the sight of her in full glory, though her sword is soon upon him, testing him, driving him back. Scraping, discordant noises echo inside the empty courtyard at each impact. D, light on his feet, quick with his guard, rises to the challenge. For every blow which threatens him, he seems to have a counter ready. His strength trembles beneath the fury of the onslaught, but it does not break. He is focused, fluid, calm. An unrelenting, unflagging pillar, to be cut down by no woman no matter how divine she is.

    The sparks thrown by their crossed swords illuminate his visage, revealing how apathetic he is in the heat of battle. It is as if nothing reaches his heart. Something separates him from his passion. There is hunger in him, yes, but it is not hunger for the fight. He is frightening in his dispassion -- until he seeks to take over the fight's course.

    D's snarl begins deep in his throat. His lips pull back to bare his teeth in a determined grimace. Though no red glare enters his eyes, his aura dips in temperature, becoming as cold as the grave. He steps toward Setsuko, and -- allowing her weapon to cut deeply into his left shoulder, perhaps cleave all the way through it -- he thrusts his sword directly at her own heart, relying on her weapon's entrapment to prevent her escape.

    The sword's tip stops a hand's breadth from its target as surely as if D had just driven his sword into stone.

    The cold surrounding him shatters, and his snarl dies before it's ever voiced.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Even with her sword trapped, Setsuko moves. She turns herself aside, she whips out of the way. The stab would have still pierced her deeply, but a lung rather than her heart. A testament to her ability to turn certain death aside. But she knows full well it would have been a critical hit, a fight-ending blow regardless.

    And yet, as D stills himself, she can only meet his eyes with her own once again. "...Twice now, you've restrained yourself from using your blade on me."

    And then, perhaps in a shocking turn of events, she turns herself slightly more and pushes herself onto that blade in a sudden and lightning-fast movement. It pushes right through her left shoulder. It is a wound that mirrors the one she's given him, and at the same time it is a chance for her to taste that steel for herself. Others have remarked on the wrongness of the blade. She herself can sense the unease about it. But she needs to feel it. To taste that steel properly, as a demigod of War.

    It lasts only a moment, and then she pulls away, leaping back across half the courtyard to open the range between them again. "Even the kind man you once were was better resolved than this. Have you forgotten your own swordsmanship?" Something in her posture changes. Setsuko shifts her nameless blade to a singular right-handed grip, pushing her aura through it, around it. She has formed a longer edge of her own divinity in the past, but this is an entirely new application of it, a way to mimic a specific weapon. The length, the shape, all of them as intimately familiar to D as his own hand. And her body language changes to match.

    She cannot truly match him, not as he was nor as he is now. But the stance she adopts, her posture, the shape of the long, slender blade she's formed of her own divinity; all of them are more than a superficial echo of D's own fighting style, a living mirror of the warrior he was just a month or two before.

D (232) has posed:
    "Set...su...ko..."

    Only three syllables, yet they cost the Hunter more effort than the entirety of the fight. Just a name; why should it be so difficult to say? Sudden sorrow consumes him, and the tip of his sword begins to waver. It shivers in the air, resisting both the need to thrust forward, and the need to withdraw, more revealing of the man's tortured nature than the sadness in his eyes. He looks ready to beg her forgiveness, and ready to choke on the words welling up from inside him. The only resolve to be found in him at that moment is whatever force stands between Setsuko and certain defeat. If it his will, it must be strong indeed to have intercepted the strike.

    It fails once the sword is given what it craves.

    Setsuko's blood feeds the sword; in turn, D himself is strengthened. Or an aspect of him is. As Setsuko's blood is absorbed into the steel it touches -- reducing down to small drops and pools before it vanishes altogether -- D's expression hardens, and his eyes flare red to match the shimmering light playing along his weapon's edge. Setsuko's retreat frees her weapon from the ghastly injury to D's shoulder, a wound already starting to close at an impressive rate, even for him. The heartless and passionless demeanor returns to the Hunter turned servant. All his fractured strength comes flowing back.

    "Interesting. You think I have forgotten myself?" He draws himself upright. The hem of his cape licks at his heels, caught up in the chill wind sweeping through the courtyard. The shadows around him seem to deepen, and an ominous presence wakes from its slumber, unfurling its wings around D in much the same way Setsuko's aura surrounds and protects her every move.

    His cape flares open as he leaps high into the air, becoming like a vast pair of black wings. The sound of its rippling, heavy fabric follows the Hunter as he brings his sword up into both hands, his crossguard held up at shoulder height, his blade aimed for Setsuko.

    He comes down at her with the same frightening speed he'd displayed in his vault. His sword is graceful in his hands, confident, and without mercy. To human eyes, D is just a flash of shadow, his sword a dark glint of steel. To Setsuko's, he is something much more magnificent and terrifying.

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    "...no, perhaps not," Setsuko says, her voice growing quieter. The near-surfacing of D's old self reaches her. Her eyes are sharp enough to see the sword drinking in her blood even from across the courtyard. And when that baleful light is mirrored by the Hunter's eyes, her confidence in her conclusion is solidified. And so she answers the monster before her when he challenges her with words. "But you've allowed something to suppress yourself."

    The woman Setsuko was before she took up her blade would be cowed by the descending nightmare. Even as she is now, with divine blue light enveloping her like a shield, every fiber of her being resonates with the knowledge that something great, terrible, and far beyond her skill descends upon her. In a very real way, she is in a better position to know just how overwhelming a monster D has become than most mortals. And yet, even now, her resolve and the spark of the divine warrior inside her will not allow her to falter. And so, she meets the descending attack with the calm, cold poise of a vampire hunter thousands of years older than her. She turns aside the first strike with the precision of a style fashioned for fighting monsters just such as he. And she hurls herself into the fight with inhuman speed and icy ferocity.

    But it is not a style she is built for, and D is still a foe she cannot overmatch. Her blows will not reach him, more than perhaps a shallow cut here and there. Her defenses cannot hold against his assault, save to keep her from dying immediately under his attack. The courtyard fills with purple light, the intermingling of purple and red, and splatters of blood begin to mar the ground, slowly but surely, one after another.

    Even in this, however, Setsuko does not waver. She forces D to see his past self. To fight his past self. To behold just a glimmer of what once was, and to cut it down with his own blade if he intends to continue.

    By the time she shoves herself out of the clash and bounds across the courtyard again, there are several deep wounds on her body to accompany the gash in her shoulder. Legs, arms, sides, at least one deep cut across her abdomen. And, most alarmingly, a stump. Her left hand, gone at the wrist, sacrificed to keep herself alive for another second, to give her a chance to withdraw again.

    It is only now that she finally lets the divine mimicry fade, the blue dissolving back into her aura to reveal the natural form of her sword. And now she has no words; merely stares across the distance, silent.

D (232) has posed:
    In another time and another place, under the light of a warm and nurturing sun, the duel between Setsuko and D might have appeared beautiful, their each maneuver flowing to the next in an elaborate routine designed to celebrate and enhance one another's skill at swordplay.

    No sun shines on Castlevania; only a red moon's baleful glare is cast into the shadow-streaked courtyard. What should be beautiful is made frenetic and savage. Setsuko's sword is raised against D not to drive him to new heights, but to destroy him. There is no passion here except a mad, instinctual desire to survive, to emerge the victor, to find answers in the heat of action. For D, driving Setsuko back is done also because outside forces have prompted him; in this case, Lord Dracula, who in seeking to drive a wedge between the Hunter and his former ally demanded D play the part of a faithful guardian. For Setsuko...D can't guess at what else she wants except to kill him, now; she gained what knowledge she needed awhile ago. The sting of that encounter is already fading in his mind, washed away beneath the bloodlust pricking at his senses, fueled by his sword.

    D is left standing alone inside the courtyard. Setsuko retreats, and wisely so: D's breath comes in frenzied pants, and there is more monster than man guiding his sword. Blood sprays his white face, some of it his own, but most of it hers, and there not far from him, her severed hand leaks a crimson pool from its stump. His head is cocked in regard of the blood flow. From his red-stained lips comes a murmur like velvet, audible across the courtyard, strange-sounding for its cold detachment.

    "You have lost your hand..."

    The Hunter does not move, but his eyes flick up again, his focus darting in a single unnerving motion from the hand to the woman who's lost it. "...stay, and I will have the rest of you."

Setsuko Kaminagi (255) has posed:
    Slowly, the sky-blue nimbus around Setsuko dies out, first shrinking and decreasing in severity before dissipating entirely. In the time this takes, her wrist ceases bleeding, but her regeneration is no match for her foe's; she will be without that hand for some time yet. However, she goes from a wary fighting stance to standing up straight, her blade still levelled only as a deference to the situation...

    "Losing a hand is a small price for keeping one's self."

    And then, she forsakes even that, returning it to its sheath one-handed so as to recall her vehicle. "If you are truly resolved in your new lifestyle, D, set aside your sword. Bury it somewhere. Forsake the life of the hunter OR the vampire for a week. If your hungers call you back to your blade and this bloody path, then by all means, take it back up." It is a veiled gamble; one she doesn't expect to pay off, but worth offering nonetheless.

    As her hoverbike banks down from the sky to respond to her summons, however, she fixes his gaze one last time. "But if you do continue on this path, now or later, you'll find me in your way for every step. And for the man you once were, I'll find a way to stop you." Whether that means bringing him to his senses or killing him, she's not sure. She's not sure that it matters. She'll find a way to do what needs to be done, either way.

D (232) has posed:
    D does not answer.

    It's an interesting challenge, isn't it? To set aside the sword, to interrupt his service and his hunt -- D frowns at his weapon, the first sign he feels anything other than icy disdain for Setsuko's sanctimonious words. "For the man I once was..."

    He lays the blade across his bare palm, and sees in its surface his own reflection cast in red.

    For a moment, he doubts.

    Then, from the shadows it comes over him, the deep compulsion not to doubt, not to question, but to forget and move forward as if never troubled at all. What significance the meeting carries is pulled into the same dark pools consuming his existence and poisoning his memory.

    As Setsuko steps onto her bike and leaves, D flicks his wrist to dismiss the remaining blood clinging to his thirsty sword, and he slides the blade back into its scabbard. He turns from the courtyard and exits as he arrived, wrapped in silence and cold, a far cry from anything human.

    "So be it." Words meant for Setsuko, or himself?