Scene #1913:

Owner	Pose
Ryu	A nice spot in the Ring of Philosophy was chosen for this spar. Ryan sits on a (simulated) tree stump in a clearing full of fallen and still-standing trees, as well as ancient boulders and remnants of houses. Tall grass stands up to the knees all around the clearing, with wild flowers dancing in the breeze above them. The trees seem to be flowering as well, carrying mundane white and purple colors. The dragon is sitting almost absolutely still as he waits for his sparring partner. His only movement is slow blinking, and the rise and fall of his chest as he breathes. His ageless nature can almost be felt in how still he can be when he's waiting. He was never one to need something to distract himself while waiting for someone else, besides his own thoughts.
Reiji Arisu	It doesn't take too long for Reiji to arrive once he's summoned. As someone without an eternity ahead of him, it behooves him to be punctual whenever possible. He is dressed as he always is for engagements like this one. In one hand, he carries his personal arsenal. With one exception, all of his weapons are stored on the portable rack. Gold, his sidearm is holstered at the small of his back. His armored jacket has recently been mended, the reinforced fabric at one shoulder showing no sign of having- only a couple days ago- been hacked open by a too-powerful swordsman. The exorcist emerges from between a few simulated trees, a cigarette tucked at one side of his mouth. It leaves a thin contrail of grey-blue smoke as he approaches. Red-orange light glows at its tip as he takes in a breath, releasing a plume of pungant vapor as he reaches the clearing. "Whenever you're ready," he says with a slight shrug of his shoulders. No need to be too tense today. This is just a sparring match, after all. It probably won't be degenerating into another fight for his life. Probably.
Ryu	The dragon gets up to a stand when he hears the exorcist approach. Silent scrutiny is turned toward him, bright gold eyes moving to take note of the lack of signs of previous damage. A soft rumbling rolls from him as he looks toward the swords at Reiji's side. The dragon looks to Reiji's face when given the signal to begin the spar proper. Only a moment of contemplation comes up after that. When he speaks, his mouth doesn't move, instead coming as a supernatural sound from his throat. It sounds strange, even crystalline. "Here we go, then," he says, and that is the only warning he gives. Gold dragon claws flick in a quick motion toward Reiji, glittering points of light dancing off of the scales of his arm. One finger is pointed to direct the spell, pretty easy to read on its own. These lights grow into tiny spheres, which fire in a shower of light beams toward Reiji, like a shotgun blast of light-based magic. It happens quickly, and the light sears holes in nearby foliage on impact from the residual effects. It makes almost no sound but the slight 'pop' of the air heating up and a distant crystalline chime.
Reiji Arisu	Golden pinpricks transform into a golden storm. The bolts smash into the forest, blasting holes in the greenline. But Reiji is already on the move. Ryu's casual gesture and the accumulation of light around his hand were the only warnings he needed. When the blast of light clears, the exorcist seems to have vanished. ...Except, not quite. A branch rustles overhead. Bullets begin pouring from the canopy as Reiji darts from trunk to trunk. His shotgun roars with every shot, filling the air with smoke and rapidly expanding fletchette rounds. If Ryu looks closely, he might see the faintest singe of burnt cloth across one of Reiji's shoulders. But it seems he's evaded most of the blast. And now he's reciprocating. With shotgun shells.
Ryu	Ryan's senses picked up where Reiji was moving quickly. As a dragon, he's a little more savvy than the typical human, and his head was already turning as he was recovering from using his spell, but it doesn't mean he was ready for the retaliation from the tree tops. The dragon tries to evade, but he's not quick enough to avoid getting peppered with the fletchettes, which make him bleed very red blood where he gets hit. However, each hit is far more shallow than it would be on a lesser target. Dragon scales do much to protect his vitals, and his movements are meant to keep him from being taken out with too precise of a blast. The dragon soaks a spray of a shotgun blast in order to coil for a leap. This leap sends him rocketing toward the tree that Reiji is in, and slamming into its trunk. The trunk lurches dangerously as the wood splinters and smashes under the dragon's shoulder, the leap along strong enough to buckle the tree. And the dragon claws don't help its ability to stay upright, especially with the white-scaled dragon physically ripping the tree up with both arms with a furious crystalline howl for the effort. The tree gets thrown several yards, creating a noisy, messy crash, in an effort to deny Reiji a place to hide and use the branches against the exorcist.
Reiji Arisu	Gunshots echo through the air. The sound meets the tremendous howl of a god-beast unleashed The smell of gunsmoke filters down from the canopy. It is scattered by the winds stirred by the dragon's very movement. Ryan grabs a tree trunk and hurls it, whole, through the woods. All around is the sound of crashing wood and splintering branches. One such branch falls to earth a few feet to the dragon's backside. It isn't alone. Smoking gun pointed at a smoldering mess of burnt wood, a man falls to the ground atop it. His knees buckle as he lands, transforming downward momentum into circular motion.. He uncurls, emerging from his roll- bruise developing somewhere on one side of his back- but he's already on the move. In one smooth motion, he brings the golden handcannon to bore. Gold, a weapon whose nature is one with that of Elemental Metal, roars in reply to the dragon's voice. Bolts erupt from its barrel, each enchanted to shatter wood, bone, carapace and steel. Reiji leaps away, the recoil of his weapon and the rapid motion of his legs carrying him back out of range of the dragon's claws. One swipe could shatter bone. One wrong step means a broken arm, a crumpled skull, ruptured flesh and viscera. He lands, and takes off into another sprint, strafing in a wide circle before rolling behind the cover of nearby bushes. This is how a human fights a monster. Not with strength, but with skill and keen awareness. Indeed, Ryan might just notice. For all that Reiji is moving, never remaining in one place, harrying his opponent from all angles... Never once has he taken his eyes off his opponent. The exorcist is watching.
Ryu	It is a titanic fight the likes of which do not normally happen in Ryu's world, and it is a fight like this that he is not prepared for. Despite the obvious bursts of speed that the white dragon is capable of, he is clearly not trained to take advantage of the bestial speed, and when he hears and spots Reiji landing nearby in the middle of the rain of leaves and wood splinters and dust, it's already too late. The handgun blasts the dragon, and slit pupils shrink from the tension of the pain. The shot cracks through his draconic scales and the spray of blood is quite impressive, spattering the grass and revealing the glowing white flesh at the edges of the wound, dragon scales dribbling down. Ryan recognizes the way the exorcist fights. His eyes widen as flashes of a similar way of fighting runs through his head, something he saw when hunting monsters on the outskirts of Wyndia. The realization of the roles being switched this time comes to him. He tries to think, on the fly, of how to press upon this opponent. He takes in the exorcist's fighting style fairly well. It is probably in the chaos here that the exorcist would notice those eyes over the top of the arm that was used to block the majority of the hand cannon's blast. Ryan lunges forward and begins to take rapid and vicious swipes at Reiji one after the other, pursuing him and making it difficult to keep dodging him by keeping the distance very small. He is, by no means, a slow dragon. His smaller size allows for quicker movements than the lumbering building-sized giants found in some worlds. The swipes, though, are a feint, holding back some of his speed and strength to gauge a correct opening, eyes keenly fixed on his target, focusing entirely on setting up the actual attack. The feint concludes in a single snap of movement where his whole body twists in such a vicious strike that the grass and bushes around him gets torn up from his whipping tail as it tries to keep him from toppling over. He bellows with the effort of this attack. Whether he hits or misses, he is going to be very open.
Reiji Arisu	Reiji was not precisely expecting to be able to outpace his opponent. He is fast- faster than most other humans. But he is still but a man. Ryu closes the distance and begins his onslaught. Reiji rolls out of the way of the first strike, tumbling into a bush. The second crushes his cover, tearing a broad gash into his side- but he's still on the move. The third is caught with a swing of his mobile arsenal, the wall of steel acting as a makeshift shield. Wind buffets his coat, sending its flanks aflutter. But- his flank is open. His ribs are exposed. A blow now could stop his heart, knock him cold. If this were a real fight, it would be a fatal mistake. Reiji's eyes seem to widen in realization. His feet touch the ground. But Reiji Arisu is just a man. A man who is already bloodied, and who has spent the last two days fighting for his life. Fatigue is inescapable. Mistakes can be made. The fourth attack is not a claw swipe. Ryu's tail snaps forward immediately after the third strike. Reiji's arsenal goes flying, its weapons clatter to the ground one by one. The shotgun lands first, landing uselessly on the ground. Two sheathes follow, ending their flight nearby. A fraction of a second passes... Where is Reiji? And where are his /swords?/ Ryan sees it first in the corner of his eyes. A man dropped into a low crouch, hunched over like a tiger in the brief sliver of tranquility before it pounces. The muscles in his legs, back, and abdomen are coiled like snakes. His eyes flash with fire that is at once white hot and ice cold. His swords are in his hands, their sheathes abandoned in the wake of the dragon's strike. Reiji Arisu is but a man. But it is man who developed the martial arts. It is man who has trained his body to be as hard as iron. It is man who has transformed his hands and feet- the tools of survival- into instruments of carnage. It is man who can strike down a bull with his bare hands, shatter stone with an elbow, and catch arrows in mid-flight. Reiji Arisu is a man who hunts monsters. Some might call him a monster in his own right. One arm is covered in a bruise from wrist to elbow. One side is slick with bright, red blood. A wound drips across his brow. A bone creaks unnaturally under his torn and battered flesh. But in this moment, none of that matters. His muscles explode with motion- but it is not sudden. It is fluid. Like a lake shattering a dam, he surges into the opening at Ryu's side. Fire whirls in great, blazing clouds as Karin ignites. Earth-lightning pulses about Chirai, contrails of elemental energies reaching into the newborn inferno, and producing a deafening roar of thunder. Reiji strikes. He rakes his katana into the wound his handgun had so recently opened, and then sweeps it back across his hips. It swings a second time, sweeping out a vast figure eight. Chirai follows, as Reiji lands, his stance transforming his legs into posts and the earth into an anchor and his hips and spine into a fulcrum. The earth-blade screams through the air at blistering speeds, starting from one side of his body and ending at the other in a motion that a practicioner of the art would recognize immediately as Iaijutsu. But, these are not simply swords. Fire creates earth. Earth draws on fire. Chirai's path scythes through the lingering flames left in Karin's wake. The lightning crackling across the blade's length erupts a second time, doubling in strength in the split second it takes for the sword to then reach the Dragon's flesh. This is one fifth of the wheel that makes up the cycle he calls 'Shinra Bansho.'
Ryu	The claws meet their target one after another, and Ryan knows that if this were a normal man he would have long been dead. The strikes still glance off of Reiji, and the dragon can tell that none of them will knock the exorcist out for the count. The feint that he relied on culminates in that singular swipe that impacts something, and it's that which decides how open the dragon is to the next attack. The sheathes and the shotgun go flying, but the target has not flown in a predictable path, and the confusion creates an ideal gap. Ryan realizes far too late that Reiji has found the opening to cut him down. No matter how fast he moves, the fluid motion would swerve through him. One blade hits the wounded arm and gouges through dragon flesh with ease, forcing the dragon to try and retreat from the pain. The next blade does not get a full strike, but it does slice open a gash in dragon scales. And that is enough to decide this. The smell of burning dragon flesh hits the air rapidly. Ryu is knocked backward off his feet by the fire and lightning that surge into his wounds, and collapses onto his back, leaving a spray of scorched blood. When he hits the ground, he bounces, his body seizing up from a combination of agony and electrical shock. After that, he is still, but still breathing. The simulated battlefield flickers for a moment, and the wounds they had sustained fade, replaced by the faint memory of what they had experienced. The dragon is still on his back, though, the clear loser of this spar. He doesn't really want to get up after that, even if the damage didn't stick. Too many fights have told him that he needs to take a bit of a breather before he starts moving around again. He is still conscious, though, as indicated from his speech. "I'm glad you're an ally." Ryu has learned today that he can be slain by a mortal man with the right training and equipment. In a way, it's comforting.
Reiji Arisu	Ryan hits the ground, bounces once, then falls back down. For a moment longer, Reiji's blades still crackle with elemental fury- but it passes, and fades along with the virtual battlefield. The exorcist breathes a heavy sigh as he goes to collect his weapons, sliding his swords back into their sheathes. It takes short while to get all his weapons mounted back onto his portable rack- long enough, it seems, for Ryu to catch his breath. "Mm," Reiji answers. He rubs cautiously at where there was- only moments ago- a wide, gaping wound. "I assume I passed, then?" Metal and wood clatter together as he slings the weapon-rack over one shoulder. For a moment, there's silence. Reiji breaks it. "If circumstances were different, our positions might have been reversed. Your strength is pretty crazy. But that makes you lean on it a little more than you should." He shakes his head, and offers the fallen dragon a gloved hand up. "Really, though, I can't exactly comment on how a dragon aught to fight," he says with a slight smile, "I'm an exorcist, not a youkai. Now, Xiaomu might be a more reliable source. Though I'm not sure how many dragons she's met outside of her games." The Chinese Long and the Japanese Ryuu tend to be creatures that nobody wants to tangle with, after all.
Ryu	The hand is accepted. Ryu takes slow caution in grasping the hand, in fear of accidentally skewering his hand with those claws. The gentle demeanor seems to contrast directly with the way he was just fighting. He doesn't need much help, able to stand under his own power easily enough. His tail waves as his balance returns to him, and he focuses on the exorcist with those golden eyes. Sure enough, when he speaks up again, his mouth still does not move. It's a trick with his draconic nature, for sure. "You fight better than anyone I ever worked with back home," he tells Reiji, "But this was not a pass or fail kind of situation. I would want to bring you along either way, because you showed interest. This, though, will help me trust that you can handle yourself and help me work with you in big fights." He rubs the spot where he felt like his arm nearly got chopped off, rumbling from the tingly discomfort that constantly distracts him even now. He's expecting blood and gore there, but only tough scales meet his touch. "I was trained to fight a little like you do, believe it or not. I'm absolute amateur garbage compared to what you just did, years behind, but..." His arms lower again. "I'll need to start tempering my strength with the swiftness that comes from it." "Believe it or not, nobody knows how dragons are supposed to fight in my world. We hadn't really existed openly until I became one. I might ask Xiaomu about it later, see if she knows anything I can use." Puffing a sigh through his nose, a little white smoke billows from his jaws and nostrils. "Thanks for this."
Reiji Arisu	Having an armored gauntlet wrapped around the better part of your forearm does quite nicely in avoiding accidental claw-injuries. It helps that Ryu is being careful, though. In any case, Reiji comes out of a simple exchange of goodwill unharmed. Always a good thing! He doesn't seem to respond overtly to Ryan's lack-of-lip-sync, either. It might unnerve most people- but Reiji's had at least one conversation with an ambulatory umbrella. Japanese monsters are /weird/ man. "Yeah, well. I had to learn how to fight well pretty quickly," Reiji says with a slight shrug- though it may come off as a bit cryptic. "Though I appreciate the vote of confidence." He inclines his head a bit at Ryu's comment on his training. "Mm," he nods, "I see. Interesting." Reiji considers for a moment, then says: "It's something I run into a lot. Youkai who get too confident in their own claws and hide, and forget that there's more than one way to skin a cat." Or rather, a dragon, in this case. "You might want to think about not using this form for a little while," Reiji advises. Seems he can't talk about fighting like a dragon- but fighting like a human is fair game. "Never know when you might be caught in a situation where it's imprudent to use it. Might help tighten up your defense, too." He takes a moment to slide a cigarette out of one of the pockets on his jacket. He ignites it with a quick flick of a lighter. "...Well. Even if there's no direct comparisons to be made, Xiaomu's a good teacher," he says, chuckling. "Taught me for a few years, actually." Reiji pauses, then nods, "Yeah. No problem. If you ever want to do this again, just let me know."
Ryu	Ryan is happy to have met another warrior, a warrior that can be relied on. He's happy to accept the advice, and nods thoughtfully at the suggestion to take up the other form for a while. "I've been doing that. It does help to stay in human form sometimes." It also helps to have someone suggest it, making him feel more confident about the decision. "I'll let you know," he tells Reiji. "Always looking for new perspectives, these days. That was a good fight." Light shimmers around, his form turning into a white silhouette that turns back into a human shape. This close, Reiji gets to see the eyes, which don't change very much between forms. It seems to be something of a Tell when it comes to this transformation. The blue-haired youth makes sure his coat is all straightened out, and nods to Reiji. "I'll look up Xiaomu later. Look forward to working with both of you, with any luck." He carries a serene smile at Reiji for a few seconds. Then he raises his hand in a wave, and turns to leave, letting out another sigh and rubbing the phantom arm wound. "Damn," he marvels under his breath.