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Post by Cyrille Lécuyer on Jul 5, 2014 12:07:32 GMT -5
As expected, Cyrille had spent a large bulk of his time in the school’s dojo since he had begun his enrollment. As far as he was concerned, there wasn’t much else to do. The dojo served as a place where students could spar each other, as well as train themselves. Cyrille was more involved in the later, as truth be told most of the one star students did not know of the proper ways to wield certain weapons. The spars were interesting to watch, of course. Anything he could use to his own advantage that wasn’t an unfair move was greatly appreciated.
Today, Cyrille was focusing on one of the weapons he was most well-versed in. A katana. Now, Cyrille wasn’t really that big of a fan of katanas, as he found their thinness made them less controllable. However, their length - for a sword - proved to be situationally useful. It was also a generally two handed weapon unless one was dual wielding them. While dual wielding seemed nice and all, Cyrille wasn’t one to enjoy such weaponry. His left arm could not extend fully, meaning he’d be reliant on only the weapon his right hand held, leaving the other in a defensive position. And why not just hold a shield, in such a case?
Cyrille preferred two handed weapons anyway. There was more power to them. With dual wielding your hits could have more frequency, but he also wasn’t of the fast sort. Besides, this particular katana would serve no point to having it’s number doubled anyway; as the blade was reversed. Simply because training dummies lasted longer when hit by a blunt object rather than a sharp one.
The dojo was rather empty today. That was always nice; though Cyrille tended to not take notice of people unless they were to be trying to get his attention. Which was rare. He wasn’t the friendliest sort, plus most people were deterred from approaching a stranger who seemed busy.
”Hm. I should probably try a different weapon. If I do intend to get a partner here, there’s no certainty that they’ll even be a sword...” The boy thought to himself, momentarily pausing his attacks on the poor training dummy. ”Hell, I don’t even know if they’d be bladed. This whole ‘defeating kishin’ deal would be much easier if the cards had fallen a tad differently...”
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Post by Shannon Newberry on Jul 7, 2014 22:03:44 GMT -5
Slam! "Oi! This is the fighting place, right?" A boisterous voice echoed through the sparsely populated dojo. In the doorway could be seen the source of the ruckus, hand still on the frame he slid the door into. The tall figure stood in place, his question being met with silence and dumbfounded looks from few of the students there. "Well is it or not?" He asked, irritated, to one of said students, who simply nodded feebly. Removing his hand from the door frame, the guy cracked his knuckles, also loudly, and stepped forward. "Now which of ya strawberries wanna tussle?"
None of the others seemed too enthused. The figure, Shannon, glared at them, but something past them caught his eyes, "eh? They got weapons here?" He barged on past the students, and looked over the assortment of weapons available for meister's to practice with. He hovered his finger over the selection, using it to guide his site as he perused the weapons like one would peruse books on a shelf. Shannon wasn't very educated when it came to different weapons, and he was a bit confused as to why there were so many different types of swords, axes, knives, pole arms, etc. A sword's a sword, right?
He scratched the back of his head, confounded over the extensive selection. Shannon audibly gasped however when he laid his eyes upon one implement in particular. It was a knife, but the grip was akin to brass knuckles. It was a type of 'trench knife', not that Shannon knew that. He simply knew it was cool. He picked it up, and turned it over in his hands. The blade of the knife was dull; even Shannon could figure that it was likely because it was meant for practice rather than actual use. He fit his right-hand fingers in the holes of the weapon, and gripped on to the handle; it was a snug fit. "Heheh, fits me like a glove; gotta try this out."
Shannon spun around, and saw a figure, seemingly his own height, by some training dummies, and carrying a long curved sword. "Oi!" He called to the figure, pointing the knife in his direction, "oi, you there! How much you willing to bet that I can't kick your arse?"
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Post by Cyrille Lécuyer on Jul 7, 2014 23:29:17 GMT -5
Suddenly; loud noises. The sound of yelling temporarily stalled Cyrille’s advances. He was good at dealing with ambient noise, sure, but his ears would need to adjust slightly to deal with the noise. While he couldn’t completely ignore it, he at the very least could let the voice take a back seat to his motions with the sword.
The person who had entered the dojo boasted a loud voice. Cyrille didn’t bother looking at the person directly, as he had little incentive to do so, but he had made a subconscious note of everything he said. Perhaps that was because of the boy’s accent. It sounded obnoxious. Or perhaps it was because of the words he used. They were also obnoxious. The boy must have been new to the school; as he didn’t know much about the dojo, if anything at all. He had supposedly never been there before. Perhaps it was his first day? Why would a student who was going to try to defeat kishin - of all things - not try to hone their skills at any possible opportunity? Perhaps he was one of those NOT students. Yes, it was probably that.
The thought of the loud one simply being a NOT student gave Cyrille all the more reason to ignore him. Or at least he did until the voice was so close it seemed as though the boy was talking to Cyrille directly. In fact, he was. Could he not see that Cyrille was busy? What an annoying soul. Now he’d actually have to pay attention to the boy. Bother.
Cyrille shifted his eyes as to be able to see the boy from his peripheral vision. However, a bored and slightly annoyed expression soon became that of shock. The first thing about the boy Cyrille noticed was that of his hair colour. He didn’t notice anything else, and momentarily forgot who he was talking to. Now, there were a few things that set Cyrille off. The main one that proved a great annoyance was how he was absolutely terrified of women. With good reason; but there are quite a few women in the world. An inability to defend one’s self against them was a massive flaw. Not to mention the fact that witches were always female. The next was eye colour. Pink eyes caused the same expression he gave now, while the women differed as there was normally a bit more terror in his expression. The last was hair colour, be that silver or pink.
This boy had pink hair. Neither silver or pink was a particularly common hair colour; but even if it were it wouldn’t really matter. Due to being identical twins with his late sister, pink and silver hair reminded him of the girl greatly. It was why he tended to avoid mirrors. Perhaps if she hadn’t died due to his own ineptitude he wouldn’t be so afraid of such things. But alas, that was not the way the cards had fallen. Pink hair caused those thoughts to resurface in Cyrille’s brain; causing the look of shock or terror.
Not too long after Cyrille had spun around to completely face the boy, the thoughts of his sister bouncing around in his head - at a deafening sound - were suddenly nulled to be quieter. Though still there, Cyrille could more easily cope with them, causing his expression to revert to being much more serious. He then turned his body away from the boy again, though still looked at him from the corner of his eye.
He had said something, hadn’t he? Something in regards to gambling. Cyrille hadn’t exactly been paying attention; not that he needed to. What the boy spoke was of minimal importance - even if the bloke didn’t seem to get that. It was Cyrille’s duty to let him know of this simple fact. ”Your words hold little value to me. I’d suggest bothering someone else.” Cyrille said, rather bluntly. His words were not meant to be rude; but Cyrille wasn’t the best at playing nice. The boy was holding a weapon; so Cyrille assumed him to be a meister. A NOT meister, by the reasoning he had used earlier. ”I assume you to be a meister? From the NOT classes? If so, the previous statements hold even more weight. I haven’t the time for such things...”
Cyrille spoke with a clearly french accent. Though he seemed slightly on edge, his words were said in a calm manner and were not said too slow nor too fast. He brought his attention back to the training dummy, assuming the loud one was about to leave. His sword - which had been lowered with the sudden outburst - was raised up again in an offensive position.
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Post by Shannon Newberry on Jul 15, 2014 2:57:46 GMT -5
The silver haired boy did not provide the reaction Shannon was expecting. This irked him. A great deal, in fact. His knuckles whitened as his grip on the trench knife tightened, "I am not from the NOT classes, ya wanker!" He angrily stomped past Cyrille and stood between him and the training dummy the swordsman was clearly more interested in fighting. "If you're so damn cocky, Frenchy, why don't you try waving that fancy French blade of yours in the direction of someone that could at least fightback!" He slammed his right fist against the dummy, shaking it on its post. "See, it's useless to waste your time on this dumb... thing..." his face froze for a second, dumbfounded. "Ah! That's why it's called a dummy! Hah," he scoffed, pleased with himself for making that simple connection.
It took a moment for Shannon to get over his small academic triumph, but he refocused his attention back on the individual whose attention had been demanded by Shannon. He jerked his left arm to point at his chest proudly, "Shannon Newberry, One Star meister, but ya shoulda already known that." He introduced himself suddenly; Shannon would probably insist proper transitions were for nerds. He pointed his left index finger at Cyrille's face, "and Shannon's gonna drop a knowledge bomb on ya here: if ya wanna get stronger, ya gots ta fight. So... come on,"
He shuffled back away from the training dummy and ran into the center of the sparring area proper. Planting his feet in a solid stance to face Cyrille once again, Shannon motioned his left hand in a beckoning gesture, whilst raising his right hand and the knife it held in a basic defensive posture, "show me yo' moves."
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Post by Cyrille Lécuyer on Jul 16, 2014 14:13:36 GMT -5
For whatever reason, the boy who had confronted Cyrille didn’t pick up on his mini freak out. Most other people would have, as Cyrille was never exactly subtle with that kind of thing. It was obvious the boy wasn’t that smart. Brawn was useless without any brain, so Cyrille would have ignored every word he said.
Key word is that he would have. But, of course, the boy had to go and insult him. That wasn’t really what bothered Cyrille, though. What was more bothersome was the fact that the boy had called his sword french. Did this boy know nothing? Mostly everyone just had to know that katanas were japanese weapons. It was so obvious by how they were crafted, compared to a french sword like a rapier or the like. Alas, Cyrille didn’t have the time to correct him. The boy kept on blabbing about whatever.
Cyrille hadn’t moved from offensive stance, though he was getting a bit tired standing there like that. Eventually, he brought the sword down, as Shannon was still speaking. A joke, it seemed. A dumb one, of course. The boy seemed to be exceedingly proud of himself for thinking such a joke up. ”Come on, Cy. We’re wasting our time.”
The voice that rang through Cyrille’s head was not that of his own, but rather that of his late sister’s. That voice was always troublesome to hear, but the boy heard it when something reminded him of her. How dare this dumb bloke remind him of his sister. Though the boy couldn’t of possibly known - or understood - it was an unforgivable act. ”Cyrille Lécuyer. Also a one star meister.” Cyrille spoke, turning his body to face Shannon. ”I accept your challenge despite the fact I believe you and the dummy to have the same intelligence level.”
Shannon had taken the defensive. But with a small little dagger? That wouldn’t do much against a long katana. Cyrille kept his sword down, despite the fact katanas were generally used to attack at head level. Instead of doing that, Cyrille went for a sweeping slash at Shannon’s left leg,
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Post by Shannon Newberry on Jul 21, 2014 1:23:07 GMT -5
"Ah, now that's the spirit, Frenchy." Shannon cockily said in retort to Cyrille's introduction. "But you ain't gonna psyche ME out." He said. Though what Cyrille had said wasn't too fat off the mark, Shannon simply could not acknowledge the truth in his evident lack of intelligence. "And if you think the length of that saber's gonna give you the advantage, you've got another thing comin!"
Shannon's plan was pretty simple. Get in close. Punch face. Go for the ol' One-Hit Knock Out. It should be noted, however, that Shannon had never properly fought against another meister before; an instant win like that was not likely, unlike the simple thugs he hadn't beaten up before. A good Soul Purge to the face would still hurt like hell for a meister too, though. Not that Shannon ever thought to consider this difference.
Cyrille swung his katana low, aiming for Shannon's left leg. The peach haired brawler charged forward rather than attempt to side step or back pedal from the blow. Closing the distance between him and the swordsman in a brief time thanks to his superior speed, he decided in a split-second to reconsider going for the face-punch. The blade was swinging for his leg, so how to avoid it? Simple. On his final step forward, he reflexively jerked his left leg up to knee Cyrille as up high as he could."Hi-yah!" He shouted for emphasis. He would then attempt to follow up the knee strike with a quick and reckless horizontal swing of his knife, going from his right to his left.
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Post by Cyrille Lécuyer on Jul 21, 2014 11:35:05 GMT -5
Despite having ample time to avoid the obvious attack the opposition was going for, Cyrille made no attempts to avoid it. All he did was lower himself slightly, so Shannon’s knee collided with his lower chest as opposed to his stomach. Cyrille knew he could take a few hits, but that one had hurt a bit more than he had expected. Regardless, the move had put Shannon in an awkward position. Since the attack hadn’t pushed Cyrille back at all, the boy had no trouble continuing his own advances. A strong strike to the inside of the right leg was even better than a strike to the outside of the left. Hopefully Shannon enjoyed bruises.
Once Cyrille was certain the sword had hit Shannon’s leg, he quickly (Or at least quickly for him) pulled back the sword and brought it to his left side. While doing this, the boy took a step to his right to put some more distance between Shannon’s blade and his own body, giving him all the time he needed to block the dagger with his katana. Easy.
As soon as the two weapons had met with a loud “clang”, Cyrille begun to drag his blade downwards. The height of the katana allowed him a much better chance of disarming the dagger than the dagger disarming his katana. However, the motion was done with not much more than a flick of the wrist, with the idea of only stalling Shannon as opposed to actually making him drop his weapon. Disarming someone in a sparring match wasn’t considered fair-play by the french boy. Once Cyrille was satisfied with how much he had slowed his opposition, he side stepped further to his right then forward, stepping past Shannon. His sword was brought up to the side of his head in an offensive position, making a swipe at the side look highly probable. But instead the idea was to hit the back of Shannon’s neck with the hilt of the blade.
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Post by Shannon Newberry on Jul 21, 2014 17:22:11 GMT -5
"Ack, me dolly!" Shannon winced in pain as the katana hit his right leg. He really didn't think that through. He was so focused on avoiding getting his left leg hurt he allowed his right to take the blow instead! The sudden pain caused his follow up slash to whisk past Cyrille and clang! with his sword. Or at least, that's what Shannon attributed his miss to. Certainly not the other guy's skill.
Furthermore it seemed like this guy was quite a hardy bloke, he hardly flinched from Shannon's knee attack. Cyrille pressed his blade against the dagger's, a faux-disarming maneuver. Since Shannon wasn't expecting to hit the katana in the first place, and he was reeling a bit from his sore leg, he didn't apply much force against the katana. He instead rolled with the movement, letting his dagger disengage it with little resistance. Even if Cyrille had gone for a proper disarm attempt, he wouldn't likely succeed; his fingers were snugly fit in the holes of the knife's "brass knuckles". It was a very firm grip.
Shannon knelt down briefly to give his injured leg a reprieve, but glancing up he saw Cyrille bringing his sword back up, signaling he was about to strike again. Shannon would have none of that! He quickly shifted his footing and pivoted himself to his left a few degrees to match Cyrille's movement, and placed all his weight on his unharmed left leg. He sprung forward and headlong into a tackle, his left hand reaching out to grab onto the katana's hilt whilst his right elbow was bent and fore-arm raised in front of his stomach. The end of the dagger was of course tilted away from himself, he wasn't quite dense enough to stab himself like that. The swordsman likely had solid enough balance at the moment to not be knocked down by the tackle, but Shannon hoped at least to restrict Cyrille's range of movement and get all up in his face. If he could get all up in his face, he would go for a good ol' head butt.
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Post by Cyrille Lécuyer on Jul 21, 2014 22:44:06 GMT -5
So far, both of Cyrille’s moves had succeeded. Not only had they succeeded, but they had felt so very satisfying. The boy Cyrille faced didn’t seem to know what he was doing, despite seeming overly confident. Furthermore, all the loud noises the boy made made Cyrille wish to pummel him even more. Cyrille hadn’t actually practised combat with another person in a long time. A very long time.
However, the fact Shannon was going for attacks that Cyrille deemed unconventional proved worrisome. Wasn’t the idea of sparring to get better at using any given weapon? Win or lose, one gains experience from any given spar. But going for cheap shots that generally can’t be improved upon in a spar seemed silly. The boy Cyrille faced simply wanted to win, nothing more.
So when Cyrille found himself unable to move his katana due to the opposition taking hold of the hilt, he was a bit annoyed. The boy did not succeed in knocking Cyrille over, of course, but the lack of possible movement now was frustrating. Cyrille did not wish to use moves that did not make full use of his weapon, but he hadn’t much of a choice now. Shannon’s stomach was covered, so Cyrille couldn’t try to knee him there. A punch meant taking one hand off his katana, and Cyrille didn’t want to give Shannon the opportunity to make him drop it. Instead, Cyrille had a different idea. Still not one he considered particularly fair, but he had to allow himself to tread on equal footing as his foe.
Cyrille allowed a small smile to press upon his lips as he brought his body further down. With him he yanked the hilt of the katana, hoping to make the boy loosen his grip. Cyrille moved his right leg at Shannon’s legs in a sweeping motion once he had lowered himself substantially. Shannon was already probably a bit off balance, perhaps Cyrille would be able to sweep him off his feet.
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Post by Shannon Newberry on Jul 23, 2014 10:30:44 GMT -5
"Huwhaaaaaah!" Shannon uttered as he was swept off his feet. What a cheap move! He fell, back landing on the ground at Cyrille's feet. What a smug bastard this guy was. He thinks he's so fancy with his large sword and silver hair with the cute little highlight and his apparently nice and firm musculature. What an arse hole. Sweeping Shannon off his feet like that.
Shannon pounded his fist on the ground, not content to just stay down. He contracted his core muscles, and with the aid of his upper body strength he sprung up in an impromptu Ukemi maneuver. Not that Shannon knew what Ukemi was. Or even what Judo was as a whole. He just knew he couldn't stand being on the ground, and he wasn't going to allow this guy to have a chance to pin him down. Getting back on his injured leg hurt like hell, though.
He quickly went back stepped a couple feet away from Cyrille, his leg hurting like hell the whole way and causing a bit of a limp to show through. Shannon needed to catch his breath. He caught it. He was never winded for very long, even though his muscles ached. He couldn't stand a blow as well as some others, but his stamina proved he could certainly keep himself moving throughout the course of a battle and light on his feet.
Apparently trying to grapple with the bloke wouldn't do Shannon much good. Best go for Plan A then. Face punching. His irritation and desire to deal a lot of damage with this blow urged his Drakon Soul on to resonate with itself. Shannon had to take the offensive this time, no more waiting to prevent Cyrille's blows unsuccessfully. He lunged forward and to the right, keeping himself bent to a lowered position. A further step forward and to the left, he straightened his body out, placing as much force as he could into a solid Soul Purge jab aimed towards Cyrille's face with his right, metal clad, fist. Even if Cyrille tried to block the punch with his katana, it would be going against a lot of force; these training weapons weren't anywhere near as sturdy as a Demon Weapon, and such a blow would easily send a drastic traumatic shock down the length of the weapon. Akin to taking a swing at a tank, really, in terms of feedback.
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Post by Cyrille Lécuyer on Jul 23, 2014 12:03:46 GMT -5
Cyrille’s move had done exactly what he had expected. He had his sword back, and Shannon was on the ground. That move should be easy enough to recover from, so Cyrille focused on putting some distance between him and the opposition. When Shannon got up again, he did the same. Odd. But something about the way he got up seemed familiar...
”Was that a ukemi maneuver?” Cyrille thought to himself, as the other boy caught his breath. ”He knows judo? That’s... surprising. And troublesome. Best bring my guard up.” Soon, Shannon was lunging at him. He was doing quite well in regards to dealing with the injury Cyrille had inflicted early on. Good. Cyrille did enjoy a challenge, even if the boy’s techniques had been generally unimpressing so far. It seemed he was going for a punch. Normally Cyrille would simply block that with his own hand, but since the boy’s dagger had a knuckle grip, it’d be ideal to block with his own weapon.
Cyrille brought his katana up, with the blunt side facing towards Shannon’s fist. The two soon collided, but the outcome was not as the boy had expected. First of all, the katana was unable to take the pressure of the soul purge attack. Since the fist had hit near the hilt, the blade part easily broke off from said hilt.
But more importantly, it had hurt like hell.
Cyrille didn’t react to the katana breaking at all. If it hadn’t have broken, he would have dropped it anyway. Cyrille was great at taking hits, but he did have one weak spot. It couldn’t be helped, as the injury had trouble healing. His left shoulder had been impaled about four years ago, meaning he was unable to move it fully. Furthermore, any hits to it tended to hurt quite a lot. Fortunately, aiming for the shoulders was not something most people did. And Shannon hadn’t either, but that attack was so powerful it had sent a strong shockwave coursing through Cyrille’s entire body. Was that a soul purge attack? Why was it so strong? Cyrille’s own soul purge attacks got significantly stronger when attacking kishin (or so he’d been told), but last time he checked Cyrille was not a kishin. What was with this guy?
Moments after dropping the now bladeless hilt, the boy clutched his left shoulder. Though his entire body hurt - a lot - his shoulder far outweighed any of that. The pain lent itself as a not-so-friendly reminder of the events of four years ago as well. The boy had hunched himself over, and breathed heavily through clenched teeth. He also seemed to be visibly shaking. ”Are you trying to kill me?” The boy muttered, mostly to himself as his voice was rather quiet and shaky.
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Post by Shannon Newberry on Jul 24, 2014 13:17:03 GMT -5
The punch did not meet the silver haired guy's face. To Shannon's disappointment. Though, that was probably for the best; he probably would've been absorbed by guilt if he ended up killing Cyrille with that. What did happen, however, was a clash of steel. The force of Shannon's blow was apparently great enough to straight up rend the katana. That lessened Shannon's disappointment a bit. He totally won, if his opponent no longer had a weapon!
Or, such would be the case under a different circumstance. The force of the blow didn't just break Cyrille's weapon. For one, It had hurt Shannon's fist like hell. He perhaps used too much force. "Ack, now me jazz, too!" He exclaimed gripping his right hand with his left. He was pretty sure he broke his hand a bit, and it was bleeding profusely. The knife he was holding wasn't in any better shape. The grip now had fractures running through it, and the blade seemed to have been dislodged, as it was wiggling around slightly.
Shannon back off away, and past the pain of his hand he saw the boy opposite of him clutching his shoulder. He heard Cyrille's question uttered under his breath, just slightly. "What? No, no, no. I ain't no killer. I just wanted to beat ya up a bit." He released his grip from the trench knife, and let it fall to the ground. "Look here, mate, I don't think I can go for another round, either. Let's just call it a draw for today, eh?"
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Post by Cyrille Lécuyer on Jul 26, 2014 11:26:53 GMT -5
In a way, Shannon was fortunate that Cyrille was in incredible pain. For if he wasn’t, he’d probably try to lash out at the other boy. For Cyrille was just a bit angry. That fight had been going completely his way until the other boy just had to cheat. In a spar, both sides are supposed to gauge the other’s strength. They are not supposed to go for moves that were certain to injure the target. Annoying. Shannon was just so very annoying. Hopefully Cyrille would either not see him ever again, or have the chance to officially best him later. Either way was good enough for him, so long as these interactions didn’t become a common thing.
And now he was asking to call a draw. Well, duh the spar was a draw. Despite the fact Cyrille had been completely mopping the floor until that point, he had never been one to really care about the outcome of a spar. What he cared about was how good of a fight it was. Which this, of course, had not been. To stop himself from letting his anger show - shouldn’t be too difficult based on how daft Shannon seemed to be - Cyrille said nothing more than, ”...Very well.” Shannon would probably leave with all due haste. His hand seemed to be bleeding, so it wouldn’t surprise Cyrille if he headed to the dispensary. Realistically, Cyrille should also head there. But he didn't really wish to interact with this Shannon bloke further, so he'd just have to deal with his own pain.
((Annnd thread end.))
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