The Boxer

A quick dodge to the side would save a few hairs on his head as the knight wielding the crackling broadsword tore through the air he was just occupying. His heart beat deeply in his chest as his eyes tore between the two warriors with a sense of urgent panic. He knew for a fact he couldn’t fight the both of them, especially with a busted up arm, but he could at try to distract them as much as possible with his current injuries. Gathering his knees beneath himself so he could plant his feet sturdily, he glanced at the immediate threat, the cold unyielding silverish steel of the assailants helmet stared him back with a sense of uncaring finality. His fingers clinched as his body screamed at him in pain. He knew that he couldn’t use any of the various ninja tricks that had been taught to him while he had stayed in Iwa, and with his physical disadvantage, trying to fight the swordsman straight up was plain old suicide.

Luckily for Taiho, shinobi could be seen approaching the area, but he could tell they were more for assisting in clearing the rubble of the destroyed building than assisting him with his battle. That meant that Taiho was still on his own for at least another minute or so. Faced turned into a grimace, he pushed himself to his feet, something that his opponent seemed to allow as the crackling green energy seemed to hum along with the mysterious assailants patience. Gripping his shoulder in pain, Taiho turned himself into an impromptu striking stance, modifying it on the spot so that it would be far more defensive by centering his core and propping himself up on the balls of his feet. Luckily for him his legs still worked perfectly fine, however he would lose in a battle of strength, and if the now crackling energy field surrounding his opponent was any indication, also in a battle of speed. The warrior leveled their sword at him, the blade even level with his chest as the warrior slid themselves into a charging stance. It seemed the knight understood Taiho’s predicament, the fact that all he could do was dodge meant that for all intents and purposes, this fight was over. Of course for Taiho, haven’t lived in a shinobi village for the past three years of his life, he knew one thing for certain.
A pulse of chakra passed through him, not so much that he would know who or where it came from, but he understood its purpose, his body already naturally leaning out of the way as tanned blur tore through the air he had been in moments before, for the second time today, he had been surpassed in speed and agility as Maikumaru practically tackled himself into the Knight. Unfortunately for Maik however, he had come from behind Taiho, meaning he hadn’t seen or noticed the blade before his charge and had ran straight into it. Luckily for the man, his own natural chakra aura had protected him from the blades piercing properties, but it had given the Knight enough time to back up from the charge due to space. The charge however had done its trick, and with Maik now standing in front of him in a protecting manner, Taiho was able to let go of his bluff, his busted arm allowed to hang limply by his side as he sat down in pain. He wasn’t necessarily completely taken out of the fight, but with Maik’s clone fighting the Great hammer wielding Knight, he knew that he himself would only get in the way of the fight and stayed where he was to avoid being a distraction.

The knight on the opposite rooftop saw the clone approach him and seemed to not show any sort of response to the ninja’s superior speed. Its body crackled with energy as it stomped on the ground, releasing a pulse of this energy through the rooftop tearing it up further and destabilizing the whole structure with the power released. The effect of this power was evident immediately as the knight fell into a bear hug type movement, reaching out the grab the incoming sliding clone with the intention of dragging it beneath the remains of the rooftop to do battle with it. Of course the knight didn’t understand that it was clone, nor did it know how clones operated, but it understood that splitting up the enemy was important and with their target seemingly incapacitated, dealing with the immediate threat of the intruder was paramount.

Post WC: 764
Total WC: 764 + 739 = 1503

Fighting First, Always

The Boxer

Watching his proverbial teacher stare down one of his assailants sent a shiver down Taiho’s spine. The young male once again struck with the recollection of just how familiar this situation felt to him. Again he was forced to watch as someone else defended him from a threat that was far greater than himself. Once again he was forced to choose his own survival over their safety of others. Again he had to listen to the screams of civilians forced to suffer the pain and agony of being attacked by an outside force that was now looking for him. The smell of the acrid smoke watered his eyes forcing him to turn away even as the Knight fled from Maik. He couldn’t watch the chase nor could he pay attention to the other fight happening across the street. He could hear the pop of the clone being crushed to death, the Knight having improvised appropriately and crushing the clone in a massive bear hug. It was because of this that the Knight was able to walk through the crumbling remains of the building unhindered, the wailing forms of dying civilians surrounding the faceless Knight as it stared across the street at it’s target. Green energy would crackle from it’s form before it launched itself across the street, the mission still paramount to everything else, even it’s own partners survival.

The sound of plate mail landing on the rooftop with him snapped Taiho out of his funk. It was hard to ignore the sights he was treated with, the building that his assailant had vacated had now completely collapsed taking the occupants as well as some of the arriving shinobi with it. Smoke and dust filled the air as the sound of the building collapsing overwrote any other sound in the vicinity. Taiho found it hard to breath with all of the dust filling the air, but he persevered through it as the Knight began to walk up to him, the slow pace driving Taiho’s anxiety through the roof as the imposing figure slung it’s massive hammer up and over its shoulder. The figure dwarfed Taiho’s crouched and diminished form leaving him like a mouse before a cat. A tinge of fear filled his form like a growing ache that seemed to claw and eat at him with a great ferocity. He reached for something, for anything, but the moment that his hand touched nothing but air, he knew that he had reached the proverbial end of the line. The dust had risen up above the rooftops, choking the life out of him, leaving him with nothing as the Knight’s visor simply lit up with acknowledgement before the hammer was slung off it’s shoulder and lifted high above its head. Taiho couldn’t see the general aim of the metal behemoth, but he knew that pain and suffering was to follow if he allowed that hammer to fall. His mind raced with a thousand thoughts, each branching reconsideration discarded and reacquired with the mere jump of a synapse. His mind was quick firing as the hammer began to arc downward towards him, the crackling green energy seemingly electrifying the air with its presence. His hair almost standing on end as his body finally moved, the quick jerky movement pulling him just to the left of the standing Knight before the massive weapon was dropped on the rooftop caving it in entirely sending him to the floor below and crushing all of the occupants inside.

Taiho let out a yelp of pain and surprise as he dropped to the uneven floor, the crumbled remains of the plaster and brick walls laying all about him as a cloud of smoke and dust once again rose up above the rooftops. The response to the situation finally arrived as other shinobi arrived on scene to assess the situation past the first responders, realizing that the assailants weren’t being dealt with in a timely manner. The multiple shinobi all held their hands out towards the Knight, their opposite hand bracing the forearm of the hand pointed towards the Knight as the leader approached and hailed the Knight. Taiho’s broken form was unable to be seen among the rubble, the boys frame covered by debris as he lay unconscious beneath the remains of the rooftop. The Knight itself stood unphased, the hammer still resting against the ground as it looked around before assessing that the situation was no longer in it’s favor. Gripping the hammer, the Knight would unleash another pulse of green energy, this time ripping straight through the building entirely in arcs of sharp green cracks that permeated outwards from the hammer. Grasping the shaft of the weapon, the Knight would yank it up from where it rested, pulling up with it a large chunk of the floor as well as starting the process to collapse the rest of the building before jumping away as large explosions ripped through the building itself sending it crumbling to the ground with all of the occupants screaming inside to their deaths.

The Knight would jump away, beams of energy and jutsu flying past it’s massive frame as it rushed towards it’s comrade, the quiet giant seemingly ignoring everything else to collect it’s companion so that they could leave, their mission apparently a failure due to him having possibly killing the target. The Knight would have to explain the situation to its superior, but for now, it had to make its way out of the village leaving behind two collapsed building and a potentially dead Taiho in its wake.

Post WC: 929
Total WC: 929 + 1503 = 2432

Fighting First, Always

The Boxer

Pain was not something that Taiho could say he strayed far from. In fact, as far as he could remember, he had lived a life of pain. It was all part of his conditioning, to clear the mind of idle thoughts and weakness, to prepare oneself for a life of service. Every moment he took in breath could have and should have been considered a life of pain. Even when he enjoyed life, surrounded by all of the fancies and amenities of being a Prince, he could feel that dull curving pain that struck him deep. But as he lay now, a line of rebar going through his side causing blood to ooze out of the serrated wound, his left leg crushed under the weight of five stories of concrete, stone and mortar and the countless bodies that once filled the spaces in between them, and the pain of his back and head having been smashed through countless floors of the building he had been sitting on, he now knew, and vividly understood pain.

Breathing was difficult, harsh even. His body found troubles with drawing in what air there was, and what air was left was filled with irritating dust particles that would likely kill him before help even arrived. He could hear the dying screams of pain and fear as random gas explosions tore through what remained of the frame of the building. Every time the building shook a lance of pain tore through Taiho as the rebar that pierced him shifted about. He gripped the foreign material with what little strength he had, his left hand and arm trapped behind him and his right weakly holding on. His breathing became far more haggard the more time that passed as the heat from the fires began to grow. It was hard to gauge time while stuck in the building, the lack of sunlight and the constant cacophony of pained sounds dulled what little senses he had left. He couldn’t even tell where he was in the building, knowing that he was somewhere in the collapsed rubble however. He was at least lucky enough that there was no gas pouring near him, burning alive was not something he wished to experience just yet.

Gathering what little chakra he could, he’d pulse it weakly, giving himself a sort of beacon that could be sensed by any nearby shinobi. He had no intentions of dying in this building, no matter how much he hated the fact that he had once again put people who he had began to love in danger. This anger at himself seemed to power his will to live, pushing back the dull feeling that had began to spread throughout his body. Gritting his teeth as he shifted his body to begin moving his left arm from behind his body. He could feel that it was dislocated, likely pulled out of the socket during his fall and the collapse of the building. He knew that as he lay, he couldn’t likely pop it back in without having to go through the whole process of pulling himself back up again. Resigning himself to more pain however, Taiho quickly grasped the limb to move it out of the way before his body could fall back to the rough uneven concrete.

His breathing came in harsh and uneven, his heartbeat pumping slower as his body leaked more crucial blood from his wound. He thought about screaming out to alert the shinobi that he could feel moving about the rubble, but decided not to so that he could conserve what little energy he had left. Instead he maintained the soft pulse of chakra, the energy being felt by the shinobi operating through the rubble. This would lead to his eventual discovery and recovery, the young male pulled half dead from the second collapsed apartment building. Taiho had been among the fortunate few. Many people had been crushed immediately upon the building collapsing. Others had died of suffocation, immolation, or from bleeding out from their various wounds. He was immediately taken off to the hospital for his wounds as the rest of the shinobi continued to aid with the recovery process.

Back with the Knight with the great hammer, after collapsing the building that their target had been sitting on, the Knight made it it’s primary objective to recover it’s partner at all costs. Green energy crackled about it angrily as it considered the failure that both it and it’s partner had faced. Of course this wasn’t a mission they were supposed to undergo in the first place. They had ignored direct orders to only observe and thus had faced a greater level of security than if they had stuck to the plan. And now they faced discovery and likely opposition against their given mission.

The Knight cursed from behind their helmet as they closed in behind the shinobi that had chased down it’s compatriot, the Knight not wishing for it’s companion to give away secrets just yet. The Knight would quickly let loose a heavy swing of it’s Greathammer. It didn’t matter if the hammer hit the shinobi or not, the aim for the Knight was the rooftop the two were standing on. The crackling energy ensured that the shinobi couldn’t just block it, even with chakra. The strike would eventually strike the rooftop, either by smashing the shinobi through it, or because the shinobi moved out of the way, but the end result was all the same. The energy released by the Greathammer arced through the building quickly, instantly destabilizing and collapsing the building in a large explosion.

The explosion would be large enough to obscure the Knight as it grabbed it’s compatriot and warped the both of them away. It was able to do this even if the Shinobi had maintained his grip on it’s partner. The helmet and blade had both been left behind, but the Knight had managed to secure the more important resource in this action, and that was the knowledge that it’s compatriot likely held. The two would reappear almost a mile outside of the village walls in front of a group of their superiors. The act and energy of said warp left the larger Knight winded, sending them to their knees as their superiors quickly gathered both Knights up before leaving the area behind, not even bothering to cover their tracks.

It was unknown what would have happened to Maikumaru in the aftermath of the Knights escape, but luckily he had at least managed to keep his student safe in the end.

[Exit]

Post WC: 1,096
Total WC: 1096 + 2432 = 3528

Ripple Palm Strike: 2700/2700 (3000 - 10% reduction from Jutsu WC)

828 WC left over.

Fighting First, Always