Tenacity [Veigue/Kisaragi]

[Deleted]

Theme

Four pairs of constant steps. The sounds of footwear stomping in the dirt with each step reached the ears of the wandering swordmaster as he casually traversed through a ghost town of a Bernese village. People still lived there, but for whatever reason, didn't seem fond of the sunlight or like the great outdoors too well. Fine and quiet enough for the sacaean, but it also allowed him to hear out those sounds of hostility echoing around him with the clarity of an open passage.

It didn't bring halt to his progress, knowing he had a rendezvous point to get to. It was almost like a provocation; a taunt in it's own way to pay his visitors in the shadows no mind to get them angry. Clearly, they'd seen that his pace slowed down, showing his awareness that he wasn't alone and expected animosity. Neither of his sleeved arms reached for the blade at his side, maintaining a fixed gruff expression as he awaited for what he expected. Veigue could feel the anxiousness in the air from his stalkers, signaling for him that the time was just right to steel himself for the incoming ruthless conflict that he didn't care for.

And that it did — shadows of four figures dropped to the ground in front of him before the men they belonged to landed. He wanted to just keep walking, but ignoring them too much would prove less effective than confrontation, so he opted for halting and standing bold towards his "visitors": The two in the front being beefy brawlers of some sort, arms crossed as a cocky grin remained plastered on their faces like glue. No doubt in his mind that this was his daily serving of Jaquio assassins on a plate. He began to wonder if they'd show up or not today.

"Move." Was all that escaped the sacaean's lips.

"Or else what?" One of the goons behind the two brutes spinning around a chain and sickle scoffed, giggling right after before his bloodthirsty eyes set their view on the swordmaster.

[Celerity used.]

Veigue stood in place one moment, then his body blurred in motion like a silvery ghost brushing through the wind at speeds unseen to the naked eye. The men didn't see him again until the brute on the right dropped to the ground in a gorish defeat — his first strike grazed through his unprotected throat before Veigue's blade traveled in another quick stab to the right, thrusting through the back of the second brute and the steel exiting through his chest, all before the man had a chance to realize his target was beside him. Their reflexes were too slow, giving Veigue the truth that his opponents were either novice warriors or simply far from any form of refinement.

Veigue glared at the man with the sickle, knowing that his actions alone gave a proper response to his question earlier.

"Oh..." The assassin said, Veigue's glare piercing him enough to sweat and panic out a command to the other grunt with a steel blade to attack. The man threw himself at the swordmaster with haste, swinging his giant weapon in a slow, yet controlled pattern as he dodged them without too much issue. He showed some skill with the giant meat cleaver he wielded, giving Veigue a little hope at one of them at least giving a decent challenge. Just as he parried one of the blows, he perceived the sound of the chains whipping in the wind, seeing the thrown sickle and it's extension thrown at him from the cowardly leader and it ruined his chance to take advantage of his bladed opponent's new opening.

There always lied a Plan B in the swordsman's mental arsenal of strategy, wanting to take advantage of the surprise attack and turn it against the two. Taking them both out at once sounded like a nice substitute for what he wanted to accomplish at first. Instead of stepping to the side or flipping out the way like in normal situations, he ducked under the hurling weapon while striking the leg tendon of the man with the giant sword with his sheath, the inflicted muscle forcing the man down to his knees before Veigue sprung back up to perform a decapitation in a smooth motion before sheathing his blade.

The last standing survivor — their leader — gritted his teeth. His sickle stabbing itself in the ground showed how grim his situation was. Just before he tried to yank it out with a forceful pull, Veigue grabbed hold and maintained a strong grip on the chain to prevent this. The man struggled, but Veigue didn't care for dragging anything out, yanking on the chain himself in a sudden move that the man didn't predict, causing him to lose his strength out of surprise and forcibly pulled towards the swordsman.

"Jaquio ain't pay me enough for this shiiiiit!" He said as he hurled in the wind.

"Unfortunate."

How he's heard those words from past enemies so many times.

Veigue struck the man with the sheath; the blunt force whacked the man silly on the side of his skull before he spun and nearly tripped on himself. He regained his balance before he could fall, but the gleam of unsheathed steel reflected on the little sunlight that beamed through the alleyway before it met with the man's body, Veigue slicing him several times before delivering a finishing stab to the chest, followed by a swift release to allow the corpse to fall.

Removing all the pointless bloodshed from his blade with a strong swipe to the side, he returned it to it's resting place before the only thing left was to ponder. He stood in the center of the area around the corpses, arms crossed as something failed to dawn on him about Jaquio. Lately, he's been sending weaker opponents. Was he running out of capable men to do his dirty work, or perhaps the wanted posters were to blame? Even those less skilled wanted to a shot a quick money if they thought they were confident enough to kill some stranger on a piece of paper they knew nothing about.

Well, at least he was alone this time and no bystanders were hiding around or something. Hopefully. And Amber was off doing god knows what when he left her behind after suspecting an attack, so that was a nice plus, too.

[Kisaragi]

She had always kind of imagined Bern as being full of men and monsters, wyverns and bandits, and not much else. It... probably didn't help that her childhood had been shaped immensely, and not for the better, by the depredations of Bern; it had taken her father from her for most of her childhood, her mother, and her innocence. Of course she knew that wasn't ALL of Bern, there were people here too, but she had always kind of focused more on the bad. So it was sort of, she wasn't really sure how to word it, off-putting to see things as they actually were? The recent resurgence of Hargus and the massive monster assault, even more so than the Rebellion that had torn through Bern's peace, had sundered the country and left many of its people so battered by misfortune and weakness that it was hard to imagine these broken people as the great and terrible aggressors she had feared and hated as a child.

Perhaps oddly for her, she hadn't actually been doing much in town as a result, resolved not to stay there any longer than necessary. It felt a little like a betrayal of her values, but the help these people needed wasn't something the little Sacaen could offer them. It felt as though they had lost their pride, as humans or as Bernese, she wasn't sure. It was very disturbing. She wasn't exactly nationalistic, 'Sacae' was basically her town and the people in it as far as she was concerned, but she did like the Sacaens she had met for the most part. These people... hardly even felt like people. Timid and frightened. As a result, she had been loafing around to some degree, resting for a time before heading back to her travels, when the sounds of activity broke out, a siren song that lured her in to witness the savagery.

...It wasn't a very even fight. Given the benefit of distance and no need to worry about her own life, Kisaragi witnessed the swordsman's incredible speed and fluid movement, vaguely appreciating them despite not being able to follow his movement very well. At least she couldn't see where she could have done better than the hoodlums who had attacked him... but she wasn't really focused on them, nor did she particularly care what had befallen them. She recognized that they had been about to attack the swordmaster, and for a girl forged by hardship to recognize the value of pragmatism, it wasn't a huge leap of logic to essentially dismiss them as non-issues from there. If the swordsman had struggled against them she would happily have entered the fray to help him without knowing anything more about the situation.

But seeing that sort of skill... Kisaragi had only seen movement like that from a few people, and that sword of casual expertise in fewer yet. Very few other than her father, certainly, but with very different approaches. Father fought with the wind, using it as sword and shield at once; this swrodsman only needed his blade and his body to do the job. It was a sort of brutal beauty that she quite enjoyed, and it kindled something in her spirit that had her legs moving before she could even think about it, towards the scene of the slaughter with little regard for her own safety and even less thought for whether or not the stoic swordsman might be the real villain here. She moved fairly quietly by default but there was no attempt at stealth or subtlety to mask her approach, only the unfortunate fact of her competitive spirit that would most likely get her killed someday. Or today. It was a good day to die, after all.

"You're strong, right?" The teenage swordswoman blurted it out, far more of a statement than a question. It would be... difficult to argue with the truth of that reality after witnessing what she had, and she wasn't looking for a casual conversation about it. Veigue's actions had already proven his competence... and his superiority to her in the way of the blade. But that only meant that she could learn from him. Not necessarily from what he said, or what he thought. She didn't want to tie herself to him. But from how he fought. How he moved. Perhaps it was... less than intelligent given how he had disposed of his previous attackers, but there was a subtle disconnect in her mind that made her assume that sparring would be nonlethal without even thinking to confirm it, and it was rare that she thought to question her own assumptions until after the fact. She continued with her challenge with the sort of brazen bluntness that was her wont, thoroughly convinced that this was the best idea ever and absolutely nothing could go wrong.

"Fight me," she stated simply as she approached the swordsman, her blade still in its sheath and her arms balled into fists at her side. Not in fear or anger but in a sort of stubborn frustration at being faced with her own inadequacy, even having known it before hand. She had thought she would be more... special, or something, in Elibe. Able to handle anything that came her way. And yet so far all she had been faced with was the fact that without the benefits of the village, she WASN'T anything all that special, not really. Pretty good for a teenager maybe, but 'pretty good' wasn't good enough versus a grown man trying to kill her.

[Deleted]

More? He realized it a tad late, but someone else's steps reached his ears. He'd still have time to retaliate from any sneak attack, but one look beyond his shoulder shattered any kind of combat of that nature, seeing a non-hostile girl appear. So much for zero bystanders... and what was with the kids lately? He's been dealing with a lot of them lately.

He didn't know what to say towards her at first, half looking her way until his eyes caught onto her clenched fist. His attention locked onto the girl more, frown intensifying as he wondered what she wanted. At first, he thought she was after him to, until her bold request came to light. A fight? Veigue was all for challenges and duels of blades, but either she liked seeing random guy's heads rolling or she had some sort of thrill of challenging people like him that bordered on having their first impression as some kind of serial killer. Did she not see all the dead guys and blood all over the place?

She had a blade of her own, and she didn't appear to be any common sword fighter from Bern. Didn't dress like a Lycian, either. If she were sacean like he, he almost understood her action. Most of his fellow plainsmen and women enjoyed a good sport in the likes of sparring and swordplay, but Veigue wasn't fond of the idea of using his actual sword, especially against someone he didn't know at all. Still, there was the large possibility that she was another viewer of the wanted poster.

"Sorry, but no," He turned back around, eyes closed as he hoped the kid would understand and he could return to his previous train of thought. "My blade's reserved for my enemies. One mistake and I could cleave you in two. Unless you're somehow with these men who threw their lives away. If so, leave me. My head's not worth losing your own, kid..."

[Kisaragi]

If looks could kill, Veigue would have died more surely than a chimera tap dancing on him. Kisaragi wasn't used to being ignored or belittled, an unsurprising side effect of her upbringing, and having it come so off offhandedly from someone who was obviously skilled cut all the deeper for it. And she wasn't exactly known for her calm and even temperament. While she wouldn't let him know directly that the kid jibe had hit her, it was definitely one of the motivating forces behind her pushing the subject nonetheless, an undercurrent of anger and challenge in her tone as she retorted. "Well then, I guess you could use the practice in not killing people." As if to emphasize the point, Kisaragi impulsively drew her blade with a flourish, the metallic sliding sound as it came out of its sheath ringing audibly as she grabbed her wakizashi in both hands, though without moving towards him yet. She was a single minded and stubborn as hell idiot, but not enough to try to force Veigue to fight her by attacking him directly, and if he rebuffed her advances enough times she would eventually give up. Probably.

All bravado aside, though, the comment about his head and being with 'those men' did shake her single minded focus a little bit. She wasn't sure what to make of it, but it sounded like the frustrating swordsman had problems of his own... and possibly a bounty on his head, which just raised more questions. She had no idea if he deserved it or not, but it was hard to assume that the guy who DIDN'T want to kill her was actually a serial murderer who went around killing innocent people. And the guys who had attacked him, uh, didn't exactly seem like the good guys. So she withheld judgement on that subject until information to the contrary presented itself.

"...I have no idea who they were," Kisaragi answered with the guileless simplicity of someone who honestly didn't think to lie, "-And I would have jumped in if it looked like you needed help, but, uh, yeah..." She trailed off, half laughing half snorting at the statement. It actually sounded really dumb now considering how obviously he HADN'T needed help. But that was the point, wasn't it? She hadn't come to congratulate him on being super cool and awesome, but to try to learn something. She perked up, focusing back on Veigue entirely. "I've only seen movement like that once before... but it was done with wind magic. I want to know how to do it myself. And I might not be as strong as you, but I'm not completely helpless."

[Deleted]

"Hmph."

Somewhat of a silent, yet masked laugh at the girl's reply. She, nor many others couldn't fathom the amount of work it took for him to eliminate hesitation of taking a life. Perhaps that's where the humor and irony in it lied, knowing full well that in the beginning, he couldn't even harm a fly willingly. Nonetheless, it didn't take a whole lot of perception to see through the girl's character. A degree of stubbornness that he was all too familiar with; and wished that she didn't have, for her own sake. But one he couldn't judge, knowing that most of his growth stemmed from the folly of his own stubborn nature.

He didn't care for her reasons anymore on a hostile note, seeing that suspecting her as a bounty hunter was out of the question when she spoke on improving her ability. He wasn't one to turn down one's request for personal growth, though he really wished she thought it through before picking a fight with a wandering edgelord of darkness. Perhaps that was a little too belittling of himself, but his point remained standing strong like the tallest tower.

So, she wanted to become faster. Veigue remained aware of other warriors augmenting their abilities with the aid of magic and other equipment with magical properties, but knew that the truth behind increasing one's mobility naturally lied with one simple, but brutal exercise: fighting until your body breaks down. He's had the fortunate fate of living from the physical torture both his enemies and Veigue himself puts his mortal body through, being the only way he knew to progress down the path of a warrior.

Arguing with the girl would prove a waste of time and energy, opting to giving her what she wanted to get this over with. It was a simple deal either way: she was receiving what she asked for. He's never seen her in combat, so perhaps she was tough enough to not get torn to pieces and stand as victor. But she'd only get what she desires by throwing herself at death's door at every turn. Perhaps she didn't know the weight of difficulty it took to reach new heights — he was no stranger to that, still being on a path of aspiring growth himself. It wasn't a path to strength he could recommend to anyone but himself, but he assumed she'd be too stubborn to listen to any advice of that nature.

Giving the girl no words for now, he faced her entirely — his cold, battle-ready stare met her gaze as he removed his sheath from his belt. His finger lifted up on the guard, sliding Kenji out partially, but still sheathed as he stood ready, signifying that he accepted her challenge and would honor her with the first move.

[Kisaragi]

At this point Kisaragi would probably have settled for just punching the unsociable jerk in the face instead of a proper fight, training be damned. DEFINITELY Sacaen. He had the sort of cold, aloof, handsome, self-absorbed jackass angle down pat. Wouldn't kill people to smile once in their f**k**g lives, would it? No, it was all brooding this and discipline that! The irony of HER saying that was unfortunately completely lost on the pint-sized Sacaen, herself quite guilty of a myriad of personality flaws and some of the same things that bothered her about others, but the frustration was real nonetheless. She wasn't perfect, but she did at least try to be nice to people. That was something that everyone, Sacaen or not, could stand to do a little better on.

She wasn't fixated enough on the punching thing to turn down the offer of 'training' when Veigue seemingly acquiesced to her demands, though. While he didn't exactly look pleased with the development, at least he was taking her somewhat seriously now, which was all it took to pretty much evaporate Kisaragi's anger... more or less. She swallowed the rest of it and closed her eyes for a moment to push it beneath the surface, relying on her strong will to regain full self control, or at least something resembling it. With the time for arguments past, it was better to focus on the present - and that meant some degree of decorum. And trying not to get murdered by a guy who casually murdered entire gangs of murderous hoodlums in the blink of an eye. Nah, it'd probably be fine.

Nonetheless, it was hardly in Kisaragi's nature to take a fight casually, and she had at least been raised to be polite... ish. Ok, at least she knew how to pretend to be magnanimous when winning, and getting him to agree to fight her was a victory even if she lost. Which wasn't, er, guaranteed or anything, just... very, very, very likely.

"Thank you." That was all that needed to be said. It was all that COULD be said. While keeping her blade raised in readiness, the smaller sword user bowed her head in respect, sinking back into a combat stance as she spread her feet and angled her body towards Veigue. It didn't matter if she had been mad at him anymore, or if he was just going to bisect her the instant she got in range. Now was the time to fight - not Tahaddi, the challenge to mortal combat, but one of honor nonetheless. She had to at least show him that he hadn't wasted his time by spending it on her; that she was the lesser of the two was clear, but to waste his gift would be to insult Veigue directly rather than simply discomfit him slightly.

Her head rose high, all hesitation loosed to the winds as she savored the moment for an instant, and Kisaragi charged with a kiai shout, dashing across the intervening distance to the waiting swordmaster on quick feet for an opening strike. She wasn't the strongest or the toughest fighter, but she had speed to spare... which was probably why Veigue's blatant superiority in the field had bothered her enough to trigger her actions in the first place. Not that she had thought the matter through that far. For her, all that mattered was putting everything she had into this match, trying not to get too carried away with an initial attack knowing full well that he would be ready for it, and that a charging strike was not exactly the pinnacle of subtlety. But she had to break the ice somehow, so the diagonal strike came in strongly, maybe a little too much force behind it to recover effortlessly from but just restrained enough that it wasn't overtly ham handed.

Theme

[Deleted]

Very pushy one moment, then polite right after... What was this girl's deal? The wanderer had all the proof he needed that he was somehow cursed — forced into an entrapped cycle of being involved with the wrong people against his will. Psychopaths? Check. Vengeful murders? Check. Hunters? Check. Questionably crazy little girls? ...Check. The list just kept growing, and all the swordmaster could do was just cruise upward with the flow to make some positive light of everything. Wasn't too sure how to go about this one, but patience held it's degree of importance... especially with Amber. Dealing with the little one in front of him seemed to be less of a pain than the other, at least.

Well, if he was going to do this, might as well make the best of it.

Veigue locked himself down to a temporary stance of unwavering patience, maintaining a fixed focus on his opponent's movements and her blade. She already possessed a decent amount of mobility, closing a distance quicker than the average combatant. Still, his attention mostly had it's sights on her moving blade, watching it at the very beginning from the way she held it in her fighting stance to the process of her preparing to swing. He decided not to go for a block or parry, keeping his own weapon in it's partially unsheathed state before his feet already began to move as Kisaragi's steel tore through the wind towards him.

His frown tensed a tad more before lunging into action, making a smooth pivot around his opponent before the diagonal strike could connect. He felt the wind from her swipe brush against him, pressing his second foot to the ground once he reached an angle aimed towards her backside to prevent a slide in the dirt; it was all to maintain his speed despite a complex and risky dodging maneuver. Once his second foot tapped the ground, he sprung forth again in a burst of agility as Kenji clicked back down into it's sheath on it's own after his arm moved to the side. He didn't intend to draw his blade just yet, swinging the end of his sheath towards his opponent to test her reflexes: to see if she was truly capable of facing him with his people-stabber out.

[Kisaragi]

Ok, the guy with super speed dodging her blatantly-telegraphed attack wasn't exactly an overwhelming surprise, even if it left a lump of unpleasant annoyance in her gut. She was used to being faster than others. Better. To be again reminded that she had a long way to go... it felt like she should be angry about it, but instead Kisaragi only really felt even more stubborn about getting better. It wasn't HIS fault he had more experience than her. She just had to work twice as hard to catch up.

So she more or less managed to keep her emotions in check when skidding past Veigue as he dodged, trying to turn on the spot though her efforts were impeded by her momentum. Not that she wasn't used to dealing with that to some degree at least. Kisaragi turned her left foot sideways immediately, twisting and leaning her body in the direction she'd come as she about faced quickly and used the drag of her foot to slow down faster, but Veigue was faster still, already attacking before she could really do much to prepare for it. She wasn't sure if it was really f**k**g nice that he hadn't unsheathed his sword - at least it showed he wasn't ACTUALLY going to kill her instantly - or more than slightly frustrating that he hadn't even bothered with it. Eh, probably best to just be glad he hadn't gut her like the other guys, their lifeless corpses still lying around the vicinity like so much human refuse.

Oh yeah and he was attacking her. BALLS. She'd been hit with a sheath before and it hurt like a m*th*rf**k*r. The smol swordswoman was all for tough love, but this was just ridiculous. Well, it wasn't like she had a whole lot of options to just teleport behind the guy and stab him, er, not that she would do that of course. But it did curtail her options somewhat that she couldn't. Which left her with precious few actual options. She was stopping but lacked the momentum to counterattack effectively, and it wasn't at quite the right angle to try anything super fancy... nor did she really have a great deal of time to think. So Kisaragi just tried to deal with it the best she could, pushing off from her position to meet his strike directly and slamming her right foot into the ground to aid her resistance as she gripped the handle of her blade in both hands, interjecting the blade in the path of Veigue's attack and bracing herself for the impact. It wasn't exactly a flawless and studied block but it was the best she could do in the situation, hoping that the haphazard reinforcement of her feet pushing against the ground would make up for her inferior upper body strength to match the force behind his swift attack.

[Deleted]

Well, she was quicker on her feet than he guessed. Ordinary opponents would have themselves smacked into a whirlpool of silliness by that attack, but the girl proved her competence in the sword and seemed to know what she was doing — good enough for him. Sheath and steel met with a strong impact; the popping sound echoed from the collision was enough to make someone's ears ring a tad in annoyance. Veigue found himself glad that he's heard such sounds of battle enough times to at least not allow it to waver his focus, sliding his sheath off her sword before he brandished his own family's steel during a back flip to create distance.

No matter how many times he's engaged in battle, whether it be a gory duel to the death or a simple sparring match, the overwhelming calm of locking both hands with sword and sheath continued to take him over like a gentle tidal wave. When Veigue literally devoted most — if not all — his free time developing his physical and mental abilities, he found honoring his fighting style to be one of the few things that managed to give him some sort of joy or fulfillment to keep himself in check. It was enough to help wash over his bad mood with today's events.

But he could reflect more on good times after getting on with the match. Veigue didn't want to put too much pressure on his opponent after releasing his sword from it's short rest — yet. Kisaragi blocking his attack wasn't enough to make him feel comfortable with fighting her like someone he had to slice to pieces. She showed results of trained swordsmanship, but he's yet to see the full extent of her skill. He knew she had more to display, but perhaps he required to forcibly push that skill out of her instead of just waiting for her to turn up to heat.

Veigue didn't make any hasty attempts to resume combat, but since she made the first move earlier, it was his turn now. He began to close the distance between them with steady, but rapid foot movement towards her. His charge seemed predictable at first, but once he arrived in fighting range, the swordmaster made a sudden, but agile swap of momentum while sheathing his sword. While it looked like he was playing around, it was mere trick tactics and incorporating a bit of a mind game to see just how sharp Kisaragi's reactionary time was. His body twisted around once while pivoting to his opponent's side, then with a swift jerk on his hilt, he unleashed Kenji again in a diagonal swipe of his own during the process of turning his body back around to face her. He just hoped she was fast enough to dodge or counter, considering he did put in an effort to treat her like an enemy to kill with that one attack.