[Finals - Second Bracket] Snow vs. Reyin

Description:The finals are now taking place in the formal tenkaichi arena, a stone platform raised three feet off the ground. A stadium of a crowd surrounds the entire field except for in the north, where the officials of the tournament sit to watch the fights play out in their oriental venue.

Field Measurements:

Stone Platform - 40 x 40 yards Surrounding Grass - 20 yards between the platform and the audience

Ten Count Boundary: As soon as both feet touch the grass, the ring out count begins. Going higher than forty yards into the air starts the ten count.

Reyin was never the serious type. And that was all too apparent by the show the kid put on when he made his entrance to the arena. He was taking his time, slapping hands, making gestures to those in the stands, and all in all just being a celebrity. And who could blame him? This was a festival, after all. People that were just here to fight could have been better suited to back alleys and mercenary contracts.

Reyin Nova was here to entertain, and that was just what he was doing.

He wasn't wearing his usual basketball attire this go around, though. He had his sword on his back, he had his roughly stitched up t-shirt, and he was wearing his tanned leather pants as opposed to a jersey and pair of shorts. The knife that had saved him against Tres was in its sheathe, tucked away on his left hip. Though to keep the crowd from thinking he was too serious, he was wearing a backwards fitted baseball cap, black in color with the Aekean checkerboard insignia emblazoned across the front and, in smaller fashion, across the back.

He finally reached the stone platform, and with a little hop, made his little declaration of entry.

"S'up, bud?"

Reyin was all about being casual, even just before doing battle with a guy who had both of his swords drawn.

Wait.

Two swords?

"Eh, yeah...if you say so."

Reyin shrugged his shoulders and thumbed his nose with his right hand.

"Just promise me you won't touch me with that thing. I hate being cold."

He flashed a grin, then reached his right hand up to snag ahold of the hilt of his own sword.

"Hm!"

Reyin unsheathed his longsword, holding the weapon out to his right side as Snow came barreling inwards. Reyin, not one to really keep people waiting, decided to oblige the ice-cold swordsman.

Doing his best to mimic Snow, Reyin basically completed a circle, with Snow running off towards Reyin's right and Reyin running off towards Snow's right. This kept the two realatively even, and also allowed Reyin to sweep his longsword in, then back away from his body to hit Snow's blade near the hilt and push it away from his own stomach.

Reyin's left hand hovered at his hip, fingers just grazing the hilt of his knife even as Reyin moved to close the distance between himself and Snow, looking to lead into things with a shoulder charge to disrupt the opposing swordsman's balance.

While Snow may have had an answer for keeping Reyin out of close quarters combat, Reyin had his own for dealing with two blades at once: His hunting knife.

The knife was hardly a weapon of war, but it looked intimidating enough to be one. It was also a solid metal, bladed object that, while more useful for stabbing, was pretty handy when it came to deflecting swords. Reyin's left hand pushed out and directed the blade of the knife into the path of the katana's blade, not really hoping to stop the slash, but to 'bend' the sword by applying pressure far enough down the blade that the sword would pass and leave Reyin unscathed.

As for the push off, well...with the ground underneath Reyin all icy and whatnot, it was going to be pretty successful.

Reyin slid backwards until he reached dry ground again, after which he took a single step back with his left foot to prevent himself from stumbling. The spike shot out from the ground, and Reyin stopped himself from charging for a brief moment.

"Alright..."

Reyin slammed his knife back into its holster and spun his sword around in his hand.

"If that's how you wanna dance."

Reyin bolted forward hitting the ice and just trucking his way along. His pace was slowed by the slippery surface, but he was still coming in pretty quickly, hopefully quick enough that another ice spike wasn't going to shoot up into his stomach before he reached his opponent.

He had dealt with spikes beforehand, and he'd rather not deal with them again.

Reyin, being the huge action junkie he was, opted for the least tactically sound option available to him. He left his feet, planted off the side of the spike, and just launched himself at Snow, coming down with his right foot snapping out at the last moment to hopefully catch the swordsman in the face.

The reason he didn't extend the foot before the last possible moment, was because he didn't want to get stabbed in the sole.

'Cause that'd hurt.

Reyin, right handed as he was, still wasn't completely defenseless. His sword swapped hands, moving from the right to the left across Reyin's back in time with Snow's movement. Reyin's foot was still snapping out, because it was hard to not kick out when he had his mind set on the maneuver the entire time.

Reyin's sword came up, held in a fairly similar fashion to Snow's, and impacted with the katana as close to the crossguard as Reyin could possibly manage. This kept Reyin's sword from being pushed into his own side as he completed the jump, and also acted as a barrier from Snow's slash. The katana sparked alongside the longsword, then would continue through with its slash.

Snow's follow-up was well-timed, but Reyin was landing on ice with one foot.

His left foot hit the icy ground, and almost immediately the sneaker gave way on the slippery surface. His foot shot out from underneath him and Reyin, still going forward, landed hard on his back on the arena floor.

Coincidentally, this also but the slash just barely over Reyin's head, slicing the bill of his baseball cap clean in half and scaring the hell out of the blonde as he watched steel flash past his eyes.

Reyin would slide practically all the way to Snow's starting position before being able to set foot on solid ground, where he'd set his right foot down, use his momentum to pop up, and then pivot around to face Snow.

And if Snow wasn't charging him, Reyin would take the time to remove his ruined baseball cap and toss it to the side.

"Tch."

Snow came in with his swords raised, sliding on the ice with seemingly little concern for the slick surface. This was the second foe Reyin had to fight that had the power to shape the arena, and this guy seemed to pretty capable at melee combat, to boot. Still, Reyin couldn't help but to crack a bit of a grin, lifting the corner of his mouth in a smirk before he pushed off the last remaining bit of dry ground and launched himself towards Snow.

Again his left hand seemed to be hovering over the knife at his hip as he closed in on Snow, and just before the two got within swording range, his fingers snaked around the handle of the knife and tightened their grip. Reyin, still sliding and showing no sign of stopping, would whip his sword across his body in a horizontal motion, moving from Reyin's right to left, with the tip of the sword just below chest level for his opponent.

Unfortunately with the arena in the shape it was, Reyin wasn't going to be able to actually put a lot of 'oomph' into his swing, but he could only assume that any retaliation was going to be similarly weak. After all, not being able to put your weight behind a sword swing really took a lot of the power out of it.

Not to mention that before, during, and after the swing, the two fighters would continue sliding closer and closer together.

Snow being able to stop himself was all handy and all, but it also helped Reyin. For instance, when his sword was intercepted by Snow's katana, it was understandable if the swordsman was going to put up any sort of additional force to match that which Reyin applied. So when the second sword came in for a stab, Reyin pushed with his right hand, forcing his sword against Snow's and using the force applied to slide himself out of the way. There wasn't a lot of momentum on Reyin's side, so he wasn't going to avoid the stab completely, but at least he wasn't going to be impaled.

Blood shot from a wound on his left side as Reyin unsheathed his dagger and moved his arm out of the way of the incoming stab, leaving his flank pretty much open for the katana. It wasn't the point of the sword that drew the blood, but the bladed edge catching the flesh that did it.

Reyin was moving now, though, sliding to Snow's left side and his own right. And as the two swords on that side continued to be in a bind, Reyin decided to make a counterattack of his own.

Wincing through the pain of shifting his own left side forward, Reyin stabbed his hunting knife down into Snow's closed hand, hoping to not only free his own sword but remove the opposing swordsman of his weapon in the process.

Lord knew that in his current situation, Reyin needed all the help he could get.

Apparently that hardened surface was metal or something, judging by the clang and all. Reyin must have completely missed that part, but with the rotation of the sword Reyin's own weapon was able to pull away, ready in defense of another stab or something similar from the swordsman in front of him.

The ice spike was unexpected, and was met with reflex alone as Reyin uttered something that sounded vaguely like "WHOSHGIHTFHAK", leaning back and swinging his sword across his body, hitting the spike with the flat of the blade and sending it either careening off to the side if it was launched, or redirecting it into Reyin's shoulder if it was still attached to the bracer.

And as Snow pushed off, there wasn't much Reyin could do but slide backwards on the ice. He didn't have much by way of traction, and the ice he was standing on was thin enough that trying to stab through it would only break through about a quarter of a centimeter before hitting solid stone.

So Snow got his distance and more, as Reyin went sliding away on top of what could amount to as a near perfectly frictionless surface.

Reyin wasn't going to be changing his direction of motion for quite some time, so as the opposing swordsman stood still, Reyin just kept on sliding until he hit the edge of the arena and was deposited just off the edge, onto the grass where he landed rather safely.

"Alright..."

As he slid, Reyin had sheathed his knife and sword, and was now in the process of taking off his shoes as the ten count began. His sneakers didn't have a whole lot of grip, since they were a pretty worn pair of tennis shoes. But with his socks, hopefully the warmth of his body heat would melt some of the ice and actually give him some traction as he stepped with water-laden socks, the ice actually attaching itself to the water on contact.

"If that's how you wanna play..."

Once the shoes were kicked off, Reyin stepped back and then launched himself back onto the arena, sliding on the ice and picking up as much watery residue as possible before putting his weight forward and coming to a halt.

"That's how we'll play."