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Date shook his head to try to shake the haze away. His eye would not stop watering but he could see out of it to some degree now. His opponent began to speak to him as she pointed her fork in all sorts of directions. "You.... you think you have won? You think you can force defeat on me?" He began muttering in a quivering, angry voice. He watched her point her fork at a dead soldier. He understood what she meant. Many people had died, she was probably begging to end it. After all, the person who loses this fight loses the battle. "No... you will not force this on my by pretending that death is not a glorious end for a soldier." He stuck his sword into the ground again and quickly reached back to grab his second pistol. With a grin he quickly pointed it at one of the nearby Chinese soldiers and pulled the trigger. The bullet ripped through the man's head and he fell dead on the ground.

"Death is not a reason to end a battle!" He holstered his pistol and grabbed his sword as he rushed forward. "I don't need a gun to defeat someone as soft hearted as you!" He slashed out horizontally, aiming to strike her in the head, if not at least knock her fork away for a more convenient attack.

He rolled to the side, using the momentum of the impact of his sword on her head to push off and try to avoid her attack. Unfortunately one of the tines on her fork pierced it's way into his side, missing anything important, but cuting a nice good gash in his waist on the left side, just under his rib and his disabled arm. Landing off to the side he reached for his sword's hilt and pressed a firm wooden button. A click was hear and the main wood body of the blade of his bokken slid down, revealing a gleaming blade of metal underneath. He shook the disguised sheathe off of his sword and prepared for another attack. "My next blow will be fatal!" He silently spoke as he dashed forward into a combat roll then into a vertical upward slash at her body. His pain didn't slow him down much and his blade was much quicker and far more deadly than before.

((I just had to work a real sword into this somehow... Date from SW2 has a real sword so I figured I'd use the ol' hidden blade in a bokken trick here.))

Blood flew off of his sword from the successful attack. Or at least he thought it was successful until he turned to see her roll to the side. He had cut her indeed, but it was not a mortal wound and now she was attacking. He watched her move her fork horizontally towards his feet so he jumped up to avoid it. The fork caught his sword between the tines and moved it sideways, but the simple smooth design of his sword made it easy for him to pull it out before he could lose it. He landed in front of her and with his landing he brought his blade up and began a downward slash for her forehead. He would need to hit her with the apex of his swing if he wanted to cut clean through for his strength was beginning to waver due to loss of blood from both his arm and his side.

"She... she's so... slow....." Date said to himself with short breath. He was extremely upset at the fact that he was unable to perform at his optimal potential. He watched her lunge forward using her fork as a pole vault and her feet came closer and closer to him. Things seemed to move in slow motion for him, however he too moved in slow motion, he couldn't use his insight to his advantage at this moment. He slashed out horizontally, without moving, causing his sword to clash against her shield, however his attack was meaningless and he knew it as he watched his blade get pushed back from her. She kicked him hard in the chest, which didn't hurt due to the massive metal plate that he used to stop bullet, but the kick sent him flying and caused him to drop his sword. He fell to the ground and rolled into a tumble, unable to stop himself and rebound like he normally would. His blade landed next to him but he hardly moved. He slowly began to get up but his strength was beginning to give out on him. "No... not now..." He rolled over and looked up to the sky to await his destiny.

Date watched her move over him as she raised her weapon up. "Mmm... can this really be the end?" He shouted loudly. One of the fighting samurai who had been rather close glanced over and saw what was happening. Without thinking of anything other than the safety of his lord he jumped forward and dove over him, thrusting his spear into the ground on the other side of him to use to slow himself down so that he would not crush his lord. He landed rather hard on Date, but not so hard that it would have harmed him. Xing Cai's fork pierced him in the back the moment he landed. Other samurai soon followed to pull Date out as they surrounded Cai. One grabbed his sword as they carried his body off toward his horse. They propped him up on it but he quickly slumped down onto the animal's neck, to tired and beat up to stay seated upright. The dying samurai on the ground whispered, "what greater glory than to give my life for my own lord..." His words slipped out along with his life and once he was gone the rest of the samurai backed away from Cai for fear that she would kill them too. There would be no honor in dying then and there since their lord had already been saved.

Meanwhile the rest of the Date Army was unaware of their lord's defeat and continued the assault on the castle. Date whispered to one of his captains, "Don't stop yet. As long as I don't have to fight we can still win this battle. I will remain here until we retreat." The truth was that his army was not doing so well. Honda's army was doing fine fighting off the reinforcements, but if Date's army left then there would be more soldiers fighting Honda's army and the battle would be lost.

Guan Yu pulled his magnificent weapon ((hehe, I love his weapon)) out of another samurai's body and turned to cut another man down. He looked to see Xing Cai run up to him after killing another man. He noticed the blood seeping from not only her chin but also her side had been sliced open. "I'm in much better shape than you are," He said in his usual deep voice. "But you're alive and that's all that matters. I saw you fighting Date. He had you on the run there for a while, but I see that you defeated him. I can't tell you how proud I am of you!" He laughed some as he fended off several other men. He continued laughing on the inside, not wanting to reveal that he was the one who stopped Date's shot.

He paused for a moment and noticed that she didn't look very good. She was tired and ready for the battle to end. "In any case stick close to me for the rest of the battle, you've done your part to take care of things here, just try to keep up with me, I don't want you getting sepparated."

"I couldn't tell you, honestly." He said as he parried a katana the cut out the samurai's knees. "More or less every other officer here is in a personal duel and I doubt that either side will give in until after each duel is over, but you never know." Yu kept fighting forward, hoping that Gan Ning was faring well in his battle as well.

"Cai, have you seen the red warrior? He is a man from accross the sea, just like these invaders, however he fights on our side and is rather mighty. He doesn't look particularly strong but is great in battle. I would like to get to know him and to see if there are others like him who came here to help us stop the other invaders."