Welcome to Gaia! ::

Standing there with his left jacket sleeve and pant leg seared, the elbow and knee guards on that side melting into his skin, Clash grunted from the pain, but, still up, leveled the point of the flambard with the middle of the pallid female's face. He could see the rage playing in her eyes. "I hope you're here for the tournament," he spoke in a strong, masculine voice, wincing slight. "I'll see you then." And with that, he turned and vanished, headed for the guild dojo.

Exeunt.

Traveling from a botched fight in the dojo, now with a slightly altered ensemble, Clash let his tape-wrapped but otherwise bare feet carry him into the shrine. His long, pointy ears wiggled as he thought he heard the soft voice of a female drifting on the wind, and then he saw her: a woman nearly seven feet tall with ebony skin who could pass for a sumo wrestler. Still on the approach, Clash grimaced, clicking the talons of the gelid blue gauntlet over his left hand together as he supinated the extremity, baring it like a defensive claw. He thrust his macabre but handsome, tanned face forward, letting the black woman admire his features and the many scars on his visage to accentuate them. With his bare right hand, he fingered the silver locket dangling from a chain about his neck, smiling with both his mouth and strange, spheroid orange eyes as he opened the locket, then spoke, showing what resided inside to the big, busty woman.

"It's a picture of Silver Foxfire and our son Aniki Ryuu, taken before she died." The forlorn soldier, sultry in the summer environment, swallowed with a wince, trying to remember a special moment shared with the mother of his only child eighteen years ago. Closing the locket, he stretched his right hand out, offering it to the lady. "They call me Clash!" he said exuberantly. "And now, my beautiful lady, who might you be, and what brings you to the tournament proper?"

"Nice to meet you," he chirped, "and thank you for the compliment." Smiling as Naomi put a hand on the back of his head, Clash let his right hand drop to his side. Resisting using his powerful neck muscles, he prevented the ebon she-giant from embracing him and smothering his face in her girth. For a smaller, more compact man, Clash himself still possessed some admirable strength for one his size. "If you're wanting to prove yourself to be the best, then start with me!" he propounded, his demeanor suddenly changing from impuissant to bloodthirsty.
"Let's have some fun, then, lass. Yes, let's play." With febrile energy cycling through his body, producing a ghostly, thin blue aura about his stout frame, Clash let twin long-knives appear in his hands, conjured forth from the expansive armory in his demi plane. "Can you think on the fly and react in time to match my speed, Naomi!?" he proposed, thrusting the blades of his weapons toward the black lady's guts in an attempted evisceration. The convict wanted to see what this woman could do and determine whether or not she possessed the raw, true skill to compete amongst gods in the martial arts tournament, and, thus, in his eyes, the party started right here...a cold, creeping chill emanating from the glacial gauntlet on his left hand, frosting that which resided within the localized sphere of its pernicious influence.

Naomi's right knee collided with Clash's chin, making his head tilt up and back, leaving him staring down--or rather up--his nose at the ebony-skinned woman, blood running down the front of his white shirt from a fresh new cut wound there, a gash as wide as the female's patella. Some teeth broke off at the crown upon jarring contact with one another, though Naomi's attack could not do quite enough damage to Clash's big, strong jaw as expected due to his aura defense, which softened the blow a scant measure. "I'm glad you think so." With his wrists bound in Naomi's grip, Clash lifted his right leg, bending it at the knee, and thrust the bottom of the corresponding foot at Naomi's sizeable abdomen, attempting to make her possibly draw in a sharp breath or become distracted enough, even for a second, so that Clash could think of his next move, which came in the way of his left heel coming up to catch the lady under the chin, and in the throat, so that Clash could kick off, do a backflip and wrench his aching wrists from her grasp, landing a few feet away ready for the next exchange with his long-knives still in his grasp.

"..."

His ice gauntlet continued to radiate creeping death, though he, immune to his own magic, remained unfazed by its effects.

The oozing rent on his chin rended Clash a bit. Though, after a moment of synergy lapse, the wound quickly fused shut, a testament to the healing abilities of the dragon's blood in his veins, which smelled slightly amber-like after being shed. As Naomi approached, Clash sized her up, noting her posture, the way she held her head. Before her stood a calm, fighting man's fighting man. "Hah!"

Volting forward, Clash again attacked with his long-knives, stretching his arms out wide and then bringing them violently in in a pincer attack, attempting to stab the black lady in the sides of her body with the elongated shivs. "I'm going to have to be polite and say, 'No,' to that one. En guarde!"

Knife point glanced off of knife point as the pincer attack went awry, with Naomi ducking under the incoming blades and then launching a spinning right heel kick to Clash's right ribcage and liver. A rib gave, cracking audibly. Luckily, Clash got enough calcium in his diet to prevent more severity in the injury. The ebon embodiment's heel struck Clash's liver, causing a release of blood and toxins which shocked his body. Nevertheless, despite the excruciating pain, Clash's gossamer blue aura cushioned the blow some, forestalling a potential loss of the bout due to incapacitation or technical knockout.

The force of the blow knocked him back some, though, making him stagger a couple steps in retreat, but he pulled his own hands apart, straightening them at the sides to hinder Naomi's getting past or behind him without receiving a knife point in the face or elsewhere on the body. "You'll have to forgive me. Sometimes, in the heat of attack, I can become a bit ruthless and get carried away. As they say, 'It's the passion that kills.' " Clash's long-knives suddenly disappeared, wisped back to his demi plane, leaving him standing before the giant with only the five sharp claws on his gauntlet and his own body as a weapon.

Sliding his right foot forward across the floor, Clash brought his hands up, positioning his limbs even in the absence of any remarkable ready stance. Chi continued to flow through his system, making his body give off an eerie azure light as its budding energy seemed to leak from his very pores. Curling the digits of his left hand in, said hand held perpendicular to his frame, he drew back his right hand with the palm up, motes of blue light beginning to gather, coalescing into a perceivably rotating sphere which seemed to be growing by the second.*

--

*???: 1 preparation

The amassing orb above Clash's right palm began casting off emissions of light, crackling with arcs of electricity which raced up his arm. As Naomi ambled toward him, Clash appeared to be unfettered by her wanton "charm." In his eyes, she needed to get some serious exercise and lose some weight, which would, with her face, make her so much more attractive. As the woman started to come within range, Clash unfurled his own fingers, those of his left hand, pronating the extremity as he stretched that arm out, using his talons as a ward against attack. In other words, Naomi would be unable to come too close, lest she impale herself on the pointy digits of Clash's ice gauntlet.

The ball of energy in his right hand began rotating as if borne on susurrating currents of wind, the clockwise revolutions of which became more furious by the moment as he prepared to unleash his next attack.* At this rate, it would be a doozy.

--

*???: 2 preparations

Clash merely stood there as Naomi assumed a hunkered-down stance before she suddenly burst forward at speeds exceeding seventy miles per hour. Moving as fast as a speeding vehicle, she spun quickly, launching her black bottom at his face. Hasting, as a testament to his own agility and inborn, cat-like reflexes, Clash ducked at the last moment, pushing off his right foot and leg in order to sprint under Naomi and leave her airborne and falling behind him. He came to a halt several feet away, straightening up, standing proudly erect with his back to Naomi, the chi-and-wind ball still building up energy in his grasp. By opening his Ajna chakra, the psychic elementalist attained a full three-hundred-sixty-degree view of the inside of the shrine, meaning that he could see his opponent now even with his back to her.

Lowering his arms to his sides, he let the effervescent sphere clutched in his right fist continue to intensify in potency.*

--

*???: 3 preparations