Dojo (Sparring Area)

[Sutoraifu Cloud]

There's no sunlight streaming through the slats when Cloud sets a booted foot into the entrance of the room, cowl fluttering listlessly behind him, floating down against the backs of his legs in tattered ends with the cessation of movement.

Makou-tainetd eyes scan the expanse of the room, noting the weapons set against the wall, shadowed and mute, the weight sets and equipment, the sense of vacancy punctuated by the utter stillness.

Blinking owlishly, Cloud turns and dips his right shoulder slightly as he steps further into the room, ensuring not to knock the edges of the door frame with his sword as he enters, right hand moving up reflexively to rest upon the hilt. When he straightens, he cants his head to the right, expression turning contemplative. Then, after a moment, he stoops and begins to undo the bindings of his boots, slipping out of them with practiced ease. His sword follows, the mechanism disengaging as he gives the hilt a quick, terse movement that releases the magnetic binding. Cloud sets the sword gingerly against the wall, alongside his boots, then turns and surveys the other side of the room.  

[General Clash Warmaker]

Sutoraifu Cloud

Just as Cloud did, Clash, too, set foot in the dojo room wearing black buckled armored boots and matching ensemble in the way of leather pants, the ends tucked into said boots, a black jacket open at the thorax, a headband covering his eyebrows and fingerless gloves.

"This ought to be interesting." Always seeking out stronger opponents, Clash looked pleased to see that someone actually responded to his summons and showed up in this nearly two-decades-old arena, answering his call to arms.

He looked at Cloud, noting that he wore no shoes, his infamous sword leaning against the wall behind him. Doing as Cloud did, Clash undid his own boots, sliding them behind himself with his heels so that he stood there - all five feet nine inches, two hundred pounds of him - in feet wraps which left only his toes exposed. Taking off his orange aviator shades, he slid them into an inner pocket in his coat, and, like magic, they disappeared.

As he gazed across the room into his uncanny opponent's blue eyes, Clash's own slitted optics seemed to burn with an orange flame. The dragon man's elongated ears twitched slightly, the once-pointy tip of the left one having been shorn off in combat not too long ago. He bore other scars as well, one on his upper lip and another slanting across the bridge of his nose.

"Your reputation precedes you, SOLDIER," Clash said to the other man. "It would seem that you are a wee bit older than me. I was brought up to respect my elders, so I will grant you the regard which you deserve. Since you have removed your footwear and set your sword aside, I take it you have requested thereby a martial arts exhibition...in other words, a trial in unarmed combat. Would I be correct in assuming such?"  

[Sutoraifu Cloud]

Eapon

Cloud fixes the other man with an unrelenting stare, lips pursed in a placid line beneath the lambent glow. For a moment, the man says nothing, and then, a slight jerk twitches his shoulders, and he exhales slowly, the breath pushing heatedly against the folds of his cowl.

"You asked to spar...this is a dojo. You don't use boots on the mat -" Cloud inclines his head as he speaks, a knit forming in his brows, and continues, "if you want to use weapons, I'd guess you have some wooden ones lying around?"

There's an undertone of incredulity to Cloud's voice, as if he's bemused by the other man's line of questioning. He shifts slightly and flicks his gaze down, extinguishing luminescent orbs for a brief moment as he stifles a yawn.

"There are only a handful of people I spar fully armed. I don't count you among them."

Cloud shrugs, as if this should be self-evident. They don't know each other, nor have they ever fought side-by-side, a rate that Cloud deems essential to even consider that option.  

[General Clash Warmaker]

Sutoraifu Cloud

Fearlessly, Clash stood before Cloud a calm fighting man's fighting man, returning the hard stare the other guy gave him with one of his own. Yet, his knees began to buckle as he thought about what would soon transpire. If he could tell one thing, it would be that he possessed the size advantage, but that did not mean that Cloud, a purported super soldier and one man army, would be any less strong.

Energy pulsing through his body, his heavy chest rose and fell as he drew in deep breaths, the air flowing through his nasal passages, in, out, in, out. He sized the other man up, noticing the way he held his head, his body language, looking for a tell. "Let us agree not to use weapons at first. I want to see if your hand-to-hand fighting ability is all that it's chocked up to be."

As soon as Cloud looked down and closed his eyes, Clash sprang into action. Ripping his black "punk" headband off his brow with his right hand, he whipped it at mister Strife at eye level, so that when Cloud looked up again, the dark fabric would be all he could see for the moment until he swatted it away. Then, he shouted like a karate ka, quickly volting forward in a full low sprint. In a flicker, Clash would appear before Cloud, drawing his right hand back to his left, cross-body, and then attempting to bat him in the mouth with a backwards fist, throwing himself immediately into the fray.

No turning back now. I hope I'm not being too hasty. Let's see if this "merc" fellow is as good as the stories about him say.

"-!!"  

[Sutoraifu Cloud]

Eapon

..honestly

The thought is a slow, weary thing, and with a vigor he doesn't quiet feel, Cloud's reflexes kick into gear. He merely tilts his head to the side to avoid the oncoming fabric, which had some distance to go before hurtling into his face, and watches as if in slow motion as Clash kicks off abruptly and closes the distance between the two, opting to take flight as Cloud had so carelessly done before.

Only to take a sword through the chest.

Frowning at the memory, Cloud moves with the practiced skill of years of fighting, agile and lithe -he waits until Clash is almost within striking distance, noting the difference in reach, and moves at nearly the last second to avoid the far flung backhand, sparring no thought to why the man would leave the entirety of his body open to attack by tucking his other arm across his chest like that.

Cloud takes a smooth step back, towards and diagonal to the right arm that is coming at him, widening his stance just as Clash comes into range, and then pivots with a flicker of movement that is nearly imperceptible, shifting the weight back into his lead foot, before rounding into a left side kick that would land to the man's opened back. Should it land, the added force and momentum would slam into Clash's opened back and side, diverting his trajectory and slamming him into the ground at an angle, compounded by the man's substantial weight.  

[General Clash Warmaker]

Sutoraifu Cloud

Moving at just nearly the last second, Cloud stepped out of line of Clash’s right back fist, narrowly avoiding the offending extremity’s trajectory.

Continuing a rotation to his own right with the added momentum of the attempted blow, Clash lifted his own left foot up to knee height, blocking the left kick at his right flank—and back—by opening his right palm and attempting to catch the limb, and then delivered a kick of his own at Cloud’s right side with his own left leg.

“…”

This guy is not to be underestimated, he thought to himself, anticipating the sting of Cloud Strife’s upper left foot should it collide with his waiting right hand, even with a glove on. Cool, calm and collected, he waited for the other guy’s next move.

“You were in SOLDIER, right?” he squeaked, running the risk of talking at the expense of getting hit as he at least l tried to get to know this other guy, even while he made a fist with his left hand. His dart-like orange orbs seemed to blaze, and this time, more gutterally than before, he asked, “Having fun yet?” Perhaps this slim, mako-infused martial artist type person could awaken in Clash what lay dormant for a very long time.  

[Sutoraifu Cloud]

Eapon

(Real quick...you were punching with your right, your momentum would have swung you towards the left ,exposing your back even more, how exactly did you switch direction to now be going right if you're using that same right hand? ...I mean...I guess you could fling it to try and turn your body, but even then, you'd have to do a full rotation in the span of passing while the kick is already in motion...you'd be exposing you're entire front...and even if you brought a leg up...which does nothing in this circumstance...swinging out your right hand -which would have to be angled behind you and close to the body anyway since the momentum carried you left not right- to catch a kick is an extremely bad idea )

You got the left leg correct but the way you're moving...it's just all wrong man)

"No."

Cloud's voice is a deadpan, single note that seems to shatter the expanse of air between them.

Having landed the blow into the awaiting palm, and retracting it with the same speed, Cloud quickly readjusts, pushing off with his lead leg (the right) to jump backwards out of range before the fingers - which would be weak from the impact and the utter lack of grip from the angle at which Cloud's foot would have been caught- before a firmer grip could be had.

Subsequently, the left kick Clash tries -thrown without enough force behind it- is too slow, and meets empty space where Cloud had just been.

Cloud lands fluidly, resuming a semi-stance, his brows angled downward over the makou-tainted gaze he fixes on the other. His expression is obscured by the cowl, though, and the hard set of his lips is missed before his voice pierces the air again.

"...this is...taxing." Cloud cocks his head slightly, and should the other's hearing be sharp enough, a sigh would be heard muffled behind the folds of carmine enshrouding the lower half of Cloud's face. Weary.

He's exhausted.

"I don't usually opt to spar with people I don't know..." Cloud pauses, seeming to weigh what he wants to say before continuing.

The moment passes. Whatever he'd been about to say goes unvoiced, and Cloud instead opts to continue answering the initial query instead of saying the words that blare through his head

mosterdangerousuncontrollablecouldhurtwithoutmeaningtohavetorestrainholdbackdon'tlosecontroldon'telosecontrol

"I wasn't in SOLDIER...I just have-" here, Cloud hesitates, and behind the folds, his teeth clench, bulging the muscles in his jaw, -"all the enhancements and some."

The last word is grit out with a sense of bitterness, and Cloud's lambent gaze affixes on Clash once again. Cloud stands motionless, then shakes his head and moves to the edge of the mat, stepping off without so much as another glance as he pulls on his boots. As he stops to grab his sword, Cloud turns his head slightly, chin pushing against the folds of the crimson mantle as it bunches against his left shoulder.

"This was a mistake. I'm done."

And then, with a crackling as the only preamble, the air sizzles and Cloud vanishes with a crack as the space he once occupied empties, his form vanishing in a brilliant, brief-second flare of light.