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As Blade anticipated, Neko came right at him, though instead of using a knife he was using his fist. He didn't want to keep throwing his blades away after all and he could fight just as well with his bare fists. Bursting through the dust and debris he had stirred up he aimed a punch to the side of Blade's head, his body weight putting a little force behind it as he drove downward.

With it being cloudy and hard to see for him as well, Neko found himself suddenly brought to a stop with a foot to the chest. Grunting from the sudden impact he brought his hands down to grab a hold of the foot making contact. If successful he planned on lifting the limb up and pushing it away in the direction of his other leg. That would hopefully send him off balance and prevent the thief from throwing another kick in his fall.

Once Blade was pushed away Neko moved back a few more steps into the cloud of dust trying to hold back a cough. It would do him no good to hide and give his location away so easily. Since it seemed that Blade didn't know his outright location with there being no attack, Neko reached down to the holster at his thigh and pulled out another small throwing knife. Drawing it back he let it fly in the direction he had last seen Blade, aiming lower in hopes of catching his legs. It was hard to see though so it was more of a shot in the dark whether his attack would hit or not.

Despite not being able to see well Neko could see the ball of flame heading toward him just fine. Ducking to the side he watched as the fireball flew over head and land somewhere near the forest. The dust was finally beginning to settle but his vision still wasn't clear just yet.

Turning toward Blade as the dust cleared enough to reveal his form, Neko smirked though there was a bit of nervous worry in his expression. "Fire huh?" Not too surprising he supposed, but still a problem. Maybe if he had paid a bit more attention he would have realized Blade's quickly lit campfires were more than an expert skill with a piece of flint. Live and learn he supposed.

"That's a handy little trick," The shadow that Neko cast began to distort and move against the ground, pooling at his feet unnaturally. "I have a few too." Moving away from his body, his shadow headed toward Blade, slithering across the ground almost like a snake. Neko generally had to keep from looking or he would wind up psyching himself out.

"Yeah, a little something I don't use often." As the shadows got closer they lashed out creating a type of leg snare to anchor Blade to the ground. It's form shifted and changed as it tried to crawl its way further up. In the mean time, Neko pulled another knife having it at the ready. For now he was interested to see how Blade would react. He didn't like to use his power in front of Yuki or Hitsu, he had been hiding himself for far too long with them to be comfortable enough to let it slip now. With everyone else...he didn't seem to have as big an issue.

As the flaming sword came down the black mass tried to separate to avoid contact. Initially all this did was make it weaker leaving Blade with an easier ability to get away. Even the light from the flames was weakening the shadow cast so that there wasn't much for the magic to flow through.

Neko could already sense this was going to be a battle of magic as he began to retract the dark shadows to try again. Leaping forward he drew up the blade in his hand aiming it for the thief's shoulder. It would be best if he could make it difficult for him to use his magic or sword, otherwise Neko was going to have to rely a little to heavily on being able to heal.

Again his attack missed, Neko was really going to have to take it up a notch. Turning back toward the thief as Blade took a tumble, Neko readied his shadows again, the dark almost liquidy solid substance aiming to grab hold of his arms while he was close to the ground. He didn't have a very far range with his attacks so up close he was able to do a little more. As he continued to use his magic in this way he could feel an odd tingling sensation about his skin. It wasn't entirely new but it seemed a little more intense.