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Or rather Shinta would have taken a drag if he had not suddenly found his cigarette to be unlit, as if the fire had been suddenly been extinguished from existence. The cigarette itself would still appear to have been burned from being lit once before, it was just the flame itself that was now missing, for there was no visible wrinkling of the paper as normally occurs do to putting out a cigarette or having the end pinched between one's fingers. This was definitely strange as it would appear that Shinta was completely alone...

That is until Sky-dron faded into view, stepping out of the light itself across the room from Shinta. He appeared facing him, but looked around for a moment before turning his gaze towards Shinta, giving a short wave of his hand as he did so. Yo... long time no see Shinta... You're looking well I see..." He gave a nod in greeting then, leaning his body back slightly to place the weight on his left leg, which was slightly behind the right. "Well then... I guess there really isn't anything else to say..." He grinned, almost mischievously, a matching gleam appearing in his eyes. "Shall we get started then?"

((Saying this for the record... this tournament first match coincides almost exactly with my having to drive up to my sister's in order to attend her wedding, so it's not just a random family fun trip. I plan on taking my laptop, but as for whether or not I will be able to post at all for the duration of the visit, which will last a week, I do not know. This trip has been planned long before Thanatos even conceived the idea of this tourney. I will be leaving Tuesday morning, so if we haven't concluded by then, I suggest that the second match up begin.))

Shinta had decided to give Sky-dron the silent treatment it seems, choosing to instead create a rather... warm sauna. As it was, while he was rather durable, he knew he could not survive long in such conditions and would have to move quickly if he was to win... and move quickly he did. While the so called 'limiter' that he'd been shackled with might prevent the overall power of his attacks, it did nothing to diminish his other abilities. While his attacks might not have their usual punch, he could certainly still inflict the same amount of damage if needed... for many small attacks can serve the same purpose of one large one. Sky-dron wasn't about to sit around and let Shinta have all the fun however, as the fire user would quickly find out. That aforementioned gleam in his eyes quickly became much brighter as Shinta's aura flared up. As the temperatures around the two began to rise, Sky-dron gestured slightly with his hand. The ever brightening glow in Sky-dron's eyes flashed once in conjunction with the gesture, yet nothing appeared to happen. Though something did happen, just not obviously enough to immediately notice.

As Sky-dron gestured with his hand, several small pin-p***k sized spots of light would appear affixed to various parts of Shinta's body, centering around the pressure points of the body. As it was, they gave off no detectable traces of energy, so detecting them would be rather difficult, but not impossible. Here they would stay for the moment, until Sky-dron chose to do something with them. He then followed the first gesture with another, bringing his hand up and outwards. Gathering some energy in his hand quickly he sent it flying towards Shinta, but at a downwards angle towards the center of the arena, where it would then explode in a blinding flash.

He followed the arrival of the blinding flash with another release of gathered energy, this time in the form of a small orb which he sent sailing through the space between them towards Shinta's face. He fully expected Shinta to recover from the first blinding flash rather quickly, which is why he sent the second one which had much the same purpose as the first. Upon reaching the space directly before Shinta it would detonate much in the manner of a blinding flash grenade, with the sole purpose of blinding Shinta.

The second flash would be almost immediately followed by what would seem like a secondary effect to Shinta as those aforementioned specks of light would detonate simultaneously with each other. Where in the past he might have used them as energy explosions, something Thanatos was rather familiar with, in this case he used them more like concussion grenades to essentially deliver concussive force to the various pressure points around Shinta's body, specifically to those of the arms and legs. This maneuver was done in an attempt to, for lack of a better term, dead limb Shinta. Should it succeed, Shinta would suddenly find himself without full control of his major extremities and thus would find it rather difficult to move around.

Sky-dron then followed up with two more motions, drawing one hand up and across his body followed by the second in the same manner. Each motion was used to send a surge of energy towards Shinta, which took the shape of an energy bolo... similar to the ones like hunters use, designed to ensnare it's target. These had an added effect, in that when they ensnared their target and the energy orbs marking the end points of the bolo connected with the target's body, they would detonate in an energy explosion.

All of these motions took relatively little time to execute, so by the time the first of the flame explosions began to erupt the energy bolos were sailing through the air between the two like a high speed bullet out of a gun. Each thing of energy Sky-dron sent towards Shinta cut through the space almost effortlessly, leaving little to no time to defend or dodge... though it could be done. Only the truly skilled would escape relatively unscathed, though at the very least becoming quite... singed.

((I'd like to point out that I have returned from attending my sister's wedding and am physically back home.))

(( Uhm... Thanatos-kun can I ask you something? What was my elemental of choice again? redface And why am I paired my Skydron-kun? confused This is bad.))

(( Edit Nevermind razz ))

Uki is sitting in the stands of the arena and looking on as Kiori waits patiently for his opponent. He yawns to express his utter boredom. "Such a waste of time and talent. This will come down to 2 or 3 people, and we will be lucky to see two good fights this entire tournament at this rate." He then looked over to where the other combatants were seated and sighed. "Shinta was talking a mean game and never put it to work. Ckoal has yet to show, and so these first two matches will have been a waste of time. I mean, it almost feels like someone is gonna have to fight and win once to take this entire event. Such a shame I decided against joining, would have almost been too easy. Only real competition is Kiori, Sky, and my brother."

(P.S. - It has been a week since Kiori's last post)

Since it has been a while and no post from Ckoal as of yet to reply to Kiori. I hereby declare Kiori the winner of his bout and move on in the tournament. The next match ups will now be held at the same time in a twist pitting all four opponents against one another to a fight to the finish. Our true champion will emerge. Congratulations to the semi-finalists.

The semi-final matches will be between...