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Eyes glowed, actually leading a trail behind him, a ghost that joined with the black mist radiating from his flesh... Action was two fold. Hidden hand moved, ghosting an orb into his palm from his back... This orb, roughly an inch in diameter, was heavy, mirror-shine... A glorified Bola. What impressed upon it respect, was the chain that it connected to...

Chains that were thin, beautifully so, no thicker than thread, but strong, impressively so. This was brought forward and up, aiming to wrap around her throat, as hand tensed the chain, halting it's extension from a hidden reel upon his back... He'd pull it downward and away, spinning to do so, and in revealing his back, revealed that left-hand, over the shoulder, gripped the hilt of a sword...

This was brought, upon the continuation of the spin, around and to parry the blade's actions. A lock, quick and early. The ball would clack off of the ground, if it had all succeeded in it's hit to her face, she would undoubtedly nurse a dislocated jaw, or at the very least, an impressive bruise.

The lock was held with skill, and as he spoke, she might realize the weapon was not a blade, but a rod, A dark wood, plated with a metal that looked to be iron... If the object was damaged, it would also be realized to be cored by metal, offering internal support to an obviously weak, but obviously defensive weapom.

"You ask how I know you. To that I ask this. How are you to not know, knowing what you do?"

"I'm a lot of things," he almost laughed when he said it; having to choke back a swill of beer, "and I gave up my right to life a long time ago."

Waving his hand to the television above the bar and the highlights of HoH streaming across it, he leaned against the bar.

"Until someone who deserves it comes along, there's still things I can do to atone."

Joshua laughed... hard. The kind of laugh that comes from a sadist standing beside a traffic accident. That was the truth of it, most people who moped about things in their lives had no reason to whine or cry; a single, often unavoidable mistake that they dwelled on their entire lives.

"Mistakes," he said with a laugh, "everyone makes them. Mine was killing someone... then another... then another... then more."

He finished what was in the bottom of the glass in front of him, then tipped it on its side and shouted for another one.

"So far... many friends, a few cousins, three brothers."

"It's just something that happened a long time ago, that's all. It was a mistake because I lost control, and a lot of people payed for that mistake. If there was a reason it wouldn't be such a tragedy, would it?"

The barkeep came back quickly enough with a fresh glass and a new drink, though he hung around much longer than he should have. Stories always seemed to catch the ear of anyone close enough.

The full-demon downed his own. After a set of questions like that it'd only be fair to turn the tables, but he wasn't quite drunk enough to launch into a line of questions like that. So he downed another.

"..."

Now that was a much more straightforward answer.

"Those people were supposed to be the best... turns out it was just a bunch of pretenders. It's that simple, I was just looking for a fight."

That of course prompted another glance in her direction. What they had together might have been short but at least it was a lot of fun... the way a good fight should be.

"HA! I guess big bad monsters like me really don't belong after all," he said, laughing as he scratched his head. "So for now we drink!"

"Hear hear," he said, drinking down his own with just as much fervor.

"The tournaments these people have are all wrong. If you fight for war you fight for survival. If you fight for fun you fight for the sake of fighting. There is nothing better than a battle well fought, prizes be damned."