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Victor calmly gazed up at the Esper, the ash and soot around him sifting and shifting, most likely due to the strong wind the esper was producing. His right hand flexed slowly. He then raised it, flames igniting on it as he slammed it down onto the stump of his left shoulder.

"HAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

He yelled as all of the soot and ash from the ground suddenly gathered up and flowed up to attatch to his stump, the substance compacting and forming into a arm-shaped mass. It then solidified and turned -into- his left arm, complete with coat sleeve. He raised his left hand, flexing it expirementally as he grinned somewhat.

"Now you'll see why they call me the Dead Flame."

He stated as he shot up towards the Esper, aiming straight for him with his left arm held out to the side, fingers splayed. It seemed he was going to try and throw a palm jab at Ksi's chest.

He smirked slightly as his left hand shot out towards the invisible barrier, the hand and entire arm then exploded into a large wave of dust and ash when it hit the barrier and sought to wrap around the barrier. which would cushion the impact of Victor slamming into the field. The ash would then go -around- the barrier and shoot towards Ksi with several tendrils of super-heated ash. Even as Victor pushed himself off of the barrier and slid the rest of the ash off to reform his arm, which was still connected to the ash tentacles streaking towards Ksi. As the several tendrils got closer they formed into snake-shaped streams which sought to 'bite' him and sort of inject the super-heated particles into Ksi's body, which should cause serious internal injury should they hit.

As Ksi shot past Victor to slash at him, he'd feel his sword strike true, cutting through some resistance. However when he spun around to look at Victor. He would see no damage, however, Victor's arm was reforming, he had moved just enough so that the slash cut through his ash-arm, and thus no real damage was done due to it's sand-like state. The ash-snakes formed into a HUGE Ash dragon, still connected to his arm as he shot up while the dragon shot down, swerving and swooping and moving at high speeds in seemingly random directions, not attacking Ksi just yet, but rather moving in a wide, complex pattern in a large area -around- the Esper. All the while the air in the area between the dragon's coils (which is where Ksi is currently) would start to slowly heat up again.

"Tch!"

He grutned as he pulled up the ash dragon and formed it into a large shield at the last second, the ether beams burning through the ash with ease and striking the middle, causing the ball of ash to explode outward, a short cry of pain from Victor as the pile of ashes slammed into the ground with a small explosion of dust and debris. Then went silent.

Victor was not visible inside the giant pile of ash, but then again, he was probably buried in it.

His right hand emerged from the pile of ash, making a grabbing motion.

"Hazerth, Mistera, Vulcemna!"

The ash swirled up and started to compress in on itself, gathering into his palm and forming what looks like a sword of thick dark material. It solidified and hardened into a broadsword of some strange substance. He picked himself up with the sword in his hand as he gazed up at Ksi with a wild fangy grin on his features.

"Now for some swordplay...

Victor smirked and held up his sword, Ksi's blade slamming down on the sword and becoming caught on it as all Victor did was flex every muscle in his body to disperse the shock, Ksi could feel the immense physical strength behind Victor's body. He was no ninja, that was merely part of his desire at the time. He started out as a swordsman, and a swordsman he still is at heart. The ground around him cracked as he sank in a small bit from the force of the blow, he then scraped his sword to the side, drawing a large spark from the two blades that surged up itno a huge flame that would strike at Ksi, it had small force and was more of a 'back off' kind of move as it roared towards the no-doubt surprised esper.

As Ksi dashed towards him and started up his assault, Victor swung his sword in a huge arc around him.

"Disperse, Dead Blade!"

As he did the blade shattered and swirled around him in a huge ring of small shards of diamond-hard pieces of ash, basically, if Ksi kept up his attack, he'd slice up Victor, but he'd be terribly injured as well, as the particles were way too close together to dodge effectively.

Well....this was problematic.

"GYAAAAAAAAH!"

The diamond hard shards fell to the ground as did Victor who now had a Heaven-Kanji shaped slice in his body, that is, had nearly been turned into a quadrapeleigic.

He dropped down to one knee amid a pool of his own blood.

"Well, -Hack, cough- let's see, how you like THIS then?"

He plunged his right arm into the blood up to the elbow.

(releasing 2nd seal at full power!)

The bandages on his right arm flare off and roil around him as flames flicker and heat radiates off of him. When the bandages finally fall to the ground, his wounds have been mostly BURNED back together as he stood up, cracking his neck. The shards rising up into the air and dispersing into a large cloud of ash with him in the middle. As usual, his chi is disperesed in the ash to make Ksi's ability to see energy useless to locate his actual position.