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Snow, snow, everywhere, and not a ball to hurl.

Post-trainwreck, there was quite a mess to clean up. There was a rut cut into the snow between where Ryugi had stood and the massive snow bank that had piled against the first trees on the forest edge. As for the fighters... well, they were no longer in sight. The impact had not only sent them flying into the drift, but had also shaken loose a metric crapton of snow from the branches of the trees above just to bury them deeper.

The cloaked man found a foot. He didn't think it was his, so he grabbed it with both hands and twisted it sharply.

It wasn't too hard to figure out which direction was up. Likewise it wasn't that hard to figure out which direction was Ryugi. Following the foot he'd already found to a leg, the cloaked man reasoned the rest of the way with a leap of logic and, after breaking his way out of the drift, drew his weapon and began skewering the white ******** killed the mood. Someone would have to pay for it.

His 'bearings' would include this:

• There was a large tree behind him, at the base of which was the snow bank that he'd fallen into.
  
• There was a large drift of snow all around him that had built up over the past few nights of snowfall when the wind swept the snow from the open flats of the desert into the first few rows of trees in the woods.
  
• There was a cloaked man immediately in front of him, in the process of delivering a high side kick aimed at his clavicle.

Unclarification breeds contempt and disallows the use of this information in a response. As a statement purely of Ryugi's intent, it carries no action with it just yet, and is merely a statement that soon (likely in the next post) Ragnarok will be used for 'goos use'.

Mmm... geese.





The world nearly blacked out before Ryugi as the cloaked man delivered a high kick intended for his chest. The swordsman swiftly ducked under it and what would have been a sledgehammer heel went soaring straight over his head.

At the same time Ryugi rushed forwards, wanting to knock the cloaked man back while he was still on one leg. It worked... the rushing in, at least. Knocking him off his foot would prove to be impossible after that, as he had already come off it when Ryugi reacted. The swordsman would slam into him if that was his intent, but not before the man turned his failed kick into a fast straddle of Ryugi's right shoulder; squeezing his knees together onto the swordsman's back and chest, and sweeping upwards from his hip with his own sword held in his left hand.

The target was not Ryugi's face, neck, chest, or side... it was his right hand. Dragonsteel bracers would protect his wrist, dragonsteel chain would protect his torso from any glancing blow the man could deliver from such an awkward angle, but armor or not a sudden strike across his knuckles would put an end to the swordsman's sword.

And with that, Ryugi had been disarmed of his Ragnarok and the cloaked man's swing lashed straight through the space his hand had just occupied.

With the added weight on Ryugi's top end, the earlier charge would be derailing any time now. Especially with the torque added from the initial grab and the follow-through of the swing, they were about to hit the ground spinning. The cloaked man had already begun to extend his right arm out to catch the ground when they came to it, but offered no such comfort in catching Ryugi.

His thunderously powerful punch would be more thunder than power, with the cloaked man straddling his left shoulder. There was no denying the fact that a shot of energy blast can be a pain in the a**, quite literally, but he'd just lost the leverage for a good, strong hit in that position.

The blow would connect. Thunder would roll. And though teeth ground and the cloaked man's knees clenched tighter to Ryugi's torso in reflexive response, he refused to be removed before the two met the ground again; the man landing on a bent arm and elbow in the snow, Ryugi doing so much less gracefully with the back of his head.

(( Has Pagination stopped sucking? ))

The cloaked man rolled immediately over, using the momentum he had from twisting the swordsman off his feet to throw himself up onto the arm he had planted earlier; and with a swift kick of his legs to the side the man flipped back to his feet and at the ready.

Though Ryugi had been disarmed, his sword was only a few feet away... sunken in the snow, and a bit hard to locate, but it was there... On top of that, he stood between his sword and the cloaked man. The assailant wouldn't be able to cut him off from it completely if he decided to make a lunge for it, but doing so would leave himself open.

"..."

The sword in his left hand flicked up; spinning the cross-hilt across the back of his hand and sending it briefly into the air in a vertical spin before his hand caught it again in a reverse grip and the cloaked man drove the tip downwards into the permafrost beside him.

That was enough of a reprieve for now... He immediately shuffled forwards two more steps in the snow with his left side to the front and lashed out with his left fist; the hand dropping roughly to hip level before flying upwards mid-step in a snap-uppercut with the back of the hand aimed at the underside of Ryugi's chin.

The man's arm was deflected en route by a sudden movement by Ryugi's right arm, but in doing so Ryugi had spent his chance to defend. The swordsman pulled the arm away with his left, but it merely altered the type of blow.

The cloaked man's uppercut was pulled aside, but as soon as Ryugi's tug had moved it away the resistance against his hand went slack and the arm bent suddenly; the man, who had been in mid-step when the punch was thrown, continued stepping in with the follow-through and instead lashed the end of his elbow upside Ryugi's right eye with a sudden twist of his body. Coming in so close, Ryugi's 'locksmith' kick wouldn't be happening if he couldn't raise his knee more than a few inches without it colliding with the man's left hip.

Then things got interesting.

The man rolled his left wrist; twisting the arm around to dislodge it from Ryugi's grip and instead grasping the swordsman's wrist with his own hand. He grasped and pulled, simultaneously lowering his left shoulder to drive it into the swordsman's sternum while pulling the arm towards his own right side in order to imbalance the opponent.

But this was not an attack... this was merely controlling the flow of Ryugi's movements. What happened next would be the real maneuver, when the cloaked man reached forwards with his right to remove the Sol blade from it's sheath.