Welcome to Gaia! ::

As he lowered his blade of ethereal energy, he raised his gaze to the Master and saw a massive hunk of Ice that was in a crude representation of the Ice Master himself charging at him with that same staff of ice; accompanied by a flock of electric blue small dragons about the size of a small dog....about 20 of them. Furrowing his brow, he noted that the Master was behind them, smiling smugly and wielding a massive bow of dragon wings.

Parting his lips, a small sigh escapes his lips as his mind races...he had never practiced for more than 1 v 1 situations. As he was a wielder of the element of air, his intuition was incredibly strong. So was it in this moment that a feeling welt up inside of him. Tracing one hand along his sword, he charged the ethereal with purely hot air, searing hot air. As he inverted the blade, he grabbed the white hilt with both white gloved hands, and jutted the sword blade-down into the ice covered lake-surface. As the blade slid through the ice like a hot knife through butter, a cracking sound of ice escaped from all around Koto.

Keeping both gloved hands on the blade, he bowed his head and prayed with all his might: "Dear Father Sky and Mother Earth, you've looked over me countless times before, and I ask you for your strength and guidance now. Faced against the odds, please give me wisdom on what needs to be done and give me the power to do it. So mote it be" he mumbled under his breath, letting the wind carry his words upwards.

Just then his head snapped up and he had an amazing idea. Swirling his hands in front of him, he focused a bundle of air in front of himself and he focused with pure though on how air is the element in which light is refracted and how everything must pass through the wind at one point or another. As he focused, he blinked and looked upward. Now there were 101 copies of Koto standing around him. Standing in a military regiment formation, the 100 copies and the real Koto all readied their ethereal blades. While all the copies were just mirages, the swords were brought about by his own blade, meaning they could actually cause damage.

While Koto knew that one touch to a mirage would cause it to disappear, he had faith that it would last him enough time to dispose of the Master's games. With head raised high and eyes closed, he thanked those above and below. With that, he and his myriad of copies charged, blades at the ready, towards the 20 dragons and the icy statuette.

Realizing that he had left the Ice Master un-checked, he stopped amid his copies as they charged forward and he raised both hands, imagining a twister like no other. With that thought, he spit into the gale he just raised and from the clouds above sprang a thin twister with incredibly fast winds. In the middle he knew there were winds that could slice through bone. As he sent the twister in the direction of the Ice Master, he sent the tornado one order "Ice Master'.

Upon returning to the battle though, he realized how exhausted he had become. While he was still an apprentice...albiet a well trained (he trained himself) apprentice. He hadn't the stamina a Master would have. As such, when he neared the Ice elemental the Master had raised, it almost had a good piece of him before one of his copies was able to knock the Ice staff away. With 3 other copies, Koto was able to disable the elemental, and pierce its icy core with his ethereal blade. Super-charging the air around the icy creation, he hoped it would melt.

When he looked over to his copies fighting the dragons, he saw a terrible sight. The dragons were swooping down and disabling his mirages quicker than he had thought they would. While he raced towards the little dragons, he couldn't seem to get a visual on the Master. Removing that from his mind, he charged forth, blade at the ready.

((is pist that he wrote a really nice response, then when he posted it gaia logged him out and he lost it...so here's a remake))

As Koto dispatched more than a couple ethereal dragons with his sword of energy, he looked over his shoulder and saw the final mirage being dissipated by a small dragon. As he readied his sword, he was attacked by a handful of elemental dragons.

While he doesn't focus primarily upon the essences of lightning or thunder, they both reside in his realm of element: the sky. Because of this, he can perform some of their magical attacks, just not as easily as someone who focused primarily on their essences. As he raised his hand, he thought of the millions of positive ions that the energy dragons must be giving off and as he ran a gloved hand down his ethereal blade, he deposited millions of negative ions. Finally, he thrust his blade upwards, towards the elemental dragons just as one was about to swoop down upon him. A large thunderous crack and a massive explosion of electrical energy resulted from the positive ions coming into contact with the negative ions. As the electricity oversaturated the elemental dragons, it overpowered them and destroyed them.

Turning, he noted a shape flying out of the twister he had conjured. Frowning at how the Ice Master must have survived the razor sharp winds, he held his sword blade upward and tossed it straight into the air. As he held out both hands towards the twister, he sent more and more energy into it, giving it the oomph to cover more ground speed and hopefully catch the Ice Master in its hurricane strength winds again.

Finally catching his sword again, he sighed with a slight amount of exhaustion. He then heard a whirring sound above him. Glancing upward with his deep brown eyes, he saw a cloud of ice arrows falling down towards him. Without thinking he let go of his blade, which hovered where he had left it, suspended on patch of constantly rotating air while he fired one, two, three, four great bursts of seismic wind upwards at the arrows; sending 4 large patches of them flying off in another direction.

Despite this, he was forced to grab his sword once again and fend off 2 arrows that would have found his chest and as he sent one more wave of wind to relocate another bunch of arrows, one stray arrow found its mark in his right foreleg. As this arrow punctured the skin it went in the front of his foreleg and out his calf. Missing the bone, it tore through flesh, silk and gold pants, and upon stopping, instantly melted into the wound, bringing with it a wave of icy pain. As Koto yelled out with pain, he felt his lower pant leg become as warm as his entire right foot felt. Glancing down, he winced and saw the the cut was severely deep and that his calf, ankle, right foot, and lower pant leg were stained red along with the snow around his foot.

Grimacing, he tried to keep a level head and seared the air around his wound with an immense amount of hot air so as to stop the bleeding and sanitize the wound. Despite the fact that it missed his bone, it disabled his right leg...leaving his only form of transportation to be flying....of which he wasn't very proficient with at all anyways. While it stopped bleeding, it still pulsed with fiery bursts of pain, and icy bursts of numb pain.

Scowling upwards at the Ice Master flying just outside his reach...he focused his mind as much as he could and raised his left hand, trying to condense the air around the aloft Master and either force him to make a rough landing or fall out of the sky all together.

He sighed heavily as he saw the Master fall from the sky. Letting all wind around him disappear except for that under his feet, keeping him aloft over the frozen tundra. As he lowered his sword he noticed the Master was moving slower. As his own body screamed with pain from his right leg and his exhaustion....he let his head fall slightly, looking downward in slight shame as he understood one thing.

He had lost.....yes he had lost his duel with the Ice Master and the Ice Master had prevailed. As he noted the Ice Master approaching rapidly, without looking he looked upward and parried away the Master's slower than normal attack, sending the ice whip whirring away without much effort. He didn't know if he was numb from his realization, or he just was too tired to care about the sword-fight at hand. He then ran a hand through his hair, hearing the words the Master had just uttered.

As he parried away another attack from the Ice Master, he tossed his sword upward and let it fade into smoke, which was carried away by the next breeze. As the whip approached again, he raised both hands and stopped it in midair...whispering into the breeze and then directing that breeze at Dragon Born's ear "Yes Master...this battle is over. You have proved yourself victorious, even after a long battle. Congratulations."

Koto smiled and nodded to the Master. As he reached out and took the pocky...he sniffed it and refused to ask what it was made out of. As he swallowed the last of the pocky, he looked down at his leg and noticed it had started to close up and was feeling warm and healthy again. He felt his energy resurge back into his body and he felt almost better than he had when he first challenged the Master.

"You're welcome Dragon Born, master of Ice. It was an honor to combat you." he whispered into the wind, allowing the breeze to carry the voice a short distance to Dragon Born's ears. "What will you do now, Sir?" he asked quizzically.

As he smiles, noticing the Ice Master warming up to him, Koto hops into the air and snaps his fingers, a rush of wind centering beneath him as he sits cross legged, hovering in midair in front of Dragon Born.

Slowing shaking his head, he smirks 'No, I've tried contacting Gler...he is unresponsive when it comes to the element of air. The same can be said for the the Mistress of Air, Silent. As I had no masters to work with, I came to seek you to fight, to test my skills against"