Welcome to Gaia! ::

[Primera Post: Qwerty Starkk (Post 1 for the boring people]

((The rp battle will be a held in a dark underground warehouse somewhere in the Arcane Research and Development institute. It's just a fight because it's easiest to do it that way and nobody can complain about that, though I was tempted to challenge you to Twister because of your character's fear of men and my character's perverted tendencies. I won't be mean though!))

Hotaru swung back and forth at the end of a chain suspended from the ceiling, which was incredibly high up in the darkness. He was tucked into the crook of a large meat hook that had been used for Spirit King knows what back in the old days. He drifted back and forth like a pendulum, or possibly a small child on a swing. It was really hard to compare the motion to either really, because pendulums and small children don't tend to be quite as hammered as he was. He had gotten a little bored during the long wait for Ringo to arrive, and had broken out the sake. As it was he was barely accomplishing the task of clinging to his already shaky seat.

About thirty feet straight down was a floor, and not just any floor, a linoleum floor. It was sparkly clean like any good lab floor, not slippery like any good lab floor, and covered from wall to wall with the deadliest, sharpest, shiniest, laser-beam-shootiest technology that the twelfth squad could dream up. The walls were covered in dials and buttons and enough blinking lights to occupy a chimpanzee for a good three weeks.

The lab was, sadly, abandoned. Nobody had been in there for years, and so it had been converted to storage for finished projects and gizmos that the lab techs had just become bored of. Due to the rooms status as not very important the lights and heating had been cut, resulting in a very chilly atmosphere lit by only the glow of the various machines, which is to say about as much glow as a thousand lava lamps.

Hotaru started whistling a tune to kill time as he waited for his opponent to show. It was surprisingly good considering how drunk he was. Compared to any other tune, though, it just sounded like nails on a chalkboard.

Hotaru hiccuped.

[Segunda Post: Bored-again Lazybum (Post 2)]

As the blast of intense pressurized sound hit him a thought came to Hotaru's mind. He remembered his richer friends telling him of the intense sound of rock concerts, and imagined this is what that felt like. Well, this except for the bleeding eardrums and the issue he was having with his stomache, namely it's several attempts to remind him what he'd had for lunch that day. He had, however, developed an iron stomach, liver, and other assorted metallic organs over the years of alcohol abuse ((Metaphorically, just in case anybody thought otherwise. We are in squad 12 so just making sure you knew.)), so he managed to hold it down.

When the last of the lights had finished exploding and the echoes had died down, the sound of his opponent's introduction drifted up from below.

Where are her manners? he thought to himself, I mean, yeah it's proper to introduce oneself before asking the other person their name, but is it proper to attack before introductions? Hasn't she ever watched anime before?

Hotaru hopped down from the hook he had been sitting on. He realized that his hop became a very quick fall when he realized Ringo had managed to demolish the experimental invisible portable staircase he had used to get up there. Fortunately, he landed in another, softer experiment: a gooey, organic experiment that had more than likely been in some sort of tube originally. Hotaru stood up and wiped the goo from his face, spit it out of his mouth, and attempted to knock it out of his ears (and failed). He turned in the direction where he guessed the door was (he was wrong of course) and bowed.

"My name is Hotaru Noboru, and I..." he started before being interrupted by a low rumble.

He looked up, and noticed that the ceiling was caving in, most likely due to the auditory abuse it had suffered mere seconds ago. Being out of it as he was, Hotaru deemed the best course of action to be to cover his head with his hands. The falling rubble crashed around him as he staggered back and forth, miraculously missing him and his opponent. A bright light shone from above, emanating from the research lab on the next floor up that had (until the floor had decided it no longer felt like supporting them) been the site of the creation of an indestructible light source. Hotaru squinted up for a moment, then decided to just wing it from here.

"My name is Hotaru Noboru, and I am ind... indeed your opponent, Amai-san," he slurred, "and as good as you look when I'm drunk, you must be a cute little thing! I apologize if I don't provide you with as good a view as I'm getting."

He attempted to draw his sword, but realized he had been holding his sake gourd the whole time. He weighed his options for a moment, then chose his sword when he noticed that his sake was considerably lighter (pun). He brandished the sword in Ringo's general direction.

"Let's get crazy cutie!"

Hotaru saw her make a face and was a little distressed. He was upset not because he was hurt by what she thought of him (he had no idea what she thought of him), but because he though maybe she had been injured when the roof caved in. He was a perv, but that didn't mean he couldn't be a sensitive perv.

"Are you ok?" he shouted, "I hate to see such a sweet face fouled by such a sour expression!"

But she either wasn't listening or couldn't hear him. She was saying something under her breath. He attempted to read her lips (encouraged by the liqour playing games with his brain).

Barbie, Youtube-dono, cow-walk, two women, Hotaru Noboru? He thought as he watched. What the heck did that mean? He pondered the last two bits until a realization hit him.

Two women?!?!?!

"I'm not that kind of guy!" Hotaru yelled again while holding up a hand, "I don't know where you heard that but I only act like a pla-"

He was cut off by a massive impact to his frontal area that knocked the wind out of him and sent him spiraling up into the air. Hotaru was disoriented for a moment but soon began flailing his arms around trying to catch hold of something, finding nothing except for one of the many chunks of rubble that had been thrown up with him. As he clutched onto it he heard a shrill humming zippy noise and felt a sharp sting in his left calf as something sliced through his flesh. It wasn't enough to take out his leg but is was enough to hurt like hell and send a spurt of blood into the air to keep the shrapnel company. He heard the noise three more times, two of the odd attacks presumably missing and the third punching a neat little hole through his right pectoral, mercifully missing anything important.

Without warning, the chunk of floor he had been clinging to exploded in a shower of concrete and linoleum. The sharp little bits showered his body, shredding his flesh and embedding themselves in his bones. One particularly nasty piece became lodged in the back of his left hand as he used it to shield his face.

Hotaru hit the opposite wall and came crashing down to the floor where he crumpled in a heap, barely conscious. He shakily pulled himself up to a standing position.

"That was a hell of a... whatever that was. I gotta do something about that piccolo...harmonica...tuba... whatever that thing is." he sluttered (a combination of slurred and stuttered) while spitting out more blood.

He ripped a piece of his sash off and stuffed it into the hole in his chest to stave off the bleeding, clenched his teeth as he wrenched out the shard in his hand, and took a stance.

I'm sorry. You're cute, but nobody, no matter how cute, will stand between me and my goal.

His lips twitched a little and he almost dropped his silly grin as he felt a hint of anger creep into his thoughts.

"I don't usually hit girls, but I get the feeling I'm going to have to." he said to no one in particular.

[Post Four, or something similar to a fourth post]

((Wow, harshness. So mean xp . I'll just keep the comments about deadly fruit to myself, hehehe.))

Upon hearing her harsh words, Hotaru threw his hands up in the air. His lips peeled apart into a massive ear to ear smile, stained red by the blood dripping down his teeth.

"You know," he said calmly, yet with the air of a man talking to a wild animal, "I never said I thought any of all that did I now? You're making assump -hic- tions."

His eyes took on a more serious look, telling a different story from his bloodstained grin. "You tear into me about how you think I judge you, but really you're judging me yourself, aren't you? Ever since the beginning, I could hear that tone in your voice. That condescending tone I get from the ones who look down on me."

His mouth lapsed momentarily into a scowl as he spit the blood from his mouth, lending a fierceness to his face that seemed foreign to his features, and indeed it was. Hotaru Noboru was a sinful man, but wrathful he was not.

"I hate it."

He paced slowly to the side, circling but neither backing nor closing the distance. His eyes rested on his opponent the entire time, meeting hers, seeing the hate in her eyes. Her unfounded hatred of him echoed that of his hatred for her disdain.

The frown melted away, and he took on a less goofy, more cynical grin.

"But you... yeah, there's something different about you. It's your eyes. Everyone else... It's some superiority complex bull. But you, you've got this look in your eyes like a wounded animal worked into a frenzy. It's that look you get when you need to be better just to survive... It's fear wearing a mask of anger."

He stopped when he had circled about three quarters of the way around. He sat down on a partially destroyed desk and picked up a PA microphone He brought it to his mouth and whispered, which he thought to be fairly dramatic or cool or something, "Wounded animals, even the biggest, meanest sons a b****es alive, all die in the jungle. We haven't even left the village and you're sure talking big."

Hotaru was starting to get a bit dizzy from blood loss, which he felt the effects of but didn't conciously notice due to the fact that his balance wasn't doing so well anyways after the combined alcoholic and sonic attacks on his system. He put it off as being drunker than he thought, though in reality he knew.

He leaned back on the desk and pulled up his sleeve. Taking in the notes written there in pen, he could barely make out what was written through the blood. He pointed his finger and muttered shakily, "Disintegrate, you black dog of Rondanini. Look upon yourself with horror and tear out your own throat. Bakudo number nine, Horin."

A tentacle of orange and yellow energy spewed out of his hand, writhing and lashing while at the same time speeding towards Ringo. It snaked towards her with who knows what intent, backed by a nimble set of fingers and a slender smile.

Under his breath, he laughed. Usually he hated work. But this, well... this was turning out to be FUN.

((I actually used Horin (Disintegrating Circle). You're thinking of Geki (Strike). They're both Bakudo number nine so it's an easy mistake to make. For convenience's sake let's just pretend like I use Geki.))

"I guess this is it," he said as the wall of sound approached him, "I don't have the strength left to move after this. One way or another, it's over."

He waited until the debris being thrown up in front of the sound attack was almost to him, and then threw the microphone he had used earlier up into the air while sliding the volume controls up to maximum.

"If I lose here how will I find my baby sister?" He asked Ringo, though he knew she wouldn't be able to hear him.

The sound wave hit the microphone, mangling it while sending an intense burst of energy into the system. The covering on the wires exploded and the speaker system blasted apart as it amplified, intensified, and re-emitted the attack at several times the power.

Hotaru smiled, put his pinky fingers in his ears, stuck his tongue out and winked. The initial attack was destroyed by the intense pressure of his countermeasure. He was slightly tickled by that but then remembered his stupid drunken idea didn't really have a way for him to escape.

As the blast hit him he fought to keep down another hiccup. In doing so he accidentally popped his ears, thereby countering just enough pressure to avoid being permanently deafened. His body was overwhelmed by the energy as he fell to his knees. Blood spewed out of his mouth and several of his wounds as his face screwed up in pain.

As the sound subsided he desperately clung to both a chunk of rubble and his consciousness. He figured that as long as he was still standing he might have won by default.

He blacked out for a fraction of a second but stubbornly fought it.

"How was that *cough* baby sister? Are you proud of your *sputter* Nii-san?"

He fell face down on the ground. He lay there for a moment before looking up to find out what happened to Ringo. Just as he got his head up he saw a humongous chunk of the ceiling fall towards where Ringo had been standing.

S***! I didn't undo that Bakudo yet!

With amazing effort he pulled himself to his feet. Through blurring vision he saw a red smudge; the same color of red as Ringo's clothes. He released the Bakudo and used the last of his energy to throw out a Sho. The red smudge was flung out from underneath the boulder just as it crashed into the floor.

Lucky for me your kimono is so bright and pretty, or I wouldn't have been able to find you. I hope you didn't take it off because that means I just wasted the last of my energy saving a kimono.

He pondered for a second what else that meant.

Nope, still hope there was a girl in that kimono he thought as he passed out and crashed to the floor, the energy completely drained from his body.

((You can do whatever you like I'm just telling the story from Hotaru's point of view. Maybe he saved her maybe he didn't. You can decide that.))

Hotaru Noburu woke up with a headache. He was surrounded by soft squishy whiteness. He sat up slowly, not wanting to aggravate his headache.

As he looked around he realized he was in the squad 4 sick bay.

Dammit, he thought, I lost. Oh well. This means I get to eat ice cream for two weeks right? No, wait, that's tonsils. I'll just drink for two weeks.

He reached for his sake gourd.

"Oh," said a nearby squad four member, "we threw that out. Due to your condition, you can't drink for three weeks."

Hotaru threw his hands up in the air.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

((P.S. You kind of didn't even notice the biggest attack I did all week. It was so massive I nearly killed myself and you didn't even notice. XP))

[that's six outta fifteen I think]