Welcome to Gaia! ::

As Jubei addresses this new person, a soft wind picks up, picking up some of the golden brown leaves on the trees and blowing them around the tree upon which an orange clad man was sat. He gazed down at Jubei, his almost trance like eyes carried a hollow, uninterested stare. Looking into them, it was as if some part of the man's soul had been shattered long ago. He was once revered as another of the Seven Swordsmen, Musashi the Leaf Cutter. It was strange though, for a swordsman he didn't appear to be carrying any weapons with him.



"I had assumed you were dead...." Musashi noted dully, not exactly the warmest howdy-do "Under the circumstances, I believe I should be saying I wasn't expecting to see you again.....so tell me, what purpose brings you back to this stagnating world?" he went on, his rather blank expression unchanging.

"Anything of interest? ....No...." The definitive answer followed a short pause, in which it was clear Musashi didn't need to think too hard about his answer "The war is long since over, along with any use people may have for 'heroes' like us. I retired from that tiresome duty long ago....though I suppose I was really just taking my obsoletion with dignity" he said "I often question though, why I even bothered in the first place. Nothing ever changes, Gaia may act differently, but it's always the same purgatory. I spent my entire life attempting to prove to myself something I was doing would change the long-run. Making up a heroes legacy that it may prove some purpose in what I was doing. Perhaps though, the only people we are deceiving are ourselves"

Musashi stood up on the branch he had been sat on, reaching out casually and taking hold of a floating leaf between thumb and index finger "Tell me.....why is it you continue to exist? Why did you fight, were you truly fighting for anything? when the inevitability of time looms over us all?" He asked Jubei, perhaps rhetorically as he quickly continued ".....Not even an apprentice could give me a sense of purpose, not even when be tried to mirror my image to the point of obsession did he ever see the world as I see it.....in the end, he was just the same as everyone else, running off after ridicules ideals" Musashi paused, turning the leaf over with a somewhat curious look "And yet I still stand hear before you, clinging to what existence I have, and griping onto the way of the blade, for it is the only thing that is still real under this paper sky, it is the only thing that justifies my existence, perhaps both of ours....Perhaps in the end we're all just leaves in the wind...." Musashi let the leave go, the wind swirling up again to carry the leaf up and away to join the other milling autumn foliage.

Musashi still maintains the same vacant expression "I see, exactly what I would expect from you Jubei....unfortunately, this means you haven't changed either" He showed a rare hint of emotion as he turned his head away at the mention of the 'beast'. "Yes, I've been aware of its lingering for a while, yet my business was through with him hundreds of years past. What purpose would be served by holding a grudge now?"

Musashi sighed and jumped off the branch. a few meters from the ground the wind suddenly burst up from below him, cushioning his fall and gliding him gently down to the ground, his waist sash and the autumn leaves billowing outward. "Your spirit and your conviction are always strong, yet you base your life on insubstantial things....that's always confused me" He mused. Although he seemed to be preparing to meet Jubei's challenge, his expression remained mostly lifeless, no sense of tenseness, adrenaline, anticipation....it was somewhat eerie. "Very well then, show me your conviction. I'd like to see it, the spark that beings you meaning, and perhaps it could bring me even but a step closer to my answers" Musashi brought his hands together and bowed respectfully to Jubei "I should tell you, of course, that I haven't been lacking in my training while you and our master have been away, far from it. My way of the blade is my connection to this world, is is my reality. Combat is the only time where I Musashi, truly exist, in this hell within my mind.....let me pull you in, and show you a glimpse of my truth" He finished

He clapped his hands together then raised them out to his sides, arcane summoning runes glowing through his black gloves. "Summoning: Relinquished Field - 30 Blades" He declared as the sky above the two burst to life with the flashes of 30 almost simultaneous summonings. There were silvery flashes of metal catching the sunlight through the trees as 30 katanas scattered outward from their summoning, raining down and stabbing themselves all over the immediate area. Every katana was different in subtle ways, each having belonged to a swordsman unlucky enough to be felled by Musashi in the past. He was a collector of sorts, and with his multi sword style the more he collected the more potential he gave to himself. "What a nostalgic feeling.....well then, let us begin...."

"If I were to challenge myself you say? It would be quite interesting I'm sure, if there was anyone still around who could provide me a decent challenge" Musashi said, the apparent arrogance of his words gave way to an actual genuine dissatisfaction that he had apparently not met opponents strong enough to test him in the past centuries. Hopefully this would end with Jubei's new challenge though. He'd trained with her and the other legendary swordsmen before and he knew they were strong, and though his stony expression rarely even hinted at it, he held them in high regards. His fighting style would of course remain un-changed, Musashi wasn't one to hold back even for weaklings, all that would change is he would actually need his full power to best Jubei.

As Jubei rushed at him, Musashi merely stood there idly, keeping his blank gaze fixed on Jubei, the half awake expression hiding his legendary zen-like metal state, a supreme focus.

He reached over and tugged the nearest sword out of the ground as Jubei closed the distance quickly ducking down and and pushing past Jubei's left side, the dodge was almost perfect as if he'd known exactly where Jubei would be aiming. Of course dodging a blow of that speed was still no easy task but only cost Musashi a few hairs shaved of his dusty brown hair by the sword.

He quickly spun round to aim a one-handed horizontal slash at Jubei's mid-section. As he did so he made a tugging motion with his free hand, causing a sword stuck not too far behind Jubei to suddenly be struck by a pulse of wind, sending the sword pin-wheeling towards Jubei's head area at some speed in a small cloud of leaves and dust where it once stood. This was Musashi's unique multi-sword style, the ability to assault opponents from multiple directions at once with flowing deadly accuracy. His eyes quickly scanned over the field as he spun, and although he only caught but a seconds glimpse of where each sword was, he had already committed the positions of each and every one to his memory.

After his blade was knocked aside by the vacuum cut, Musashi quickly stepped back to avoid Jubei's counter attack, he swung his sword out to his side, catching it under the guard of a sword in the ground and used the tip of the blade to flick it high into the air over the battle, apparently not planning to put it to use now, but rather thinking ahead.

Musashi immediately performed an impressive leap into the air over Jubei, grabbing the sword she had deflected away with her scabbard and using his wind magic to instantly change direction mid-air, blasting himself quickly down at Jubei in a falling stab with the sword he'd just caught, though he didn't perceive someone of Jubei's skill having getting hit by such an attack. Hit or miss though, he wasn't planning on giving her any breathing room at all. His fighting style thrived on continues attacks from all angles, putting constant pressure on his opponent, he was only just getting started.

As the stab drove home he shifted his body forwards, using the momentum to somersault himself over Jubeis head, aiming another strike at the back of Jubei's head in passing with the sword in his other hand. He landed from the somersault on the side of another swords handle, using the momentum and his weight to quickly flick the sword out of the ground as he landed on it and send it spinning towards Jubei, making another hand motion as he did so, strategically hidden from Jubei's view during the move. The caused the wind to burst to life again around the sword he had used for his first stabbing attack, causing it to flip up and over in a vertical slash at Jubei, the precise control Musashi had over the winds making it almost as if he were there performing the slash himself. With Musashi now attacking from the opposite side of Jubei that this sword was on, it would likely be another blind-side attack.

After this Musashi quickly dashed from his spot after flicking the sword at Jubei, flanking round by her right side hoping to take advantage of the side her bad eye was on. He grabbed another sword from the ground as he went then quickly lunged in towards her, spinning around and aiming multiple equally timed slashes with the two swords at Jubei as he did so.

His attacks came quickly like a torrent, a perfectly calculated flow so as to give his opponent as little time to react or counter as possible. To Musashi right now, the whole environment was his weapon. "Can you still keep up with this.....even after those years of downtime?" his lifeless voice was heard.

Musashi couldn't do much to avoid having one of his swords flicked away once Jubei had managed to catch it. He was far from a slouch in physical strength, but Jubei still had a fair edge over him in raw power "A child of strife?...". He was a little surprised she chose to abandon her own sword, adopting a tactic similar to Musashi's own style, but he himself had trained himself in tactics such as these for as long as he cared to remember, the stab wouldn't pose a problem, as Musashi quickly demonstrated.

He shifted his body to the side, the blade passing near his left shoulder. His arm suddenly snapped up, connecting with the flat of the katana's blade. He shifted his arm, the momentum from the stab allowing him to spin the blade round his arm by it's flat and then catch it by the grip with a quick twist of his arm.

He turned towards Jubei in time to see her beginning her drawing slash. There was a whistleing sound from the air directly above them as the sword Musashi has tossed up into the air earlier quickly decended blade first in the ground between the two, Musashi quickly resting a foot on its hilt to brace it as Jubei's blow connected with the blade. Apparently Musashi had been thinking ahead for a possible counter attack, otherwise he may not have blocked the slash so easily. There was a hail of sparks and Musashi and the grounded sword he was resting his foot on skidded to the side a bit from the strength of the blow.

Musashi wasted no time in hooking the foot he had on the hilt under the swords guard, pulling it up out of the ground in a short movement and catching it with his left hand, how holding 2 swords in the same hand, and the 1 in his right he had kept since the battle started. He leaped backwards a fair distance, planting a foot on another grounded sword at the end of the leap then jumping up off that, flipping over to land on the flat of one of the swords that had landed at and angle in a tree trunk. "....Are we not all children of strife?" he asked as the air started distorting around him, Musashi building up the winds for a more powerful technique "Autumn Skies - Three Currents..." He said, taking one of the swords in his left hand and gripping the handle with his mouth. He Jumped from his perch part-way up the tree, twisting himself into a spinning dive, the wind thundered around him in a whirlwind like fashion, making him spin incredibly fast and quickly accelerating him forwards and down towards Jubei. The speed his blades were spinning also created air slashes around Musashi, creating a shredding blender-like attack as he aimed to pass by her left side. As Musashi could change direction in the air, it was would be hard to avoid the attack until he was practically ontop of his opponent.

This was only the first part of his attack though, Just after he had side-swiped the opponent with his shredding attack he would drive the blade in his left hand into the ground before he ploughed into it, using the handle to swing himself right around, leaving the blade in the ground and perform a passing downward slash past Jubei's right side. This ended with this sword also being stuck in the ground and once again being used to flip Musashi around(and also being left in the ground), letting the sword in his mouth drop down into his left hand, then doing a downward double handed strike past Jubei's front, again driving the sword into the ground and leaving it there as he flipped off it.

The three swords were now stuck in the ground in a triangle pattern around Jubei and as Musashi landed from his last attack he swung his arms forwards, causing bursts of wind to blast all 3 swords forward at Jubei in vertical spinning slashes in a simultaneous attack, ideally ending the attack with the 3 swords skidding to a stop back in the ground around Jubei opposite of where they were.

Musashi got up from his landing and turned back towards Jubei in the mist of the autumn leaves fluttering down from the wind he'd called. He was already planning his next few moves should that attack have proved ineffective.