? vs. ?, Battle for fun here!

[Shiro]

With a wave of his hand, Shiro then dispelled the blast of flame that was coming their way by removing the oxygen from the attack. Heatnix was not on the other side from whence the blast came. Shiro closed his eyes, and searched through the air to find him. It was almost too late when he did.

"Get DOWN!", screamed Shiro, pushing the emotionally distracted Truth to the side as a pillar of fire erupted high into the air from where they were standing. Heatnix then burst out of the flame, and as Shiro was getting up punched him across the face, sending him bouncing off the sand once before correcting himself and landing on his feet. Shiro looked up, but noticed that he felt Heatnix behind him. A loud metallic ringing noise pierced the air, as Shiro had managed create a large scythe of wind just in time to block both of Heatnix's swords. Shiro's eyes met Heatnix's, who were bright red. Shiro closed his eyes.

"Finally....." he said, blood running down from the corner of his mouth. Heatnix looked confused.

".....the real fight can finally begin." Shiro's eyes opened as a devilish grin painted itself upon his face, his fangs showing clearly. He then found the strength to quickly push up on his scythe, giving an inch of leeway between the two warriors weapons. An inch was all he needed, for in that brief half second, he managed to spin himself around and slash the scythe at Heatnix, who had to backflip out of the way. However, much to Heatnix's disliking, Shiro then spun again, only this time throwing the wind scythe with alarming speed at his location. The scythe hurled forward as Heatnix jumped high into the air. Shiro then controlled the scythe to follow as it made a sharp turn to catch Heatnix in midair. Heatnix figured that the scythe would follow, for he had already prepared a large amount of chakra into his blades, and with an X shaped cut, dispelled the disgruntled blade of wind. Heatnix then landed to see that Shiro had been planning something else, for the wind was now beginning to lash around violently. This caused the sand to lift off the ground sporatically, hindering each combatants vision. The waves too found new motivation with this change as they had greatly grown in size as they no longer quietly lapped to shore so much as they did crash with intensity. A pillar of sand was violently spinning around Shiro as he then held out right arm to the side, perpindicular to his body. He then looked at Heatnix.

"This is where the fun starts."

Shiro then activated his rune, which caused an incredible shockwave of power, as a pressurized jetstream seemed to explode forward from the palm of his hand, splitting the waves and dividing the sea in two parts, reavealing the ocean floor below. The blast continued far out of view. This explosion had also sent the bandages that went up his arm spiralling off, also destroying the entire sleeve of his robe. This left his whole right arm exposed, revealing the glowing, spiral markings of his rune that stretched up his right arm, wrapped around his back, and went up the left side of his neck. Shiro closed his eyes as the ocean behind him began to spill back into one body of water. He concentrated to calm the wind to his liking, and then he focused mind even more. With each breath taken in, the wind blew north. With each exhaled, to the south. His balance had been found. Shiro opened his eyes once more, and focused them on Heatnix, who had been doing a fair bit of powering up himself. Heat eminated off of his body freely, as the cool ocean air mixed with the heat that flowed freely. Shiro used this to his advantage.

Shiro quickly raised one hand, and instantaneously, three tornadoes came spiralling out of seemingly nowhere. Heatnix moved quickly across the sand as the vortex's of wind came crashing into the beach, sending an ocean of sand into the air. He dodged the first, and then rolled out of the way of the second. The third however, caught Heatnix off guard as it smashed into his defense, sending him back across the sand. After righting himself, he looked down at his arms, that had cuts running along them where the tornado had hit him.

"I see." Heatnix thought. "Shiro focuses the hit from the tornadoes into lots of thin slashes."

Shiro, who was now many feet high into the air, smiled intently as he called forth 8 more tornadoes. He then began moving his arms gracefully, as if conducting a brilliant symphony. The 10 tornadoes below obeyed without hesitation as they began a coordinated attack in unison. Heatnix converted to a completly defensive status as he tried to find a way to get out from the midst of this forrest of attacking wind, and to Shiro who was hundreds of feet away.

"His greatest weakness in this battle is his environment." thought Shiro. "The more heat he creates, the more the air pressure rises as it mixes with the cold sea air. It makes it effortless to create tornadoes, much less direct them. For I've yet to even use my rune..."

[Heatnix]

Heatnix looked around at the tornadoes that were surrounding him. It was all he could do to keep from getting caught in one.

All right, he thought. I could always burn through the tornadoes, but that's probably what Shiro's expecting me to do. He likely has two or three contingency plans already made for if that happens. I need to find a different way of getting the tornadoes away from me.

As Heatnix continued to dodge, he made it to the edge of the water, where a cool breeze blew across his face. Idiot! I can't believe I didn't think of that before. That's why he's doing this so effortlessly!

Rather than running away, Heatnix ran into the center of the maelstrom. He sheathed both of his Lotus katana at his sides and quickly knelt upon the sand. As the tornadoes lashed about him, he concentrated. Soon, the tornadoes began to lose power. Shiro smirked. So, he finally figured it out. I must say I wasn't expecting that from him. At the very least, not this quickly. The temperature was dropping, and the air pressure was lowering, causing the tornadoes to lose their potency.

Shiro dispelled his tornadoes. There was no use for them anymore, anyway. Especially now that they were more just spinning breezes than tornadoes. The entire beach was now cooler in temperature than it had been before the fight started. "I never realized you could bring temperatures down as well as drive them up," Shiro said. "You've improved."

Heatnix said nothing, only remained in his kneeling position. Shiro soon became agitated at Heatnix's silence and raised his hand, shooting a blast of wind at Heatnix. Heatnix smiled as the cool wind blew through his hair. Shiro lowered himself to the ground to examine the situation.

Having activated his rune, Shiro's senses upon the wind were even higher than usual. Using this sense, he could tell that Heatnix wasn't moving even a muscle. In fact, Shiro could sense that Heatnix's muscles were still relaxing. He was in perfect kneeling position, back straight and hands in his lap. Shiro's vampirism could sense Heatnix's heartbeat, slowing with his growing relaxation. If Shiro didn't know better, he would swear that Heatnix was going into meditation. However, there was something about Heatnix that was just...off. Shiro decided to come up with a new plan.

I know he's trying to lure me in. Knowing him, he's trying to get me close so he can use an iaido attack on me. Therefore, I need something that'll surprise him and hopefully subdue him quickly. He's probably taken my genjutsu into consideration already because he knows the only thing it doesn't affect is his eyes. And his eyes are probably closed so he won't get caught in another type of genjutsu. If I fake a frontal attack, he'll lash out with iaido. He'll have to reach across his body to draw either of his swords. The moment he does that, I can use a vacuum to draw him toward me and attack him before he can draw. If he's faking, and uses a flame attack instead, I can just draw the oxygen out of it.

Shiro rushed forward, creating a large sword of wind. He expected a full movement of Heatnix's arm. It was only at the last moment Shiro realized both of Heatnix's swords were placed just above his hands, to eliminate the need to reach and give himself away. His muscles were relaxed to allow him ease of movement. And Shiro had unwittingly overthought himself into Heatnix's trap.

Both of Heatnix's swords slashed upwards with amazing velocity as Shiro's blade came close. The wind sword was cut through by two superheated katana blades. Shiro quickly jumped back and formed his own twin wind swords to try to match Heatnix's style of combat. As the two clashed blades, Heatnix's swords cooled, becoming sturdier in the process, just as iron tempered in a forge is strengthened. Soon, Heatnix sheathed Black Lotus on his right side, fighting off both Shiro's blades with only Red Lotus. Shiro was a bit unnerved by this, as well as the air around Heatnix's body behaving oddly. It was as if the air didn't know what to do.

That was when Shiro noticed himself sweating. Had the temperature gone back up? No, the air pressure was still low. Then what was it? In the moment Shiro was distracted wondering this, both his swords were knocked upward, and Heatnix's free hand struck Shiro in the chest, his palm outstretched, knocking Shiro backward. Several more punches followed. As they became more numerous, Shiro noticed the amount of pain they were causing increasing. He leapt back and looked down to his chest. His robes had been burned through, leaving several blackened, fist-shaped burns on his chest. Looking behind Heatnix to where he had been kneeling, he saw that the topmost layer of the sand was now glass.

"So that's it," Shiro said. "Your true rune allows you to take all the ambient heat energy in the environment and absorb it into yourself. You've weaponized your own body. That's why the air around you's so odd. You have to continuously reabsorb the heat that would normally be pouring off you right now. I'd never thought of that. And furthermore, you even improvised to the point of strengthening your swords by absorbing the heat you normally put into them during combat. I'm impressed."

"Well, then," Heatnix finally said. "Now that you've figured out my new trick, do you want to kick off round two?" He held his sword behind him and raised his left arm in a taijutsu-esque stance.

"Hold it!!!" shouted Geoff. He marched toward the two, looking beaten and angry. "I remember saying that I wanted to fight Shiro. Since then, I've been watching you two duke it out, been turned into a girl, impaled by a bolt of lightning, and been exploded about a hundred times. Heatnix, you switch me opponents right now."

Heatnix and Shiro looked at each other quizzically. Shiro spoke first. "Well, if he insists..."

"And he does seem very insistent..." Heatnix added. "This was just when things were getting fun, though."

"I agree," Shiro said. "But, he has a point. Originally, the fight was supposed to be between the two of us. I think I'll give him what he wants for now."

"Okay. Have fun," Heatnix said. He patted Geoff on the back, leaving a scorching handprint and walked off to find Truth.

[Geoff]

Smiling, Geoff proceeds to unsheathe and unhook every weapon still attached to him. It didn't take long.

Shiro just stood, waiting patiently to see what Geoff was up to.

"Heatnix tells me you are a weapon master. He says in your unimaginably long life that you have mastered every weapon known to man. I would like to see if your training over such a broad range of weapons has limited your proficiency with them. I know this is true with people who live normal lifespans, but I am not so sure how such training would affect you. Therefore, I would like to propose a challenge to you. 5 minutes of combat using a weapon provided here," Geoff points to the pile of weapons. "You can use any weapon or combination of weapons contained within this pile, but cannot summon any weapons. Your wind powers will not be limited unless you wish them to be, although I would prefer this to be a battle of skill over weapons and not skill over magic."

Geoff bows and steps away from the pile, unarmed, "Of course, if you should choose to fight unarmed, I am fully prepared to do so as well. The choice is yours, Shiro. Will you enter into a contest of skill against me, or shall we fight with all of our arsenals at our disposal? I personally think that creating a limitation such as the one I've suggested will allow for a much more... interesting battle."



*OOC Note* Geoff doesn't have any Japanese or otherwise Asian weapons, these are all western weapons. Maces, short swords, daggers, long swords, his broadsword, a bearded axe, and a spear.