Placement Test; Tsubaki's Assessment

Tsubaki, slightly overwhelmed not only by the long-winded speech but also the fast-paced movement of Tear, would try to wrap her head around everything he'd just told her. Naturally, when they entered the room, a lot of what he was saying came together, but she was still more or less kinda in a daze about it all.

"Yeeeaaah... I mean... Like... What are the rules for this Placement Test? Anything important I should know?"

Krikor entered the Battle Arena while Tear was just finishing explaining to Tsubaki what her placement test would entail. "So what, no swords?" he asked jokingly as he came into the room proper. He walked over to the ring itself and stepped inside, drawing his sword and limbering up. He gave his sword a few test swings at the air to work out his sword arm.

"Anything I have at my disposal, huh...?" Tsubaki rustled around in her pockets, trying to see what she still had on her, if anything. "... Alright, I think I'm good..." She mumbled, pulling her hands out of her pockets and getting herself prepared as Krikor walked in and took his position. She thought about what she was being assessed on... "... Close range... Long range... Physical... Non-physical..." She hoped that she could qualify for all of those criteria. Tsubaki would probably have to make due, if she didn't. "Well, whatever," she said, taking a rather exotic stance, similar to that of a dancer, "Alright, I'm ready for ya! Let's dance!"

As soon as Tear began the fight, Krikor gripped his sword with both hands and dropped into a defensive stance. He got ready to parry the first attack Tsubaki threw at him, saying, "Alright, come get me!" He noticed, however, the strange stance she was in, almost like she was getting ready to dance. "You are full of surprises, aren't you..." he thought to himself, also noticing that she didn't appear to have any weapons on her, "curiouser and curiouser."

"You bet!" Only moments after Tear called for the battle to begin would Tsubaki's arm extended outward like that of an exotic dancer sprout a short, but beautiful green blade from her wrist, followed promptly by the other, which was held back defensively, yet still elegantly and carefully. They were curved like sickles, but relatively straight as if to be used like daggers. She closed her eyes, trying to find her rhythm, even without any music, and stepped forward, waving her hands about in a slow, steady manner, pivoting slightly as she drew near. Her movements were fluid, but very slow, as if sh were trying to find the right beat in her head of how she needed to be moving. She stepped nearer and nearer, progressively getting faster, but not so much where it became too much for her to deal with. Eventually, when she felt like she was fully in the groove, she opened her dim, but shimmering eyes and stared at Krikor, slashing at him with a quick swipe of her hand.

Krikor parried Tsubaki's strike, trying to push her back a ways when he did. "It's almost like she's dancing to some tune only she can hear," he thought. "The best way to defend myself, then, is to make her lose rhythm!"

With that, Krikor took up his sword, raised it high, and aimed a strike with the pommel of the sword at Tsubaki's upper sternum. He felt bad about trying to hit her -- he didn't want to hurt someone who he viewed as something of a friend -- but he also didn't want to go too easy on her, and that meant fighting back.

Tsubaki's blade, knocked away by Krikor's swift parry, sent Tsubaki spinning off in the direction he knocked her wrist in, following it and the weight of it all the way around as if trying to keep her balance. It looked as if she were about to fall, but just before she hit the ground, she would catch herself by placing her defensive hand on the ground to support herself. She was a little rusty from having not been in battle for so long, but she quickly picked up on what she could do to incapacitate him, or at least inflict some sort of damage. 'There!' Her focused eyes gleamed as she thought to strike at his thigh with the same arm that had been deflected by him before, but quickly noticed that he was trying to strike her back already. So, in that same motion, she would follow through with her bladed arm that had been deflected and swipe it again to knock his blade away.

She pushed herself off of the ground with the hand that was supporting her, sending her back with enough velocity to have momentum to step or hop back just as quickly as she was brought to her feet. If she weren't careful, he might hit her, and it might hurt. 'Damn... What do I do now...?' Cricket chirps came to her head, and she was reminded of Krikor's name, which made her giggle a bit. However, she steeled her focus again, trying to get back into the flow again. "Gotta keep focused...!" she muttered strictly to herself, keeping to the training she was taught by her desert people. Circling around cautiously, she held her hand out again, waving it around as if she were trying to feel out the air with it. The blade on her outstretched hand started to tremble a bit.

Krikor lost his balance a bit when Tsubaki knocked his strike away, but regained his composure and made sure to keep a close eye on her.  She'd already sprouted blades from her wrists, who knew what other surprises she had in store?

Krikor followed Tsubaki as she circled around, wondering what she could be planning.  He saw that she started waving her bladed hand around, the blade sprouting from her wrist beginning to vibrate.  "That can't be good," he thought, thinking that she was preparing for another attack.  Krikor took a swipe at Tsubaki with his sword, ensuring to stop before the blade actually hit her (so as not to harm her --  it was a sparring match, after all) in an attempt to throw her off again.

The very moment she felt as if she were going to be attacked by Krikor, her own bladed wrist would vibrate intensely, becoming attracted to the point where it was felt to be coming from. As an Instrument, she was naturally capable of being able to tune in on the Wavelengths of others, especially with two metal blades kinda still vibrating off of each other, giving her something to work with in the first place. The first thing she figured that she would use was one of her Jutsu from her Legendary Art that she was familiar with, immediately wanting to perform her 'Dance of the Desert', as she was taught to do on Vescrutia, whilst she was still in the groove.

"Dance of the Desert Moon..." she muttered under her breath, spinning around very swiftly and causing the ground under her to turn into sand by being exposed to her Chakra. The solid earth granulated immediately in a radius of about 6-10 inches around her. As she spun, she kicked up a great deal of that sand immediately and into the air around them. When it feels an unknown Chakra source touching its surface, it immediately reacts by grabbing it. Thus, whilst it was in the air, carried by her still spinning foot, which now, too, sprouted a viridian dagger-like sickle blade, would be hurled at Krikor's 'sternam' (the same place that was the original intended attack) all 'Earth Bender' style. On impact with anything, the granulated sand would congest around it and attempt to penetrate his armor.

Meanwhile, Tsubaki would hurl her self backward with the torque of the spin and out of danger very acrobatically, landing several feet backward and coming to a skidding halt into the cover of the sand cloud in the air, eventually fading out of sight as she kept going backwards.

Krikor was staggered by the impact of the blade hitting his chest, though the blade itself bounced off of his armor without harming him. "Sand?" he thought. "Where did this come from?"

In the meanwhile, however, he had more pressing concerns. He felt some of the sand worming its way between the plates of his armor as though it had a mind of its own. Thinking quickly, Krikor released some of the blood stored in his armor, the red liquid oozing out from between the plates, taking almost all of the sand out with it. Gathering his thoughts, he used some of the blood trickling from his armor to fire a Blood Bolt at Tsubaki's last known position, hoping it would hit her even though he couldn't see her anymore. Krikor leaped backwards after firing the Blood Bolt, gathering up more blood from his armor for another one while trying to stay out of the freak sandstorm that had gathered around him.

"Woah!" she cried, jumping to the side once she saw the random attack coming at her. Living in the desert all her life, she was more than adjusted to having to see in conditions like this, and so her vision wasn't impaired by the technique, despite it blocking their visibility between each other. She knew what to do from there, but now at least she was aware that he could hit her long range. That was going to really suck for her if he hit her with whatever it was he shot at her. "I don't wanna get hit, so..."

Her voice called off from Krikor's side, whilst more of the sand in the air collected around his head in a cloud. Wherever it sensed him using a large amount of energy, it would make collecting around that point a priority. As such, in the dust cloud in the air, that seemed to continuously get thicker, the silhouette of Tsubaki could be seen, creeping a little closer whilst he was hopefully blocked by more sand. There wasn't much in the air, but because it kept collecting around Krikor's eyes, it would appear to him that the entire area was in a giant sand cloud to congest his vision further.

Krikor tried in vain to wave the sand cloud away from his eyes, trying not to breathe any of the sand in while he did. "Focus!" he thought, firing the Blood Bolt at the direction where Tsubaki's voice came from. She had called out some sort of attack -- something about a mirage? -- so he knew she was trying to screw with his vision, and he anticipated another swing with her blades to come next.

After firing his Blood Bolt, Krikor turned to face the direction he thought he heard Tsubaki's voice come from. He tried squinting through the sand to see her, hoping he'd be able to defend himself from what would come next.

The Blood Bolt shot into the silhouette, which quickly dispersed as a quiet sizzle like a wave of heat wavering in the arid desert air. The sand that coagulated there was nothing more than the collective wave of her own Chakra flowing through the suddenly expanding veil of sand. No matter how much Krikor swatted at it, the sand suddenly swarmed back at the front like bees. It looked as if the sand were getting thicker, some wrapping around his leg nearest to the original source of the sand, in order to hold him where he was, if it could. Out of nowhere, two Sand Bombs that would burst on impact flew out at Krikor; one aimed directly at him and the other directly at the ground below him.

Krikor went flying backwards from the sand bombs hitting him, soaring through the air before hitting the barrier that kept everything in the arena inside. He fell to the ground face-down, turning his head to the side so as not to land on his nose. His armor CLANGed as he hit the ground, bouncing once before he pushed himself back up, willing himself to continue fighting.

On the plus side, being knocked so far back had pushed Krikor out of the sand cloud, so he could now fight normally. He tried rushing Tsubaki, taking a horizontal swing at her as he closed the distance. Since his armor was still coated in sand-filled blood, he proved a grotesque sight to behold, especially since he was barreling down at Tsubaki, hopefully intimidating her into making a mistake.

The sand that was on Krikor's back would suddenly shift up toward his arm and did its best to slow or secure it in place. It would feel as if his arm were flexing, but moving extremely slowly, so it would cause more strain. This gave Tsubaki more time to dodge the attack. The granulated image that Krikor swiped at hopped to the side and immediately dispersed when it moved. Once the image fell back to the ground as normal sand, Tsubaki would be nowhere to be found. The sand under Krikor's feet would seek to wrap itself around his legs.

The sand was seriously impeding Krikor's ability to fight, and it was beginning to worry him. If Tsubaki's control over the sand was this strong, he didn't know if he could keep up with her. He felt the sand wrapping around his legs, trying to impede his movement, when an idea came to mind.

First, he used his blood magic to overclock his heart, making it beat faster to increase the blood flow to his muscles. By doing so, he was able to break free from the sand around his legs and his arms. He tried to get away from the sand near his feet, leaping backwards a bit to try to ensure he wasn't standing in it anymore.

Second, Krikor shut his eyes and listened hard for where Tsubaki could be coming from. "If she doesn't want me to see," he thought, "I'll just have to use my other senses and try to detect where she is!" He got ready to parry another attack from Tsubaki, trying to hear her footsteps if she moved in to attack him.

The sand that was on Krikor's arm suddenly fell to the ground. "Dammit..." she cried out with a bit of a strain. The methods that she learned from the Vescrutians didn't seem to be working as well as it used to. Constant control over her technique was a bit stressful, which was why she usually used such techniques for very swift assassinations, as she'd been trained to do by her family. She was having a bit of trouble gauging since she specialized in actually killing things as swiftly as possible. Practicing seemed to be foreign to her to a certain degree.

"I'm gonna hafta start using techniques that require less energy..." she huffed, immediately flashing through some hand signs whilst Krikor still hadn't detected her, and in fact closed his eyes. There wasn't as much sand in the air that he believed that there was, but now that his eyes were closed, she could at least start doing some of her Ninjutsu. "Dance of the Desert Flower," she whispered under her breath, kicking her leg up into the air and releasing a streaming wave of heat at him. As she gracefully kicked herself into a twirl, she would land on the ball of her foot and kick her leg again, releasing another flaming wave, and finally lashed her hands out again as she spun to release two swift sputtering embers from her wrists until she came to a sudden halt, clenching her fists and readying her bladed wrists again.

Krikor heard something coming towards him, and wheeled around, throwing up his sword to block. However, he couldn't block a heat wave, and he felt very hot air engulf him. He began sweating and stopped overclocking his heart to try to bring his body temperature back down when he was struck by another heat wave. Krikor opened his eyes, sweat beginning to run down his forehead, and saw a figure firing something at him through the sand. He tumbled forward, dodging the two embers and getting closer to Tsubaki, taking a swing at her when he landed.

Tsubaki went through her head figuring out if she were doing all of the things that Tear was looking for. She had been fighting indirectly and with non-physical attacks so far, but wasn't doing much in terms of direct, physical attacks. Though she was very skilled in swift physical attacks, she could clearly tell that Krikor had the upper hand physically, which concerned her. She was just going to have to do her best to not get hit, maybe putting forth more effort on her part to dodge. She was at least a little less rusty now.

When his blade came to her she would raise both arms to block it, letting the edge of his sword collide with her sickle blades on her wrist. Because they were both curved, when she blocked the sword, the curved edges of her sickles would keep the sword in place and also keep Krikor from being able to use it, though at the expense of no longer being able to use her own hands. She raised her leg up to kick him in his chest and hopefully knock him away as well as remove his sword that should have been stuck between her sickles in the process and then disarm him. If he didn't have a weapon, she'd be back at an advantage and could follow up without having to worry about him slashing at her.

Krikor's sword came down hard on Tsubaki's blades as her kick landed square in the middle of his chest. Thankfully, his armor did its work and absorbed much of the impact, but it still made him loosen his grip on his sword, making it stay on Tsubaki's wrist blades. Thinking quickly, Krikor followed up with a Blood Bolt aimed at Tsubaki's chest to try to knock her off-balance, since she was on one leg after kicking him. If it worked, he would seize the opportunity to take his sword back.

The hard strike on Tsubaki's blades caused her body to tremble from the powerful vibrations of metal hitting metal. "Nn!!" She was stunned for a moment or two even after Krikor was kicked away, leaving her wide open to be blasted by the Blood Bolt. "AHH!!" she cried, as she was knocked back from the force, stumbling and falling down. Naturally, Krikor's sword fell to the ground in front of her. "Ugh! I'm covered in blood..." she groaned. The smell of the blood was actually pretty nostalgic to her, though, even if it basically reddened up her fabric. She grumbled as she got to her feet, "Now you've done it..." whilst flashing through Ninjutsu hand signs. "Desert Flower!" She seemed sorta mad now, lashing her hands out violently and releasing many searing waves of heat just about as strong as Krikor's own Blood Bolt. "Hope your armor's heat resistant, Kricky..." It didn't seem like she was going to let up now.