[center][h1][color=fff79a]Armostos[/color][/h1]
[h3]Hyrule Castle City[/h3]
Tournament Grounds
Armostos vs. Zaruud
[hr][@Sho Minazuki]
[hr][/center]
As the Elimination rounds for the tournament were now under way, crowds coming back from lunch were gathering around the stages towards their favorite fighters. Armostos and his chosen adversary Zaruud began their walk into the ring. The large crowds at this stage compared to the other were no surprise considering this was a Gerudo woman, even more unsurprising was that most watching were men. She seemed to have a lot of support as they cheered for her, still among those men there were more stern-faced ones. They had the look of gamblers, and they seemed confident in Armostos' strength.

"Even under all that armor you must be a Goron, or a very fat man. In any case, I have seen your strength and am eager to test it", she began, the Gerudo woman wore the standard Gerudo garb with a tattered hood, the colours on her garb though were a bit faded, and some patched or covered with some lightweight armor. On her back was a giant curved sword, Gerudo often used regular long-sword sized scimitars, but this was unusual, one so large... This was going to be an interesting bout, two colossal blades. The battle could end very quickly, or end up taking a long time.

Armostos laughed at the top of his lungs and bowed after hearing the Gerudo woman's compliment, pretending she'd said nothing about the fat part, since he admittedly had a bit of a gut. "That's nice of you, you seem strong yourself too, perhaps we should meet up when this whole thing is over?" Raising his head after his bow, Armostos showed a confident smirk before once more pulling his helmet down over his face. Taking a single, slow step forward, he chimed; "Good luck."

"Well, I guess that's one way to ask me out,may the best fighter win", she responded. Her stance changed slightly, it seemd relaxed, but an experienced fighter would notice the few quirks that allowed it to respond quickly. As soon as the bell rung for the fight to start, the ground around her immediately swept up in dust following a silver flash. Her sword, she swung and swept up the dust around her, covering her next move. After a brief moment, already halfway through her jump she came upon the armored Goron with a somersaulting overhead slash, leaping from the dust cloud.

Armostos was ever so slightly surprised at the speed of the Gerudo woman, considering the size of her weapon, but he couldn't manage to let that shake him. As she'd been sweeping up dust, he'd just been standing there, waiting to intercept, sword still sheathed. He tried to move the shield between himself and the Gerudo's sword as she lurched at him, attempting to grab her with his still unoccupied hand afterward.

As soon as Zaruud's blade met with a shield, she immediately leaped off the back of it. It wasn't the first time her advance had been met with a proper defense. Armostos' grab reached air as she was already jumping back, and upon landing was charging right in again, starting a series of spinning attacks. Her technique was insane, fast, and kept the blade moving, using acrobatics around the heavy blade rather than making the blade move to her whim.

As his grab missed its target completely, Armostos sighed. No way it was going to be that easy after all. As he positioned his shield between the continuous assault that followed as well as he could, his free hand reached for the sword, drew it from its sheath and jumped back a little, a feeble attempt at creating some distance as expected from someone wearing such heavy armor. After his petty jump however, he positioned his zweihander in front of his shield, the tip pointing diagonally down at an approximate 30 degree angle with the ground, ready to strike at a moment's notice.

The whirling Gerudo of death inched closer with each rotation, eventually being close enough to strike, however right before that, she shifted her posture and her grip on her blade, immediately turning the horizontal swiping and converting all the momentum into a single diagonal slash. The force making her commit to the strike, but it was a powerful strike nonetheless. She seemed aware that to win, she'll need to bring a lot more power than normal.

As the Gerudo drew closer, Armostos executed a swing of his own, choosing to swing similarly diagonal over the Gerudo's blade, focusing a lot of effort into this one swing. Armostos was prepared to catch the massive blade with his body, but he wasn't willing to cut his opponent in half. Instead, he chose to turn his own blade and hit her with the side, even letting go of his shield to apply more force to his swing, all in effort to launch her off the ring with a single rough strike.

The clang of steel that followed was deafening as Zaruud felt both her blade and her body make contact. Although it was not completely against her, the force of her attack was hard to contest, even Armostos' powerful swings were staggered against it as both combatants were pushed or flung back, Zaruud much more so than Armostos who was in full heavy armor. Zaruud was far back, she was almost out of the ring from the force alone. The exchange made the crowd go wild, if Armostos was standing just a few steps ahead they might have been close enough for a ring out, but it seems Zaruud was not yet finished.

Armostos let out a loud grunt before stepping further into the ring. "Are your ribs okay? Nothing damaged beyond fixing? That was quite a blow you handed out too. But let me guess, no bowing out? Same for me, so let's do this!" Armostos doesn't have blood, but if he did, it'd be racing through the veins he'd have right now. He was getting excited, fighting a woman was usually a major turnoff for him, but this time it was different, something felt right, despite the huge slam he'd recieved. As he judged himself to be at a decent distance form the edge behind him, he once more lined up his blade across his shield. 

"Thank you for worrying, but I didn't make my living fighting by going down quickly", she stated. Earlier she stuck her blade into the ground for a foothold, but now they were recovered, she kicked the blade, letting it fly into the air before catching it and heaving it over her shoulder. She created the dust storm again, swinging the blade around her and carving the ground. After a brief pause Armostos saw the giant blade, but no Gerudo, flying at him as it emerged from the dust, he was ready to brace, but it flew right past him, spinning as it did. Emerging from the dust was Zaruud herself, it seems she had more tricks up her sleeve.

Armostos smiled inside his helmet after she confirmed to be alright. He was flabbergasted to see the sword fly past him, had it headed for him he would've been in trouble blocking, but luckily it soared past. Armostos knew better than to follow it with his eyes, though. Anyone who could throw such a blade quite like that was a force to be reckoned with. As the Gerudo woman emerged from the cloud of dust she'd whipped up, Armostos waited for her to come within range of his weapon and struck at her, but halfway through his swing he let go of the sword and moved his arm faster than he should've been able to, judging from his performance before that moment. As he let go he swiftly reached for the Gerudo's wrist, attempting another grab under the guise of a slash.

Armostos would quickly notice, the blade she threw earlier... It flew right back past him again, but from behind and on the opposite side. Midway through her run, Zaruud caught the blade, spinning as she did, before delivering a slash well out of arm's reach, aiming to contest Armostos' swing.

Unburdened and surpirsed as he now was, Armostos realized there was only one thing for him to do here if he didn't want to intecept another of the Gerudo's brutal strikes. Armostos curled into a ball with surprising ease for someone so heavily clad in armor and rolled at the Gerudo in yet another offensive. It had been very clear from the blows they'd traded earlier, being forced to go defensive was less than favorable for either of them.

The Goron's armored back was uncontestable, forcing Zaruud to stagger back as her blow was soundly deflected by the Goron's hard back as he began to roll at her, she would've perfectly evaded it if she was a bit more prepared, but ended up being glanced by it and stumbling back before recovering. It seemed Armostos was now the more mobile opponent for this fight. It wasn't the first time she'd dealth with gorons either, but this was such a heavy Goron, her usual methods may not work.

As much as he disliked it, it seemed most efficient to keep rolling for now. He couldn't help but grumble in annoyance a little, however, it just didn't feel fair to him, so he rolled past his sword and stood up smoothly, grabbing his zweihander whilst ascending. Armostos took half a moment to locate the edges of the ring before quickly stepping in further again. He stabbed his zweiander into the ground right of him as he faced the Gerudo. The sword was clearly set up to be drawn quickly, but now he also had his hand empty once more.

Zaruud read the mood here, it seems the Goron had pride in his own strength, she respected this, but it seems this fight will have to end now. Zaruud charged forward after throwing her sword high into the air, before jumping after it, a spectacular aerial spinning slash coming down on Armostos. The speed of execution betrayed it's immense force. This was going to be the last exchange.

Armostos stepped forward as the Gerudo rushed at him, she was feisty, that much was certain. Armostos enjoyed feisty women, they were just more fun than the timid or bashful ones. As much as he'd started to like her, however, he could not allow her to win quite yet, he doubted she'd be the first to break his armor. With a snapping sound, Armostos' tower shield was sent flying upwards from his arm to hinder the Gerudo's strike. After having launched his shield at her he dove forwards, no longer deliberately moving slowly like before.
All he'd have to do was avoid the strike and use the moment of impact to finally properly grab her. If he could pull that off he'd only have to toss her out the ring and he'd be on to the next round.

Steel clanged as her vision was obscured for a moment, the great shield being flung by the force of her swing, however coming into contact with that lowered the force of her strike as she landed with a slightly weaker impact. The short moment her vision was obscured messed up her aim as the blade barely grazed against Armostos.

Grabbing the Gerudo woman by the scruff of her neck with one hand and her sword hand with the other, Armostos lifted the Gerudo from the ground. He braced himself and flung her out of the ring as gently as he could (though quite clearly, she'd still be in for a rough landing.) With a sigh of relief Armostos returned to his sword and pulled it out of the ground again. He raised it in the air, striking a victorious pose, before walking to the edge of the ring, back the the Gerudo woman. He once more lifted his helmet with one hand as he extended his other towards his opponent. "That fight was amazing. Especially the end was cutting it close. Maybe we should spar sometime, but before that... what about that date?"