Siobhan had simply kept her eyes closed for most of her time in the Cobblertown jail. For over eight hours she had rested in preparation for the battle to come. She wanted to be at her best...and besides, sleeping made her metabolise food much more slowly. Given that she’d gobbled down her prisoner’s rations without ever waking, that was quite useful. It was only when the sound of battle filled the air outside that those emerald eyes at last parted, the redhead glancing up at Kailani. She could already smell gunpowder on the wind seeping through the window of her cell, causing her to smile. [color=crimson]”Looks like they’ve started,”[/color], she mused, still laying against the back wall with her legs splayed across the floor. Almost immediately in the cell adjacent to Siobhan the bronze skinned shipwright shot up from her position flopped against the floor, nose pressed to one of the bars facing the guard. The past eight hours had been so [i]boring[/i]. Kailani had tried asking the guard questions, counted the bricks, told the guard about Pekelo Island, napped for an hour, informed the guard how to properly cook a person while eating her prisoner rations, drawn a doodle in the dust on the floor, and had just been asking the guard a question about his armor. The poor guy looked so relieved. [color=DeepSkyBlue]”Alright! Time to get going? If we’re quick I might be able to see the shops before we have to scram!”[/color] Siobhan listened to the ruckus outside for several more moments, before slowly nodding her head. Best to confront Mushuro before he got too worn out. She wanted to see what he could do at this best, after all. With but a single motion, Siobhan hopped to her feet. The guard outside her cell immediately turned to face her. “Hey! Don’t think I haven’t been listening to what you two have been saying - much to my regret! I’m not going to let you just walk out of he-GYAGH!” Siobhan slammed her fist into her cell door, knocking it clean off the hinges and into the young man. Slammed between the hide speed web of metal and the stone wall behind him, he slid to the ground with a groan. [color=crimson]”Righto, let’s be off!”[/color] Siobhan chirped, reaching out to likewise tear Kailani’s cell door free. [color=DeepSkyBlue]”Great! Let’s grab his helmet and get going!”[/color] --- “Hkk,” Guntag weazed out, blooding coating the ground beneath him as he stabbed his blade into the ground for support. He had managed to partially deflect the strike aimed at his leg, but it had still cut deeply into his armor. His sword was also starting to show cracks along its surface...it wouldn’t be able to stand up to many more of those powerful strikes. Spitting bitterly at the younger man’s feet, the Captain of the Guard readied his blade for the third time. “Come on then, monster! I...I won’t back down, even if it costs me my life!” Mushuro raised his sword high overhead this time in a stance different from any he’d used before, prepping to take Guntag down with one final slash. But instead of dashing forward into range yet again, he brought his sword down in a single downward stroke, not only sending a shockwave of cutting force toward the Captain, but shattering the pavement of the street and sending that toward him as well. Guntag felt his blood chill as he watched the sword descend almost in slow motion, his body too slow and battered to react in any meaningful way at this point. This was it, wasn’t it? The end of his ultimately meaningless resistance. What had he been hoping to accomplish by coming here? He hadn’t even managed to give his men time to retreat… Wincing his eyes shut, the Captain of the Guard prepared to embrace his death. May the Queen forgive his pathetic ineptitude… [b]SSHHHKRAK![/b] --- That was a technique that she had seen before on the Grand Line. It involved striking - or slashing - with enough force that the air itself bends before your attack, becoming part of your offensive power. It could be blunt force, or in this case even a cutting blade of wind. This was why Siobhan had kicked it from the side, knocking the attack off course and causing it to slice its way clean through a building behind them. Hopefully that wasn’t the baker, or Kailani would have to wait on that cake again. Immediately twisting on her heel, the redhead punched the air in front of her. The shrapnel cast up by the attack was immediately suspended in air by her [i]Arabesque Brick Fist[/i], before quickly being launched back where it came from: towards Mushuro. [color=crimson]”So ya actually survived this long?”[/color] Siobhan glanced over her shoulder at the Guard Captain. [color=crimson]”Ya must not be [i]total[/i] fodder, then.”[/color] “B-Blackfin…?” Guntag muttered in apparent shock. As if to respond to him, Siobhan allowed her fin to pop out of the slit in the back of her brown overcoat. She had kept it suppressed the entire time she was in jail so that she could rest against the wall, but now she felt like letting everything hang out. After all, she was in recruiting mode right now! [color=DeepSkyBlue]”... And Kailani! I don’t have a cool nickname though.”[/color] Said girl commented as she popped up behind Guntag, happily clutching her prize from the prison - the guard’s slightly dented helmet. Mushuro paused for a bit as the two rescuers arrived and his attacks were deflected, apparently sensing even in his half-feral state that these two were different from the enemies who had come before them. Either that, or he was simply puzzled by his attack being deflected with such ease and the older swordsman not being reduced to a cut up pulp. Eventually he got over his hesitation and decided to charge in with a one handed thrust toward Siobhan, apparently trying to probe her defenses with sheer speed as his brief moment of using actual tactics and skill apparently faded with his duel. Siobhan took a quick step forward when Mushuro charged in, wanting to put a little distance between them and Kailani. Reaching out with her gloved hand, it met the oncoming tip of the blade...or not, as the sword was stopped roughly an inch away from her palm by the raw water pressure that flowed out from it. Against most opponents, this would then send them flying backwards, but in this case the struggle ended in what could roughly be considered a stalemate with them both skidding back a short distance. [color=crimson]”Woah, ya weren’t coddin’ me about his strength, Kailani!”[/color] Siobhan noted, her lips turning up into a smile. Without a second thought, the redhead forcibly expelled her current set of human teeth and pushed her shark chompers out, just in case she needed them. Rubbing her jaw from the effort - it hurt like a real bitch - and spitting a small wad of blood onto the ground, Siobhan cracked her neck. Extending a hand towards him, she curled her fingers inwards in a taunt. [color=crimson]”Come on then, it’s time to burst ya!”[/color] Mushuro’s expression did flicker through something similar to surprise before returning to his apparently usual bestial rage, but in response to both his attack being stopped and his opponent sprouting a new set of teeth, he simply charged in again only to draw the sword he’d sheathed before the start of his first duel and unleash a weaker, close-in variant of the air wave creating draw-cut he’d used to batter the artillery strike away from himself, perhaps recognizing on some instinctive tactical level that if she stopped his sword at close range again, she’d hopefully be hammered by the air pressure instead. Siobhan this time didn’t attempt to counter his strike, instead using her powerful legs to push herself off the ground and to the side, her body becoming a blur of motion as she darted to the swordsman’s flank, leaving a trail broken cobblestone in her wake. Her entire body twisting with this motion, her leg lancing out in a kick aimed right for her opponent’s skull. [color=crimson]”[b][u]Thousand Brick Roundhouse Kick![/u][/b]”[/color] She had thought he would be strong. That was her honest hope, and he had not disappointed her. She would ask why somebody like him was hanging out in West Blue, but then that would make her look a little silly. Mushuro was taken by surprise as she managed to completely evade his technique and flank him, without a doubt. But he was able to roll with the impact of the roundhouse at the last minute and avoid getting his head taken off, tumbling through the air to flip over and plant one of his swords into the street to avoid being sent flying too much. Then he tore his sword out of the ground with a growl and rushed her again, before using a similar sword-planting trick and swinging around his own blade’s hilt like an acrobat to deliver a close-range strike with both of his feet. [color=crimson]”Huoo?”[/color] Siobhan blinked in surprise at how quickly he recovered from that attack. He hadn’t even paused for a breath before he was once again on the offensive! That took some pretty impressive endurance, even if her blow had been shallow thanks to him diluting the force of it. Quickly raising her arms in a cross block, she withstood the swordsman’s attack, although she found herself lifted off her feet by it. Being propelled through the air against her will by the force of the double kick, she felt the splinter of wood at her back as she smashed through the wall of an unfortunate General Store, the various goods inside smashing to the floor as she took out a large shelf on her way. Reaching a hand up to run her fingers through her hair, she shook her head. Yeah, she definitely wanted to this guy to be her swordsman. He was way above the slaver trash he had been sailing with up till now! Still, she could tell that this wouldn’t remain a duel between them for very long. The sound of gunfire and clashing swords could already be heard in the distance, Blackwell’s men having already stormed the shore. With the soldiers no doubt demoralized and shaken by Mushuro’s attack, she doubted they were faring too well right now. Dusting the wood chips off her coat, Siobhan hopped to her feet and stepped out of the ruined store, offering the berserk swordsman a smile. Raising her hand, she jabbed her index finger in his direction. [color=crimson]”You’re [i]really[/i] strong, Mushuro Takeuchi. I’ve decided you’ll be mine now!”[/color] Indeed, she couldn’t be more happy. If they had fought even just a year ago, well...she couldn’t say for certain that she would be the one to come out on top. Whatever was afflicting him turned him into a mad beast full of aggression, but that surely wasn’t his default state of mind, right? Hopefully she wasn’t underestimating his durability here, because the only solution she could think of to snap him out of this was to give him her best shot. Tensing her left leg, her calf and thigh both swelled. [color=crimson]”Come on then.”[/color] Mushuro just screamed in fury and charged her head on in response, crossing the distance between them pretty quickly and looking to take off her head with his sword without any real consideration for the tactics of the situation. Watching him close in on her at blistering speeds, her entire world stopped. The sounds of battle in the distance became silent, the town around them dark. The only thing that existed in that moment was Siobhan and her opponent. When his sword drew back with the intent of removing her head, the half-breed reacted instantly. Driving her left leg forward into his upper thorax, the darkness was instantly blasted away by what sounded like the cannonfire of a Marine Battleship, dirt and any stray debris surrounding them being blasted away in an instant. [color=crimson]“[b][u]Two Thousand Brick Side Snap Kick![/u][/b]”[/color] Unfortunately for Mushuro, at that exact instant his allergic reaction wore off. Momentum still carried him straight into the kick, but without the allergy driving him forward in a berserker rage he didn’t have the power to take such a strike. Now it was Mushuro’s turn to go rocketing off into the distance and smash into a building, unable to roll with the kick this time due to its sheer speed and power and the fact that he’d more or less started passing out the second his berserker state wore off. In fact he became something of a projectile, smashing through a thankfully abandoned restaurant hard enough that the building partially collapsed ontop of him, leaving him out cold. Exhaling a measured breath following the aftermath of her attack, Siobhan lowered her leg. Shifting her eyes towards Kailani, she offered the jungle girl a light smile. [color=crimson]”Righto. Let’s grab him up and get him out of harm’s way!”[/color]