It was a bit of an understatement to say that Artorigus was happy with the provided gear for the fourth round of the tournament; after three rounds of being forced to fight using guns and magic and other things he had no interest in the tournament organiser had finally seen fit to equip him with something a little more in his wheelhouse. The decorative samurai-styled armour was a little more restrictive than his usual gear and the katana, although similar in principle to his Okami, was considerably shorter than he was used to. Nonetheless, if everyone was on a level playing field and using the same weapons as him then he was confident he would make it through the next round without issue; it may have been his particular brand of arrogance shining through, but he didn’t think there would be many people in this tournament who could wield this katana and wakizashi better than himself.

****

Arrows. He had forgotten about the arrows.

It probably didn’t come as a surprise to find that most clans preferred not to engage in a messy close range battle, instead preferring the ancient, tried and true tactic of firing mass volleys of arrows at each other. The woefully undersized by comparison Spectres of the Apocalypse had been forced to run, unable to match the larger clans for sheer quantity of firepower.

For the past three hours they had been implementing a constant fighting retreat; run until they opened up some distance between themselves and their pursuers, turn and fire, then run again when they got too close. It wasn’t the kind of battle Artorigus liked to fight but it had kept them alive for now, though that seemed to be about to change as it looked like their pursuers were finally starting to close the gap.

Artorigus covered the clans retreat from the rear while the rest ran to cover, striking down any arrows that he could with his sword; using his Okami’s unique ability had given him plenty of practise at slashing projectiles from the air and although the timing was tighter than he was used to due to the shorter length of his current weapon, on objects as slow moving as these arrows it wasn’t too hard. He couldn’t stop every one however and more than a few managed to slip past him to imperil his fellow Spectres.

A sudden yell from his left caught him by surprise as someone leapt at him from behind a partially destroyed wall; it seemed like some enterprising member from the other clan had managed to rush ahead of the others unseen in an attempt to flank them and was now rushing Artorigus with his sword held high above his head. His loss.

Drawing his wakizashi in one smooth motion Artorigus pivoted towards the charging samurai. With the small dagger in his left hand he deftly deflected the descending sword before following through with a swing of his own, his katana cutting through his opponents arm as easily as it did the air. Now literally disarmed his opponent could only looked shocked as Artorigus brought his sword back around in a horizontal swipe that took the opportunistic samurai’s head from his shoulders.

Seeing that most of the others had already made it to cover Artorigus hurried to follow, vaulting a low wall and landing in a crouch on the other side, suddenly finding himself face-to-face with Ekloria.

[color=fff200]“So, what game plan do you think these guys are using? Are they picking us off because we’re weak, or taking us out because we’re strong?”[/color]

[@Burning Kitty]