[center][h2]Kiyomizu-Dera[/h2]
[b]Thursday, June 2nd 20XX
Afternoon[/b][/center]
[hr]
[@Lonewolf685][@I-Am-X][@ERode]
[h3]Battle against the Mysterious Assassin[/h3]

Everything happened quickly, it took barely half a second for the swordswoman to bound the more than a dozen feet between her and Seirin, but in that time it appears she didn’t expect her accompaniment to be combatants either. There was a surprise in her movements as her blade met with a dagger held up by Asta who made her way to the front, already forming a shield with Solid Armaments. Rodrick and Helena didn’t delay to try and skewer the attacker, but she was faster as she quickly stepped back and did a few errant swings. In that single moment, the two students froze in midair before being repelled by a gust of wind.

Now in a stance with her blade pointed at Seirin, aiming it just over Asta’s shoulder, all who were face to face with her, Otis, Seirin, and Asta, felt her killing intent in that moment, but her foot never stepped forward.

An array of arrows made from rock would land in the place the assassin once stood as she bounded back. By the time she had resumed stance, everyone was back in front of Seirin, her hand on her chest as she was almost ready to step away, but she couldn’t.

[color=9e005d]“This is unexpected… But I’ll just have to make this quick”[/color], muttered the assassin.

[center][h3][color=ed1c24]BATTLE START![/color][/h3][/center]

[hider=Battle vs Mysterious Assassin]

[b]LORELAI[/b]
[quote]There was recognition in Lorelai’s eye as she saw the talisman, the lessons in that class having been taken to heart, though her expression turned monstrous with righteous fury to see the barrier fall and reveal her threatened classmates by a cowardly assassin. Lacking any skill with such small thrown weapons as soda cans would make, she dropped them and blitzed the assailant in a dead sprint. While she lacked a spear, Form 4 of Dieter’s Fields only required a strong advance to see her hands come together in a heavy hammer blow against the assassin.

[i][b]Follow Up![/b][/i] Chains her hammer blow into a flurry of punches from Form 1. Follow Up x2! Steps into extreme close range and headbuts the mask in lieu of the hammerblow from Form 4. [/quote]


[b]OTIS[/b]
[quote]The barrier was gone, and two more joined the fray. Were the numbers great enough now, that the difference in individual skill could be overcome? Otis let out a breath, enjoying once more the heat of the summer day even as a deathly chill emanated from the masked swordswoman. “Stay,” he said, one eye flicking in Seirin’s direction, as he dropped a Slicing Bullet onto the ground in front of her. Before it could bounce around, his foot stomped on it.

Lorelai, the most energetic and reckless of all, rushed in without even a weapon in her hands, and Otis, trusting his own speed, moved in to assist her. Another hand slipped into his ammunition pouch, pulling out another bullet. His natural magical capabilities were unable to keep up with the costs of the spells he had memorized, but when it came to what he could prepare, the Strigidae could always hit above his weight class.

With Lorelai taking the front, Otis skirted around from behind, throwing a bullet aimed squarely at the woman’s spine.

Now, it was time to see just how their enemy responded.[/quote]

[b]ULTANA[/b]
[quote]Seeing Otis attempt to go behind the assassin, with Lorelai at the front, Ultana created a Broadsword with Solid Armament and charged in from the side. Swinging her blade with a furious swing, she sent countless Earthen Spikes towards the enemy to ensure Otis wasn’t discovered.[/quote]

[hr]
[b]ASSASSIN[/b]
[quote]The assassin found herself on the backfoot though was keeping more than pace with Lorelai’s swings in hand to hand. The footwork was wrong for bare fist even if the principles were kept, and so with a rapid assortment of strokes from the left hand and right foot, the assassin dealt a few blows to Lorelai, sending her back with a finishing kick. She had no time to rest however as she for a moment sensed an attack from behind, yet in front of her was a seemingly larger threat. If she dealt with the one behind, she would be vulnerable to a larger attack, and if she dealt with the one in front, she was in danger of being put back onto the defensive. She was choked for time given the situation, and so retreating onto the back foot was not an option.

Not to mention, in Lorelai’s place was Asta, with her shield in front formed and to prevent yet another strategy she could use. If she could just get everything into view... 

The assassin executed some fast footwork that doubled her back away from her current position, in what appeared to be a blur the sword was back in it’s sheath. The stance was… Familiar, it looked a lot like what Kuuto used, with a few differences. Regardless, what was to be of note was that the sword was glowing now.

With a grunt that felt painful, she drew the blade. A single white slash went through the earth spikes, Asta’s shield, and Otis’ bullet, before an array of slashes appearing like wide cross hatching followed immediately after. Asta being the closest to this attack was sent back with various cuts along her shield arm, and some reaching her chest.

The sword stopped glowing and the assassin gave a cough, before advancing forward quickly towards Seirin. Rodrick and Helena stepped forward, however Rodrick’s snow soldiers were quickly cut down as they were summoned, while Helena’s Knight of Radiance had it’s attacks easily evaded by this agile assassin. Still with their bodies in front, they need only get in the way for long enough.[/quote]


[b]OTIS[/b]
[quote]Otis’s eyes widened at the brilliance that flashed from the assassin’s sword. What an absolutely sublime cut! He had been banking on her slashing his bullet, yes, and had even hoped she’d do so: each of his bullets used impact triggers to detonate the Fire Rune at their base, and if she had done such, the particular bullet would have fired off, striking the ground twenty meters away...before the Vorpal Warp enhancement activated, forcibly relocating the assassin further away from her target while giving everyone else a chance to spawn-camp her.

But that had only been a hope, and it was a hope destroyed by the burst of slashes that accompanied the singular strike, shredding the runic etchings upon the bullet before it could discharge.

Just like that, however, the assassin broke through the vanguard, dashing towards Rodrick and Helena’s own defenses. She was swift, certainly, swift enough to trivialize what magical guardians emerged. Her senses were sharp too, enough so that she had been able to counter attacks from every direction just a moment before when they approached her.

The Strigidae, however, had not yet run out of gambits.

From a fair distance behind, Otis focused his vision, shadow-dancing with the assassin as she evaded the Knight of Radiance’s broad strokes. And as patterns developed, as habits were read and understood, he reached out with his other hand, a bullet held out…

“Ein-Tes.”

...and threaded a slicing beam of energy diagonally upwards, from the bullet he had dropped right in front of Seirin, to the bullet he held now in his hands.

It just happened, really, that Helena’s Knight physically blocked the bullet from view, that the assassin’s body was right between those two bullets when he invoked them.[/quote]

[b]LORELAI[/b]
[quote]Her mad rush didn’t amount to any significant damage upon the Assassin, her stance and movements all wrong for fighting without a weapon, but it proved ample distraction to let others surround the attacker. Pity then that she released a blinding attack that seemed to part the very fabric of reality itself, cutting down the defenses and armaments between her and her targets. By a stroke of camaraderie Asta had placed herself between Lorelai and the Assassin, protecting her from the whirling blade as she rebounded from the kick. 

Her fury was tempered by the ragged cough that followed the attack, a sign of infirmity she took to like a shark does spilled blood. Without any pretense for defending herself she launched herself off the ground in a flying tackle to restrain the assailant for the others to finish.[/quote]

ULTANA
[quote]Despite the advantage of numbers, the assassin was still holding off their attacks. One single slash from her blade was enough to thwart their attacks. While not any major injuries sustained, Asta, being the closest to the attack, took the worst of it. Before the assassin charged once more towards Seirin, the sword stopped glowing and coughed. Could the attack (or sword) be taking something out of her? Either way, they couldn’t let her get to Seirin. With Lorelai making a reckless attempt to restrain her, they needed to bring her down now.

 “With an unyielding will, I call upon the power of the earth to aid me in this fight.”

Activating her Earthbound circuit, she raised her broadsword and made her own reckless charge to slam her weapon into the assassin’s chest.[/quote]

[hr]
[b]ASSASSIN[/b]
[quote]She was quite nimble, the assassin, having obtained a decent amount of. Perhaps something Lorelai should’ve picked up, as her tackle was a straight-forward approach that the assassin’s keen senses was able to react to as she bounded over Lorelai, leveraging herself over with her hand on her back inadvertently pushing her into the ground letting her continue to a skid behind her, and by chance, avoiding a crippling strike from the Slicing Bullet, barely grazing her shoulder as she went into a spin mid-air.

At the same time, Helena’s knight went for another swing, bringing it up in a diagonal arc while Rodrick had the time to summon White Archers. In the spinning midair jump, the assassin swung her blade twice, once to take Helena’s knight’s blade off-balance and avoid it swatting her out of the air, and the second deflecting some of the ice arrows, managing to catch Rodrick in the shoulder as he staggered back in response, leaving Seirin open in a gap between the two.

“Fujiwara Discreet Arts, White Flash of the Glaring Glass”, she muttered under her breath, bringing her focus to this technique.

In that very instant, everyone present witnessed what appeared like a glint of reflecting light against their eyes, blinding them, and as the vision settled, right next to Seirin was a line through the stone-paved floor , and a long cut going cross through her forearm and near her shoulder. The attack… Hit? Seirin yelped a little at the pain, her left sleeve was also completely cut as it fell right off.

At the very instant of the blinding flash, Ultana had managed to strike the assassin out of the air, veering the attack just off-course as she tumbled along the stone pavement. It appears they just barely managed to prevent a fatal attack.[/quote]

[center][h3][color=ed1c24]BATTLE END[/color][/h3][/center]

[/hider]

With distance being made between the group and the assassin, she stubbornly began to take up a stance again, even knowing in the back of her head that her time was short, or even over. As soon as her hand made it to the handle of the katana, an array of throwing knives came flying at her, landing at her former position as she was forced back further. A click of her tongue as she began to start backing away further.

Emerging from the shadows was a dual arm blades wielding… Weasel person? Or at least, they had a weasel-like tail, all adorned in a black suit jacket over what looked like a bodysuit. One might be quick to assume this was a kind of beastkin similar to Otis, but they would be false.

[color=c4df9b]“Lady Seirin, you’d been advised not to separate from your escort”[/color], the voice that came from this new ninja-like figure was female.

[color=fff79a]“Ahaha… Y-yeah, I’m... so sorry for that, Fuuko, but…”[/color], the way she apologized was like a child who had just been caught red-handed, looking away and almost slinking away.

[color=a2d39c]“It’s for your own safety”[/color], she retorted quickly before turning back to the assassin.

At this time if anyone would have rushed to Seirin’s side to check her injury, would find that it has mysteriously disappeared. 

Appearing shortly after this woman was a familiar coat and blade, forcing the assassin to draw her blade to block a slash that came from what appeared to be countless yards away. Stepping in from behind the group was Kuuto. His glare sharpened as soon as he laid eyes upon the blade she was carrying.

[color=slategray]“Hm, it appears I’ve found my thief… And culprit”[/color], and it wasn’t just Kuuto who recognized something here. The assassin too. Those more attuned to combat would feel an immediate palpable fear coming from her, before she began to bolt off.

The weasel-like ninja lady known as Fuuko raised her hand, and on signal a few ninjas appeared beside her like phantoms on command. With one wave pointing forward, they were off to chase the assassin while she turned back to take care of the group.

[color=a2d39c]“You knew you were in danger and yet you decided to sneak off from your escort”[/color], Seirin turned away from Fuuko as her features began to melt away and become more human, revealing a girl with sharp eyes and hair tied in a ponytail. Those well-versed in yokai might recognize the features and abilities this girl held as that of a Kamaitachi, but this full human appearance on this kind of yokai meant that she was most likely a half yokai.

[color=fff79a]“I-I’m sorry”[/color],

[color=a2d39c]“Sorry? Just sorry?! We have killer on the-”[/color], 

[color=slategray]“Ahem”[/color], she bit her tongue as Kuuto interjected. It’s not really something people should be hearing, but at this point it was probably too late.

[color=a2d39c]“A-anyway, we need to keep you safe, at least until this situation is all over. I know how much you want to go sightseeing, but please, be patient”[/color], there was a quiet as Seirin was being scolded for her behavior, looking down and a little glum. The young lady known as Fuuko turned to the rest of the group.

[color=a2d39c]“I’m sorry for having involved you unrelated children into this… Affair”[/color], she would not openly state it, but she was surprised at how lucky Seirin had gotten, running into kids who happened to be trained combatants, at least, to some degree. She bowed in apology.

[color=a2d39c]“Please, tell no one of what happened today. We’re trying to prevent any form of panic while we close this up”[/color], she then turned to Kuuto.

[color=a2d39c]“Prosecutor Kirizanto, I will be taking Seirin someplace safe, these are… Do they happen to be students of yours?”[/color], he nodded in affirmative. She looked at that the group for a moment in pensieve, running a finger over her chin, then grabbing Seirin by her hand.

[color=a2d39c]“Now, we will be on our way… Come on Seirin, you have caused enough trouble for today”[/color], she stated. There was a pause as everyone watched them disappear from sight.

[color=slategray]“Hm…”[/color], Kuuto turned to the students here. He recognized some of them from the vampire incident some week or two ago…

[color=slategray]“Interesting that I see some familiar faces. Do you kids have a habit of hunting for trouble?”[/color], there was an awkward silence… Would one take that as rhetoric or a serious question? The hard glare in Kuuto’s eyes made that difficult to ascertain.

[color=slategray]“Well no matter, it would be advisable to forget about today’s incident. If you have any worries to put to rest I’ll try my best to explain things, under the promise that none of you try and get involved. We can call this an impromptu lesson of sorts”[/color], there was some historical significance to the people here today.

[color=slategray]“For the record before you ask, questions about this investigation are off-limits”[/color]