FujiwaraPhoenix

The Jade Stream

"Oh? Well, well, well, if that isn't a name I haven't heard before! So you're the infamous dojo-slayer that's been in town recently? Well, your hair certainly fits the description..." the man with the knuckles said, a crooked smile forming on his face. "If you're going to be like that, then so shall I! Xu Lao is my name, but to a battle-hungry maniac like you, I doubt it'll stick. of course, I can't say I'm any different!"

Xu's partner looked at him with mild amusement before turning to Xin as well to introduce himself in turn.

"Right; if we're going to be fighting someone with such infamy, we might as well be courteous for once in our lives, eh? Nam-seon Baek; of course, since you're looking to be a worthy opponent, we'll not hold back. We'd expect you to do the same, of course!"

"Now come!" Xu shouted, a wild grin on his face. "We won't back down!"

Their chivalry, though wildly strange given the situation, seemed to be solely out of curiosity. Having been forced to steal from simple merchants and deal with subpar bodyguard up until now, such a bold challenger only riled them up even more. The tedium of being a bandit hidden away in the forests while their boss took joy in the riches he had pilfered, combined with strength that Xin seemed to exhibit... Well, the days seemed to add up. The illusion of riches and fulfilling their lust had dwindled to nothing, even moreso when they were forced to simply guard the hideout. So if someone strong like this showed up, they had no reason to refuse the challenge...
Even if it cost them their lives.

---

The bandit, Chiu, frowned at the girl with a headband's rapid maneuvering of the polearm; such strength was abnormal, and the precision she had with it was quite dangerous. A formidable opponent, to be sure.
...
Well, for the beginners he was guiding earlier, maybe.

With a swift few movements of his blade, the polearm seemed to be deflected, ever so slightly putting it off-balance to cause the attack to miss, but only by a hair. It was a tactic meant for aggravation; the closer she got without hitting, after all, the more exasperated it'd become. His sadistic streak was showing, and how.

But the girl that appeared in front of him just now, the one who had called him out... That put a damper on his plans. He had planned to toy with them, one at a time, but... Apparently this girl was also armed. Well, no matter. He could always work with the psychological shock of killing that other girl's friend in front of her.

The next few moments were... Strange for him. He clearly saw blood on his weapon, but the girl... The girl remained unharmed.

So... Why...?

And thus he fell to the ground, half the man he used to be.

Synchronization Overdrive: A school-based supernatural RP with a twist

James Zhen

The release from Akiya's grip led James to inadvertently glance at the mark left upon his hand. His partner certainly had... Some arm strength, to say the least. It was a tad disconcerting, being dragged along like a rag doll... But, in the end, no harm, no foul, right?

The presence of his luggage in front of the door was a great boon; he'd have had half a mind to punch something or someone if he'd have to walk all the way back to his former hotel room to pick up all his crap. A quick check was all he needed to ascertain that everything was in place; clothing, cell charger, some emergency snacks, a laptop...

And the violin. Right. He forgot he had brought that along, and the reason for doing so along with it. It was a timekiller, yes, but would he have time to kill in between bootleg Japanese lessons, combat training, regular classes, and all the other crap that there was here?

Closing up all the cases and bags, James rapidly brought all of his goods inside the dorm room, which proved to be much easier said than done. Finding a way to arrange everything to take up the least amount of space would be miserably annoying, to say the least.

Akiya's next comment pulled James' attention away from that dilemma, however, and led him to nod in return before taking his own bed, which was... Well, more comfortable than he had expected.

"Right. Well, as you know, I'm James Zhen. Age 16, came all the way from the US. Hobbies are... Well, actually, I don't have many hobbies. Kinda got forced into the usual rigorous lifestyle that you get tossed into when you're the child of Asian parents... You know?" he stated in turn as he began to move his things around and start to unpack. "Forced into violin-playing aside, I guess I hung out at internet cafes a lot and played games there. Usually under the pretense of staying at school for extra work, but hey, what works, works, right?"

---

Mari Kougami

Aaand there it was. Geez, she really should've seen that coming a mile away. Sighing, Mari brought her right hand up to her forehead and, sighing, shook her head in disapproval. Having those words not be misconstrued was just asking for trouble. Her fault, everyone's loss.

"There are... So many ways I could retort right now, but I think it'd just be best if we headed back for now. You're misinterpreting my statement; I'll say that much, at least," Mari responded, glancing at the map in Kagura's hands.

Mari's formerly-polite facade was slowly being replaced by exasperation, little by little. So, what did she know about her new partner so far...?

• Tries extraordinarily hard to make nice, up to a fault.
• Is probably the type to be prepared for possible problems.
• Might be awkward to sleep in the same room for the first few nights or so because of this exchange.

...
Oh yeah. Definitely going to be interesting... And not in the way she'd have preferred.

"In any case, let's go before we start gathering any strange looks from people. If you would."

Synchronization Overdrive: A school-based supernatural RP with a twist

My post will come in a few hours, at latest. I've got 4 midterms/finals stacked tomorrow, and I need to get my materials prepped before moving to other things.

Synchronization Overdrive: A school-based supernatural RP with a twist

@Ichypa: Yeah, I'm here. just thought that... Y'know, there'd be other people moving before I said anything again.
=3=;;

Untold Eternity [Log Horizon/Overlord Inspired RP]; Always Accepting!

Melia

Melia looked at Lorand in confusion. His statement, after all, didn't quite add up; even if it was in the wilds, there weren't many monsters that could do substantial damage there... Just a bunch of lone wolves, if she recalled correctly. There wasn't even a field boss, so...

"Well, it's not as if I'm going to argue with speed--we should be moving there quickly, after all. But... 'danger I couldn't even imagine?' Isn't that a bit of an exaggeration...?" she asked, glancing between him and the other girl, who she decided to address and Yuki given the username, before getting up to make her way out of the building.

"If you wish," Melia offered as the three walked out of the building, "I can summon a mount to get us there faster. Would that be alright with you?"

As she did so, Melia flicked around in front of her, sending a party invite to Yuki as she sifted through her items for the scroll she had stored away for that exact purpose. Lorand had his wolf... Warg... Thing, so he could probably get there in record time if he was go go alone...
But flight could always be faster, especially if she tried reducing her own weight with her magic.

"So, other than her general appearance, is there anything else that we should be looking out for once we arrive?

The Jade Stream

Well, to be fair, the only other one who can actively use Qi is Liu, and even then he's kinda... Out of the fight rn.

The Jade Stream

After an intense minute of deliberate easing of the arrow from his shoulder, Liu let out a huge sigh of relief as it finally came out. No poison, it seemed; usually, the blood around the arrow would be dyed black or something if that was the case. Throwing the arrow to the ground, the young hunter took up a meditative position against the tree trunk and, after tearing off a strip of cloth from his clothes, bound the wound to prevent it from bleeding out any further. With that out of the way, he took a deep breath and began to actually meditate. He was still aware of his surroundings, but this measure, as he had found in the past, would ease the pain for the moment.

---

The bandit facing off against Torako stood there silently, his face unmoving as he held his weapon at the ready. What good were the words of a child, after all? The two were in completely different positions of power, and he certainly would have no trouble--!
Kyang's battle cry shocked the man out of his thoughts as he turned around, only to see a giant axe coming straight for his face. Barely raising his sword in time, the bandit deflected the weapon to the side before rolling away from both parties.

"Backup, huh? Well, if that's two of you here and one back there..."
A sickening smiled curled up the man's face his eyes gleaming with bloodlust.
"I think I might actually have some fun today~!"

---

A sudden gust of wind blew around Dai Xin as the men closed in around him, and though it did not bring any stop to the bandits' weapons, it certainly heralded something a bit more... Malicious.

"Oh? What have we here?" came a voice from the shadows. Casually landing on a branch right in front of the red-headed martial artist, a pair of grizzled men--fighters looking to be in their late twenties, both draped in tattoos--stared straight at their new opponent.

"You know, the boss might not be happy we lost so many today," the one on Xin's left remarked, his fists covered by spiked knuckles and leather gloves. "Wasn't this meant to be a hit-and-run operation? One of our spies told us that--"

"You know how this usually goes," the other responded, a pair of katars strapped onto his arms. "We send the recruits to deal with the small fries, and we avoid the big fish. Seems they caught on, though."

"Oh, that's not very convenient. Well, the boss will kill us if we don't catch the ones responsible, so I guess we'd best get to work."
"Yeah. Chiu blew the whistle, after all."

The duo's lack of respect was, clearly enough, one based in overconfidence. After all, they had been the undisputed 'arms' of the group, so to speak; nobody had needed them yet...
And for good reason.

The Jade Stream

Maybe. Just maybe.
By that same logic, I might also have something planned to deal with that OPness at the moment.
:3c

The Jade Stream

Moving through a forest at high speeds was one thing, but doing so with an arrow stuck in a shoulder was a completely different story. Liu, forcefully ignoring the pain that came about as the arrow shook around inside of his arm, broke into a run. Xin's dropping of a hostage in front of him, though, caused Liu to stumble momentarily before catching himself against the trunk of a tree. The arrow, luckily enough, hadn't been messed with this entire time, but things could likely get worse if it wasn't dealt with. This was a good a time as ever, it seemed, to take a moment's reprieve as the others did their thing.

"Understood. I'll stay behind here, then," Liu replied, looking around before taking some of the nearby vines and wrapping the victim of Xin's scare tactics onto the trunk of a nearby tree. With that fighter secured, Liu took a deep breath and, preparing himself for the worst, began to slowly work the arrow out of his shoulder.

Arrows, it seemed, hurt a lot more coming out than they did going in.

---

The chase in the trees above, however, became a lot more chaotic once the archers from earlier moved deeper into the forest. Left and right, forward and back, up and down... It was as if another group of archers had suddenly joined in the fight. In actuality, the ordeal was a series of tripwires that the bandits were triggering to fire as they moved, causing chaos on both sides of the fight. One barked an order unintelligible to anyone not in his immediate vicinity, and the remaining assailants split their forces all over the place. Down below, one of the fleeing bandits dropped to the ground and let out a loud whistle before drawing his blade, in hopes of stalling whoever came his way... Even if only for a few moments. What that meant, only the bandits really knew.

The Jade Stream

Liu flinched when Torako's overenthusiastically loud voice pieced through the forest, causing him to freeze for a moment before turning to her in complete confusion.

"Wha- Why are you being so loud?" he retorted, fully baffled by her actions. Yes, he was loud, too, but... That was a bit far, wasn't it? Torako's lackadaisical nature was a bit... Crippling at times, but if this gave away their plan--!

The soft sound of rustling leaves immediately caught his attention as he turned to the trees above. The slight rush of wind as an arrow grazed his face caught him off guard, but Liu immediately glared in that general direction and drew his sword. The cut on his right cheek was now bleeding, but it seemed that they had caught someone's attention. Immediately after, though a few more arrows flew his way. This time, however, Liu was ready.

The quick motions of his blade were enough to block a good three arrows, the fourth lodging itself in his right shoulder and a fifth missing completely. Damn, there was more than one?

"There!" Liu shouted at the top of his lungs, pointing his blade at the sudden shift in movement from the trees above. "Don't let them get away!"

Gritting his teeth, Liu began to move off in the direction of the now-fleeing assailants. Removing the arrow right now could prove dangerous, even if there was a chance it (or any of them, really) could be poisoned.
...
Hopefully, that wasn't the case.