tampered | Log: Ongoing

Current Mood: patient

Log: Ongoing

When: October 7th, evening
Rating: T for violence
Characters: Walter Dornez [

dark_butler] and Sesshoumaru [

coldmoonlight]
Summary: One powerful vampire, one feudal demon lord, and a nice big beach to have a scuffle on. That's how civilized creatures communicate with each other, isn't it?
Log:

It not been Sesshoumaru's intention to challenge the vampire so soon after their prior disagreement, but he had come to believe there was little use in waiting for the stubborn creature to come around. Sesshoumaru had been lenient so far for Rin's sake. The child evidently appreciated the education that Walter could provide. Still, that was no reason to allow the vampire further liberties when had not proved himself worthy of them.

Sesshoumaru waited near the ocean, half-turned towards the waves, a ghost-pale figure etched against the blank sky. A stray breeze caught his empty sleeve and swept through the ruff of fur at his opposite shoulder. Unhindered by the darkness, he watched the water in its restless motion. The vampire would answer the challenge at his own pace. Sesshoumaru was not of a mind to make him hurry. They both had time.

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And Walter had been of no mind to hurry. Opportunities to fight kept presenting themselves and he was not one to turn them away, but he had had other things to do. Things that left him in a good mood.

He didn't have anything personal against Sesshoumaru, but he'd left behind the man who took orders. Not on Millennium's surgical table, not in Xulchilbara's manor, but when he made the decision that he would leave the Red God's service.

This demon was not the one who would take up the right to give him orders.

He scented the demon almost as he caught sight of him. The wind blowing in off the water with a tang of salt and the waft of something that was not human by any means.

He let the sand crunch under his step as he approached, stopping some twenty feet away.

All this just because Walter had been parsimonious with his answers to Sesshoumaru's questions. What a peculiar world.

"I have come."

"So you have," the taiyoukai acknowledged. He remained as he was for a moment, his long white hair rippling in echo of the ocean. The vampire had not bothered to silence his step. Was it out of courtesy? Sesshoumaru was amused at the thought.

When he turned to face Walter, it was to conduct an expressionless appraisal of the other's state. He could smell a hint of blood when the wind shifted. "I trust you are fit to face me," he said. "It would be a worthless endeavor to continue if you are not at your best."

Courtesy? Perhaps. Or to send the message that he felt no need to be silent. Or to send a message that his opponent did not merit a silent approach.

"You'll have no complaint about my condition." It wasn't too surprising that he wasn't the only one with a better-than-human sense of smell, he supposed. If that was what had prompted the comment, which the shift of wind would imply.

Fortunate, though, that he regenerated and did not skimp on blood. His fight with Bradley would have left him incapable of fighting otherwise.

His statement was acknowledged by the barest inclination of Sesshoumaru's head. There were other smells on the wind, the smells of a creature that should have been dead but wasn't. Perhaps Tenseiga would be useful for more than defense in this place after all.

Still, it wasn't time to consider blooding his father's fang just yet. Walter would have to earn the privilege of being cut with that blade.

Sesshoumaru raised his hand and crooked his fingers until the knuckles cracked. "Shall we begin?"

Walter inclined his head in turn, a slow smile spreading across his face. "Until one of us can fight no more?"

To the death didn't really matter to him, but he'd prefer not to upset Rin by killing her idol.

"Precisely."

It was all the warning he received. Sesshoumaru lashed out with a long, glowing whip that materialized at the tips of his fingers. The weapon was more than long enough to reach Walter without Sesshoumaru having to take a single step.

It was like having one of his own wires flashing out at him. Walter barely had time to gauge it and twist his body away from the outward lash. Not a physical whip, it appeared, but he wouldn't know until he saw the result of his responding lash of a handful of wire, twisting through the air, meant to cut through the whip and its wielder with equal force.

Too slow. Sesshoumaru allowed his own whip to dissolve as he disappeared from where he had stood, moving quickly enough to remain unseen by most creatures. He reformed the whip and struck from the side, still some distance from the vampire, but not bothering to hold himself out of the perceived range of Walter's wires.

On a starless night, the only light was what little ambient light leaked from the City and the ships out of the small sea.

It was enough to let a vampire's eyes track the flash of silver, and enough for a vampire who had once been unthinkably fast as a human to follow the movement and slide away from the next lash of the whip, wire spreading wide across the beach in a net meant to catch the demon.

Impressive responses, Sesshoumaru noted as he abruptly changed the arc of the whip. It shielded him from most of the wire, though one caught at what little remained of his left arm and drew a faint trickle of blood that stained the white silk of his haori. The vampire warranted a more personal approach.

Sesshoumaru darted past the wires, intent on catching Walter's throat in his claws.

The wires returned to their master, spooling back into the his rings as he threw an arm up to block those hands going for his throat, his other fist driving forward toward Sesshoumaru's midsection.

The blow connected, somewhat dulled by the armor Sesshoumaru wore, but surprisingly powerful. Still, he managed to latch his hand around flesh, and released his poison. The corrosive substance leaked out from his claws and sent up a cloud of noxious fumes to accompany the liquid that ate through whatever it touched.

The fingers that broke against Sesshoumaru's armor knit almost as quickly as he pulled his hand away. More pressing, more immediate, more painful was the burning rush that spread from the demon's claws and into Walter's arm, and he knew that this was not something that was going to regenerate as quickly.

His teeth ground down on his tongue as shadows rose at his command, rising from the sand to swirl around the pair as Walter jerked away from the claws and brought his fist up for a strike toward his opponent's throat.

Momentarily distracted by the shadows, Sesshoumaru took the hit. It was enough to force him back a single, staggering step. His jaw clenched, but he didn't struggle to force a choking breath past the pain. Instead, he focused his energies on summonging more poison, having noted its effect on the vampire's flesh. He cast it out in four gleaming arcs, intending for it to either wound Walter further or force him back.

Walter didn't want to be forced back yet. He pivoted, turning his body away from Sesshoumaru's enough to miss two of the four arcs of poison, the other two laying burning lines up his tricep and shoulderblade. He brought a foot up for a side kick, still taking targets in the middle of Sesshoumaru's body for the best chance of contacting.

Another dodge, somewhat slowed by the damage Walter had done with his punch, but enough to ensure that the kick was only a glancing blow. The taiyoukai's hand fell to the katana at his side. Tenseiga pulsed in response to the vampire's presence, a living thing in its own right, and slid easily from its sheath.

Walter's left arm was not at full strength, burning streaking outward from the numbing locus of the poison strikes. He shifted tactics to favor his right arm and other attacks.

Shadows slid around the demon's legs at Walter's command, drawing tight to hinder mobility and give the vampire an opportunity to strike again. The blade was a new threat, but he'd faced swords before and it didnt' faze him. At least, not yet.

Left arm tucked against his body to keep it out of the way, he stepped up his speed as his leg came down and he used it as the pivot point for a roundhouse kick.

Tensaiga's meidou zangetsuha--a strike that would open a path to the underworld and deliver part or all of an enemy there--was useless in the City. However, the blade might yet be able to wound the undead. Sesshoumaru wished to test the sword's capability in that regard, and Walter presented him with an excellent opportunity.

When the shadow's tightened, it provided Walter with the opportunity he had sought. Sesshoumaru was unable to move away from the kick, and his armor shattered at the side. Eyes narrowed in distaste, Sesshoumaru absorbed the blow and retaliated with Tenseiga.

As Walter spun out of the kick, he saw the flash of Sesshoumaru's katana coming at him. Since his left arm was already wounded and progressively more useless to him as the poison spread, he brought it up to catch the blow, staggering under the force and the immediate understanding that it was no usual weapon he'd just allowed to wound him.

Sesshoumaru allowed himself the faintest of smiles. So Tenseiga could be used against the dead in this place, though it lacked some of its former strength. He pressed forward, intending to leave Walter only with the options of losing an arm or disengaging.

Walter had another option, though, involving five wires from his right hand meant to wrap blade and, as far as Walter cared, separate Sesshoumaru's hand from his body. With those wires, he would wrench blade or blade and hand away from its wielder. At least in an ideal world.

Against the wires themselves, Tenseiga was no more effective than a sliver of bone. Sesshoumaru was forced to abandon the blade to preserve his remaining hand.

A flick of his wrist and the blade went flying farther up the beach, away from where they fought. Walter drew his wounded arm up against his body again, sparing enough attention to bind it there with shadow.

The smell of blood was strong in the air, and its taste was equally strong in his mouth from his unconscious chewing on his tongue - the price to be paid for those shadows listening to him as their master for the first time.

One-armed, now on equal footing with his opponent, Walter turned his wires on Sesshoumaru in a flickering five-stranded lash.

With his feet still ensnared in the shadows, Sesshoumaru was forced again to defend himself rather than simply move out of the way. He brought his arm up, let the wires catch it and tear through silk and flesh, in two places down to bone. Sneering, he twisted the arm to grasp the wire in his claws. He showed not a flicker of pain as the movement shredded more flesh.

Walter braced himself and pulled against Sesshoumaru's grasp, his hand rising to his mouth to draw the wire through blood-stained teeth.

He stopped his pull on the two he felt touch bone. The demon's one-armed status indicated that he wouldn't regenerate an amputation and he didn't want to leave Rin's protector helpless.

A twitch of his fingers would flay flesh away from those bones, though.

He met Sesshoumaru's eyes with his own that had gone from their usual calm gray to a heated, glowing red and waited for the next move.

The stripes on Sesshoumaru's cheekbones had grown jagged at their edges as his own eyes flashed red, but he held the transformation back. He would prefer not to revert to his true form when his intention was not to destroy the vampire.

"What do you intend to do now?"

Blood dripped from his arm and darkened the sand at his feet. Poison gathered at the tips of his fingers, perhaps enough to free him from the wires before Walter could destroy his arm ... but perhaps not.

He twisted his fingers, twining wire around them to take the tension he'd been holding with his teeth. Once he was sure he could still act with the barest thought, he dropped the wire in his teeth and bared them in a humorless, predatory smile.

"I intend to see if you'd like to rethink the way you speak to me. If there's a lesson to be learned, we can both be served to learn it."

The poison... the poison was pain that spread numbness, but even the numbness managed to convey the sort of ache that had Walter's teeth on edge despite the narcotic delight of fighting.

Sesshoumaru glared at him for a moment, but subsided. "You have demonstrated your worth," he allowed.

"I am willing to call this a 'frank exchange of ideas,'" Walter said, putting an effort into keeping his voice from sounding strained.

"And we can be done, if you agree."

A curt nod accompanied the return of Sesshoumaru's features to their more usual state. "Very well."

Honor played a factor when Walter raised a hand to draw the wire out of Sesshoumaru's flesh, but an equal factor was pragmatism.

He might be able to cheat and kill his opponent in this moment when they were supposed to call an end to their clash. But what good would that actually do when Sesshoumaru rose from the dead seriously pissed off 24 hours from then?

Better to let them both withdraw with face saved.

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Log: Ongoing

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