(no subject)

[senseandsword.livejournal.com]

When; Night of January 28th
Rating; PG-13ish (violence)
Characters; Karasu lethalcrow, Kuwabara Kazuma senseandsword
Summary; A build up of trash-talking leads to the eventual battle. It's therapeutic.
Log;

Kuwabara was having an exceptionally bad day, to begin with. While he was lucky enough so that both he and his pet cat were the right size, Mao was being unusually haughty. The animal had thrown a fit when he couldn't get out of Kuwabara's room that morning, and it was when he'd gone to tend to Mao's wishes that he noticed something destinctly wrong with the air of their living space. Yukina's absence left, the way he perceived things with his unusual senses, something woefully missing even in the feel of everyday things. Kurama had left earlier; Hiei probably wasn't going to show up for a little bit. He distracted himself, reading and helping Hatanaka-san around the house.

Karasu had graciously offered to provide something less mundane, something to concentrate on; plus, the aversion to the curse was funny and Kuwabara could've used the exercise. He didn't need to do a lot of sneaking around to leave without notice, and reached outward with his awareness to attempt to pin down the demon's location. Everything went fuzzy around the edge of the forest, where various amount of unknown wilds lived, but he was probably close enough. He remembered vaguely that he'd promised Kurama he wouldn't do something like this, and that nagged at his morals a little, but he'd be fine enough to get out of a guilt trip; he was at least decently sure.

Karasu was waiting in the trees, as had become his custom in the City, but he'd made certain to keep far from the Forbidden Child and the fox. He didn't want them ruining the only realy entertainment he'd been offered in weeks. Fighting the blundering human wasn't much of an attraction--the fool was weak and unimaginative, not to mention rather homely--but leaving the remains for worthier opponents to find promised to bring a little spark into his dreary afterlife.

He had been wrong to let the vampires distract him. His time would have been better spent working on the most vulnerable of Kurama's associates. Fortune had brought this one to him, and if all went well, he would focus on another even more dear to the famed youko.

Smiling behind his mask, Karasu allowed his power to rise and catch the attention of the young psychic.

There. Kazuma's head snapped up to gaze into the dark cover of the trees, where he'd felt the spike in power. It was Karasu's, the feel of it coming easily back to the surface of memory. There was a very, very brief moment in which he thought that the obvious give in location must've been a trap, but he bypassed it quickly; it didn't matter, right? This whole set up reeked of bad nature.

"Ready," he muttered to himself, willing his power into that familiar point in his right palm and closing his fist around it. With little more thought on the matter, as was his way of doing things, he charged into the forest towards that point of youki, demanding loudly as he approached, "Come out!"

He was just as Karasu remembered--an idiotic child. Why would anyone with an ounce of sense answer that challenge so directly, particularly an opponent whose strength was long-range attacks? Karasu didn't bother to hide what he was doing, trusting instead to his superior speed to keep the human on his toes, and opened the battle with a scattering of simple grenades.

No sooner had his stomach churned with the notion that something bad was about to happen than the explosives hit the ground around him. Kuwabara cut off a yelp at the initial explosions, tripping over his boots, and he covered his head until they stopped. He could feel burns, two on his left calve and one at his shoulder, but thicker clothes came as more a blessing than he would've expected. His pride stung a little more, really.

He practically jumped to his feet, looking angrily into the treetops. He wasn't like Kurama or Hiei, with the ability to just appear atop any high-up branch with little effort. The crow needed to get grounded, or he was pretty much skewered... Or Kuwabara himself had to get up there; there wasn't a lot of time or willpower or focus to think, though. "Nice try," he yelled up, narrow eyes darting around for a plan while he attempted to maintain knowledge of his opponent's relative location.

Old tricks could work; why not. Kuwabara braced a foot to the trunk of a large tree, summoning the reiken again and, with something of an obvious shout, expanded its length to scale the tree. He felt victorious as he half-stumbled onto a branch, not quite high enough but suitable... hopefully, "So, are we actually going to fight, or what?!"

Karasu's voice came not from the tree Kuwabara had scaled, but from one several yards away. The demon laughed as he stepped further our on his branch, a net of glowing youki surrounding him, manipulated so the human would be certain to see it.

"Didn't you notice? We've already begun"

"Must've missed it," the psychic grumbled, "There's usually a difference in fighting and playing hide-and-seek, you know!" He didn't even know if creepy, obsessive demons knew anything about kids' games, but it wasn't like it mattered. It was more of an aggravated exclamation; he was prone to them, and he was most certainly aggravated.

He had to get closer, that much was pretty obvious. He cursed inwardly, because all of the information that his mind was trying to sort through was all recent stuff, textbook information that didn't do anything to help him engage this freaking psycho in combat that he could more easily deal with. (Another slight twinge of guilt; Shizuru would kill him if she knew about this...) It wasn't even a minute before he got tired of attempting to process an immediate fix, and so resorted to the tried and true method of simply charging the demon without thinking, which was a little difficult when one was dealing with trees. At least he was easier to see, now, and so Kuwabara jumped, stumbled, and attempted to keep his balance atop various perches. He didn't have the speed; he knew it, and attempted to compensate with a wide swing of his sword toward the proper, pushing its length out once more and half-praying that he didn't simply fall and break his stupid neck.

Why had Toguro the elder even bothered to claim this one at the Tournament? Was it because the human was the only one left after Karasu, Bui, and Toguro the younger had made their claims? Maybe it was for the sheer fun of taunting such a simple fighter. Maybe it was because killing Kuwabara would have granted him the pleasure of watching the boy's teammates rail against their loss. It couldn't have been out of any respect for the fool's talents. Had no one bothered to train the psychic?

"I've tried to understand," Karasu remarked casually as he dodged Kuwabara's attacks, moving from branch to branch with infuriating ease, "why the fox even bothers. Is it an infirmity of his human existence that he stays near you? That he cares about what happens to you? I can't imagine that you're useful for much."

The ease with which the demon moved through the obstacles at that height was, indeed, infuriating, and the taunting did nothing at all to sooth that attitude. The knocking of humanity and being called useless were two things that Kuwabara absolutely hated. He didn't bother to think of a proper response to the crow's words, but yelled angrily a swung at him again. Besides, the witty comeback section of his brain was currently occupied by an idea.

Yes! Idea! He halted his charge for a moment, looking with a stuck, angry expression at the demon, smirking for a second like he had all of this shit figured out. It wasn't exactly true, but hey, who cared? With another small moment of concentration, he manifested another sword in his left hand; he'd have to be more careful about keeping his balance, and he'd have to watch very carefully. "I'll get you now," he promised boisterously, and leapt forward once again, swinging one weapon widely and almost aimlessly at Karasu. He'd skip over it easy enough, but the goal of the other reiken, his need to chart the crow's movements, was to slice down any perch that the demon might choose to land on. He'd just have to force Karasu into an area in which he could actually fight, prove him wrong in the thought that he was the equivalent to a child's plaything.

Karasu was more than a little surprised when the branch he had retreated to gave way. The sudden drop ruined the aim of his next attack, and the explosion was triggered over Kuwabara's head, too far away to do any significant damage. A hasty correction spared the demon an ignominious drop to the forest floor, but only just. He scowled and summoned the winged bombs that he had used to such poor effect in the match with Kurama. His current opponent certainly wasn't a bandit of legendary renown. He was not going to be beaten by a child.

Not bad! Kuwabara barely had time to enjoy his minor victory, though, before the misplaced attack triggered above his head and, startled, he turned his attentions towards in mid-jump on the way to Karasu. The next moment, he was effectively falling into something of a flying mine-field, and the 'shitshitSHIT!' going off in his head was probably an understatement. One of the swords disintegrated as an arm flew up to cover his face, the other cutting out into the air in front of him to strike prematurely; he wasn't artful enough to actually avoid the things, but it'd be great if he could at least protect his head and torso. They're called 'vital organs' for a reason.

The explosions hurt. Badly. He bit down on the inside of his cheek to stop Karasu from knowing that, though, and practically crash-landed on a branch below and behind the darker figure, scraping his hands and knees, ripping more into his already-wrecked jeans. He could still stand, though, and that was what mattered; as long as he was able to, he'd keep going. He winced as he moved to stand again, though, wobbling more in an attempt to reclaim his sense of balance and direction. He was close enough for swinging the reiken around to actually count for something, even if Karasu would just be able to slip away again. He probably couldn't gain surprise with the same trick twice, so he needed the spare time to think of something else and to get used to moving with the new dents in his limbs.

One of the wild swings connected, tore through black leather and cloth to skin. Karasu ignored the damp sensation of spreading blood. He certainly didn't mind the pain. Rather than bother with more bombs at such close range, he reached out and backhanded the boy. It would be better to have the pest on the ground, where the advantages of Karasu's particular talents would make the human a more vulnerable target.

Kazuma nearly cracked a quick grin at the fact that he'd finally managed to hit the other fighter, but moved wrong and was struck over the head. He didn't lose his balance so much as he was tossed from where he stood, and smashed one branch with his weight and force of fall before successfully catching onto one of them. He wasn't quite on the ground again, but he was close enough to curse under his breath at his progress; two steps forward, one step back. He groaned in frustration and at soreness, opting for a different course of action and jumping down from the branch. Around here were the roots of all this trouble, so to speak, and Kuwabara took a deep breath in a vague attempt to focus himself. He needed to find the right tree and not blow up in the process. Easy enough.

After pausing for far longer than advisable, he picked one that seemed right enough and manifested his weapon of choice once again. He had to run a circle around the trunk to cut completely through it, then drew back and punched it fiercely for good measure. He'd rather make a new clearing before having to climb trees again, but the drawing board was running out of space. Fighting in the forest was a bad idea; he was learning a lesson the hard way.

Clever, Karasu allowed as he threw himself out of the path of the falling trunk. He doubted that the boy had the intelligence necessary to come up with something more creative, but he was displaying a rudimentary intelligence at last. Maybe he'd be a little more entertaining to kill than the demon had at first thought.

Still, Karasu now had a problem. Kuwabara was changing the rules. That wasn't supposed to happen. The fight should have been dominated by the most powerful, the most experienced, the most intelligent. With the trees now become the targets, Karasu needed to adapt, and to adapt, he needed to abandon the distance tactics.

Time to handicap the sword and see how well the boy did with hand-to-hand.

Kuwabara had forgotten to think about the noise that would be created by the falling tree. It wasn't subdued by any means, and the onslaught of it let him lose track of where Karasu was and where he'd likely moved to. It was temporary, though, and quiet fell again soon enough. He put his back to another large trunk, listening, guts churning with the idea that something was inevitably going to happen, "Heh. Did I run you off already?!"

"Hardly."

Karasu alighted on the branch directly in front of Kuwabara and lashed out.

"Ah!" Dammit! It wasn't even right that the guy could get that close without being noticed, tricky bastard. Kuwabara's arms flew up automatically, the reiken held up in front of him to act as a loose barrier against getting absolutely pummeled before he could even react. His attempt to defend himself consisted of putting his back against the trunk of the tree behind him and kicking out repeatedly. After that, just keep moving; movement was probably advisable.

It was, but what Kuwabara's tricks with the reiken and the tree hadn't done, his kicks had. One caught Karasu in the leg. The demon's knee gave way, sending him plummeting to the ground. He managed to land in a crouch, the damage the psychic had done already healing. A quick volley of bombs was hurled in Kuwabara's general direction, their power carefully calculated to maim, not to kill.

Everybody and their mom was just fantastic at handling those graceful landings, huh? Kuwabara huffed slightly, knowing that he probably couldn't get down as easily from this height, especially with his legs already torn into. As he went to jump from lower branch to lower branch, though, the bombs were back. His clean shoulder blew, his left arm at the elbow, his left side, a shout of pain and surprise given to each... And then he gave up on the possibility of not breaking his legs in landing and jumped.

His landing was rough, as expected, but he heard nothing crack and felt nothing snap, so he figured it was okay and stumbled up. His left arm didn't want to work right, and his jaw was clenched as he stood up straight again; he thought his scalp might be bleeding, because there was blood in his eye and over his nose. At least they were on the ground, though; all they needed to do now was stay there. He stumbled forward a few steps before charging.

Unfortunately, even on the ground, Karasu still held certain physical advantages. He was gone before Kuwabara was within range, slight form turned aside, clawed hands slashing at the boy's back. The human fool was actually engaging. How remarkable that Karasu hadn't seen if before. Toguro the elder must have been delighted. The games he must have played ... such a pity that Karasu was dead and awaiting judgment when Toguro and Kuwabara had fought. It was yet another reason for Karasu to punish the fox for having the audacity to kill him before he could see the rest of the tournament unfold.

"You might be worth a more impressive display than I expected. Would you like to share the same honor as your friend? To be hung from a tree and left for your friends to find before your life bleeds from your veins?"

Kuwabara hadn't pivoted from his first missed swing when he felt the sting of being scratched at, deep enough to prick and bleed. (Really, though, who the hell scratched people? What was that supposed to be?) He spun on his heel and swung out again, growling angrily at the words, "I'd like to see you find the chance, freak!"

That was when Karasu began to fight in earnest, kicks and clawed strikes and bombs carefully placed to maximize damage to his opponent and minimize damage to himself. He wanted to see more blood. He wanted to see this crass, proud fool in pain, on his knees, and he wanted to see the anger when he displayed what was left for a proper viewing.

Now they were actually fighting! Kuwabara felt more like he could deal with this, and pushed forward against the more rapid-moving onslaught in the first throws of a second wind. He was able to bypass a few more scrapes before he disbanded the reiken, plunging a fist forward in an attempt to grab at the demon's coat-front. Heavier, sturdier clothes could be useful, and he aimed to at least keep Karasu from flipping around with a good grip; he regretted that the ground wasn't concrete, or he could feel like a gang-toting punk all over again.

It was Kuwabara's style--or rather, lack thereof--that put Karasu off balance. He was accustomed to equating helplessness with lack of schooling, but as disparaging as he was of the human's abilities, the boy had potential. Soon, Karasu was bruised, the skin on his knuckles split, and the fight was becoming less fun and more work. The idiot had no concept of when he should simply lie down and die. It was infuriating! Karasu's attacks began to lose focus.

It might've been odd that Kuwabara's observation of the fact that he was wearing Karasu down consisted of the fact that he was obtaining injuries with less frequency. He was worn, too, even more off balance, but his faults in form were less evident due to a complete lack of style in the first place, like an optical illusion, or something stupid like that. Maybe this wasn't so idiotic, after all, and maybe he could finish it sensibly enough.

He targeted Karasu's stoicism, hoping that he was the sort in which that was an important thing to upkeep. "Getting tired?" The innocent-enough question spoken with an air of taunting, topped with a smirk and Kuwabara spitting blood from his busted lip and cut forehead at Karasu's preened visage.

Karasu would have ignored the taunt if not for one glaring problem. The human was right. He was getting tired. It was past time to finish this. Enough of his plans to leave the mangled body at Kurama's door. He didn't feel like hauling the carcass that far. He didn't particularly feel like producing a carcass in the appropriate condition.

It was time, as much as Karasu hated to admit it, to save face.

"What would you know about it?" he snapped, his sneer lost behind the mask that still covered the lower half of his face. The mask that he reached up to remove. The mask that restrained his full power.

In an instant, he unleashed that power, but instead of waiting to see the results, he disappeared into the forest. Let the boy drag himself home if he was still alive.

Kuwabara certainly missed out on the significance of the mask's removable, but caught on when that sinking feeling struck him, the hair on the back of his neck standing up. The flash of light signaled the triggering of the release in explosive power; he covered his head before the force of it slammed into his and tried to curl further once he was thrown from his feet. He only stopped once his body hit another tree, violently forcing his posture open until he slumped to the ground.

It was some slower-than-actual seconds later that he realized he was still breathing, heart still beating, but he was exhausted and figured that he didn't really ever want to move again. He grew out of that, though, and jumped up startled at the fact that Karasu might still be lingering; he hadn't seen him flee in the blinding flash. No visual sign, though... He couldn't feel the demon close-by anymore. Still, he had to move.

The worn psychic made it past the border of the woods, heavy-booted feet dragging through the snow. It was just as well that his jacket was ruined, his t-shirt and jeans wrecked; he was definitely burned, with open cuts, and the cold air felt oddly nice. In fact, Kuwabara thought drearily, he was just going to stay here for now. Without further ado, he stumbled onto the ground to sleep for a while.