The Start of it All

[Carthrat]

OOC: Of course he is!

Maybe I really AM being delirious o-O

[Shuten]

Sakura continued to fall deeper and deeper into shock.

Fall Sakura Fall!
Fall with all your MIGHT!
Let *shock* come and sweep!
Sweep you in his arms TONIGHT!

OOC: ^^ \/


Shuten

[acetalon]

OOC: Err...interesting chant there, Shu.

IC:  Ace took his eyes off Shi for a moment as he recognized the faint aura of someone else nearby.  

"Sakura..."  He thought, clenching the chain even tighter.  

"Shi, you bastard.  That's a dirty trick,"  He growled.  How dare Shi use someone who's dead to his advantage?!  

Ace knew this was just a cheap tactic of Shi's to win the match.  He knew that the worst possible thing he could do it walk over to her and pick her up.  But he'd do it anyways, in remembrance of the dead.  He walked over to her and stared.

She really did look like she did back then.  And Ace felt the old emotions, the feelings he had hidden away, resurface.  

"Damn Shi," he whispered.  He'd copied her so well it hurt.

As he watched her, he moved his arms listlessly in a pattern, as if reliving a memory.  He moved his hands over her eyelids, and bid her to sleep.  He even used his energy to set her ankle on the mend.

But Sakura was dead...Ace knew that.  This was nothing but a fake and Shi would pay for this.

[Naphtali]

[ooc - yeah... umm.. try not to walk off your stone pillar and lose, yeah smartguy?  i didn't even understand your last attack very well... we're on seperate columns, how'd you attack me?]

Shi was surrounded by a whirlwind that grabbed the energy of Ace's attack and simply dispersed it.  As the winds faded, Shi stared across the gap between them and notice Ace tending to Sakura.  'Now, how'd she get up there?' he thought to himself.

"Time to lose, bro!  Mega Windblast!"   Shi was outlined suddenly is a bright flare of light; a wave of fire, wind and light blasting forward at Ace.  The blast was like the the Sun Ray spell, only much worse.  Beam-like, the huge radioactive storm engulfed the entire top of Ace's column of stone, obscuring him and Sakura from view.

[acetalon]

OOC: Bleh, you coulda said that.  I thought it was one giant one with a bunch of smaller ones.  Never played Saga frontier.

IC:  When the dust settled and vision returned, Ace's body was hurt beyond recognition.  His bloody palms slowly released their grip from the kodachi stuck in the ground as the wind settled.  He tore off his Void armor painfully, watching it disapear in the wind.  The stuff wouldn't do him anymore good.

Sakura wasn't even touched.  Ace couldn't even find a reason why he wasted even more energy protecting HER instead of himself.  She wasn't even real.  

Ace wiped blood from his lip as he stood up.  The pain...was excrutiating, yet he hardly took notice of it.

"Nice shot, but I'm not finished yet."

He held his arms out extended forward.  Gritting his teeth, he concentrated.  The insane glint in his eye shined its brightest.

"If this fails, I lose.  No more, no less."

A small, white flame sprouted from his hands.  From that small flame grew black and white spheres that sped to their designated position, which was around Shi's pillar to encircle it.  

"Supernova flare!"

The sphere's instantly shot beams of light to each other sphere, creating a criss-cross pattern before erupting into a multitude of explosions.

[Naphtali]

Again the dust cleared and the things returned to normal.  Again an aspect was revealed as injured.  Shi stood there, best over and breathing hard.  His shirt was gone, his body burned.  Blood ran from his mouth.

"Not enough... it's not enough!"  He pulled himself straight.  Part of his hair was actually gone, burned away by Ace's attack.  He floated up a few inches off the ground and held up his arm.  The air around his palm began to distort and twist.

"C'mon!  You still wanna give up?!"

[acetalon]

Ace closed his eyes, drawing every painful breath as if it was his last.  

"I'm dreaming.  The pain is so real, but this can't be reality.  She's dead.  She can't be alive.  I'll give up...once I shove this blade up your ass."

"Besides, you wouldn't stop even if I did give up..."

Ace reached behind his back and drew his last physical weapon in front.  A candy cane.

"...what the hell?"  He thought to himself.  Wasn't that a kodachi before?  And why was Shi's head a kiwi?  "Dammit, Shi must be fucking with my mind!"

"Eat this, fruit fucker!"  Ace wasn't turning back until he had bashed Shi's candy ass into next year.

[Naphtali]

Shi could hear Ace mumble soemthing about dreams, pain, and dead people, but ignored it.  It didn't make sense.  "Fruit fucker?!  .. the hell?"

"Screw this... Dark Sphere!"  The distortion in Shi's palm suddenly flew forward.  The sphere reached the center of Ace's pillar, then exploded with gravitational force.  Sand and rocks were blown off the massive stone as the dark sphere unleashed it's energy, trying to simply force Ace to fall.

"A flower blooms the most before it falls... brother, you're in full bloom!"

[acetalon]

"Goddammit Shi!  Stop changing my stuff into food!"  Ace cried out, snapping up his long licorice whip and snapped forward to wrap around Shi.  He picked up Sakura, who had changed into a nude marble statue, as well.

"Come on! If I'm going down, you are too!"

[Naphtali]

Shi blinked as Ace wrapped him in his chain.  "Food?  What?" Shi thought.  

"Damnit, let go!"  Shi traced a glowing symbol with his finger, which thankfully was still free.  "Freedom Rune!"  The chain holding Shi snapped with a crack before he was dragged off his column.  "Ha!  You're falling!  Without flight, you can't save yourself!  Allow me to make this a double win with a Fall and a Kill!  Overdrive!"

Suddenly, from Shi's point of view, time stopped.  Ace froze in midair... and between the two pillars was a clock face, superimposed in the air.  "Now... Awakening!  Soul Rune!  Increase my power!"  Shi glowed with light as the Awakening mind spell doubled his power.  The green light faded, to be replaced with blue as the Soul Rune he traced in the air did the same.

"Saber, Tower cards!"  He threw two cards in the air.  Three swords formed around Ace, then all of them flew forward to impale him.  At the same time, the ghostly image of a tower appeared over Ace, as lightning and power crackled around him.

"Shadow Servant!"  Shi's shadow suddenly took on form, and stood behind his owner.  "Vermillion Sand!"  A red whirlwind swept up around Ace, like the winds had lifted a tonrado of blood.  A second later, Shi's shadow actually repeated the same spell.

"Flashfire!"  A explosion of fire and wind as Shi cast a light spell at Ace.  Again, the shadow mimiced him.  "Vapor Blast!"  The Aspect of Death took control of the air, forming it into a spear which he sent at his brother, Order.  And once more, his faithful shadow copied him.

Suddenly, the Overdrive spell wore off, and time seemed to leap into action again... and so all eight spells seemed to leap into effect as well.


[ooc- get back on AIM when you read this, eh Ace?  Wasn't done talking...]

[acetalon]

OOC:  Eh,

Ace did nothing but form another shield around Sakura and drop her.  Through the attacks.  

The body was incinerated, ripped apart, shocked, and everything else imaginable.

But a shadow from behind the pillar leaped out to catch the falling dream, Sakura.

"Who said I couldn't fly?"  Ace asked as he watched the clone get utterly destroyed.  During Shi's Winblast that was really damn risky to replace his real self with the clone.  It might've well been his real self as he gave it almost every ounce of power he had.  He had already lost at that moment, when he did that, because he left the column.

He caught Sakura and set her on the ground once he was close enough.

He sighed and collapsed to the ground.  

"Well Shi, you won.  Killed me too.  I hope your happy with your damn double win,"  He gasped, holding his ribcage.  "Now...just let me sleep...let me wake from his dreamm..."

[Naphtali]

Shi screamed.

"YOU CHEAT!"  He exploded with rage, a violent aura springing forth as red and black lightning crackled over his body in minute arcs.  The pillar beneath his cracked, then spilt apart into fragments as it blew up.  "You stole a true victory from me!  Fool!  This is no dream!  Aaaaaahhh!"

Shi rocketed forward, slamming into the remaining column, which blew apart in his fury.  He crashed to the ground next to his brother and glared at him.  "You lost the moment you left the pillar, but you tricked me!  For that, I'll make you suffer if it takes a thousand years, Order!  Know this... this dream girl of yours... will DIE!"

[Shuten]

"Wha...?" Sakura asked groggily having been woken suddenly by Shi's scream... Rubbing her eyes as her sleep addled mind tried desperately to figure out what was going on.

OOC: ...


Shuten

[RyderHakubi]

"NO! I WON'T LET YOU HURT HER!!!"

Ryder then stood in front of Sakura again and pointed his mini-railgun right at Shi...

I can't win this... but I'll die knowing that I tried...

[acetalon]

"Such...pettiness... is unbecoming of you Shi,"  He coughed.  Shi's words lingered in him.  Not a dream... It was all real then.  Then that meant...!

He shook her shoulder in hopes to snap her out of her daze.

"Sakura... please fine Kwok.  That idiot might make things worse, but he has his times."

The world was getting fuzzy.  Ace couldn't concentrate.  He struggled to keep alert.  Rubbing his eyes, Ace wondered how long  Ryder could hold Shi off.