It was the first round of matches for the Tokyo City Tournament, which was the preliminaries for the Kanto Games themselves! The stadium is abuzz with noise and clamor from the gathered crowds outside. In the waiting room though, one Misaka Keiichi sits, waiting for the announcement that would bring him and his currently unseen opponent to the layers. Several moments pass, and still there is no Kyousuke to be seen. This could be bad. . .

On the Arena, The Announcer gets things ready for the next match of this tournament, calling out over the microphone in his loud and excited voice! "Go~ood Afternoon ladies and gentlemen! Are you ready for another Angelic Fight-o!?" The crowd, or course, can not help but roar in approval and axiousness for the shindig to begin. "Excellent! Then let us begin by introducing our two competitors! In the EAST Corner, the deus who has made a good showing in these games these past two years, Deus Misaka Keiichi with his angel, Zankoku!" The crowd cheers, or jeers as suits their fancy. "And his opponent, in the West Corner! A contender who has shown us his true power in the past, can he keep that stride this time around though? Deus, Sakamoto Kyousuke with his angel, Kensei!" Again the crowds cheer or jeer as best suits their feelings, leaving only one thing to happen. The entry of the two Deuses.

With the announcements made, Keiichi takes a deep breath and rises to his feet before brushing himself off and taking up Zankoku in hand. "Time to go, Zankoku. Let's give it our all." With that he turns towards the tunnel and makes his way out into the bright lights and loud noises, raising one hand up in a wave of greeting. The pit of his stomach still turned a bit, but he was getting used to this stuff. And after allowing his eyes to adjust a bit he makes his way towards his seat, setting things up and waiting for Kyousuke.

Tomiko finds her seat just as the match begins, a sketchpad under one arm and a box of pocky under the other. Sitting, she peers down at the arena below, adjusting her glasses to get a better look at the two Deuses and their respective Angels. She cheers as they are announced. 'Gambatte, minna-san!" She's... not sure if she knows either of the gentlemen. Oh well!

Aha! But things can get worse. Kyousuke hasn't only been not seen for the last few moments, but in fact, he hasn't really been seen for the last few months. If people have been asking around though, it isn't too hard to figure out that he has been attending a kendo training camp somewhere in northern Japan. In fact, he had to register for the tournament through the internet, having found out that the training camp let out the day before they started. Still, he isn't here yet, and has yet to make his appearance in the stadium. That might be worrying... but there are surely people who remember his late appearance in the last tournament, against one Higashiyama Seishiro.

Keiichi manages to finish setting things up on his end, and then looks around and notices there is still no Kyousuke. This wasn't the kind of win he wanted, there should at least be a fight. He frowned slightly and scratched at the side of his head in thought, "Where is he?"

On the Arena, The Announcer tugs his sunglasses down a bit and peers around the stadium for a moment. "Sakamoto Kyousuke! Please come on out and don't keep these nice people waiting!" The sun-glasses are pushed back up as he stands anxiously in his chair. The crowd kind of goes into a murmur, wondering what's going on.

Tomiko, confused, looks around along with the rest of the crowd for the missing Deus. Where could he be? There won't be much of a match if he doesn't arrive. ...actually, there won't be any match, now that she thinks about it. "...Sakamoto-san?" she ventures. Heye, it's worth a shot.

If anyone was in the hallway of the Arena at this point in time, they would surely hear the sounds of rapidly approaching footsteps, leading from the entrance. One Sakamoto Kyousuke has finally entered the building, and he realizes he's quite late, or at least, that's what one can guess from the rapid chanting under his breath of. "I'm late. I'm late. I'm late!" This is different than the time he was with Seishiro, at least then he was in the building. Hiding yes, and ready to appear as soon as the announcer was considering disqualifying him. This time, it was the fault of his plane. Various delays kept him held up on his way back, and he didn't even have time to go home and drop his stuff off... which is probably why he's dashing around with a large backpack filled with clothing and his shinai and bokken case. That however, is quickly dropped off in the waiting room, before he makes his appearance, dashing into the main stadium, slightly out of breath. "Sorry I'm late!"

Keiichi watches Kyousuke emerge from the waiting room area, and grins to himself a bit. "Ah, good. This is how it should be." He would prefer a fight to a forfeit any day, as he was sure most people who play this game would.

On the arena, The Announcer peers towards the entryway and grins before pointing his finger towards the boy, "And there he is folks! Always the one for dramatic entrances, what sort of fight will he show us today!" It seems he wasn't really going to wait for the boy to get into his chair though, assuming he would manage that in enough time to fall in properly. "Well now that everything is ready, let's get ready to start! Angels, Fa~aaalll In!" A sweeping motion of his hand brings his pointing finger towards the layer below, as if to emphasize the point.

Keiichi sighs a bit and raises his hand above his head, gripping Zankoku tightly. "Never give up, even when staring in the grim face of death, Zankoku!" His wrist snaps as his arm begins to fall, sending the little zombie angel sailing towards the layer in a spinning fashion. He passes through the energy barrier, sending ripples along the wall as he does and being coated in bright energy. His body flexes and then flips and snaps into a standing position high into the air, and what's this? He seemed to be flashing a victory sign as well! "Angel, fall-in!" The zombie-angel then begins falling towards the layer's surface, landing in a thumping crouch before rising back to his feet and folding his arms over his chest.

Kyousuke doesn't waste any time, rushing for the free seat and sliding into it. With Kensei already in hand, Kyousuke quickly goes through preparations, readying his visor and checking everything over. He's been away for a few months though, and so he's a bit rusty. When he's done with preparations, he finally realizes who it is he's about to duel. "Oh, heya Misaka-han! Let's have a good match!" Interesting, it looks like he'll have to remember how to do things quickly, if he wants to give Keiichi a good match.

With that said, Kyousuke rears back his arm and tosses his angel towards the layer. "Kensei, Nittou Ryu! Mairu!" The angel flips carelessly through the air until he encounters the barrier around the layer, where he slowly corrects the way he falls. The landing isn't as neat as Kyousuke would have liked it, but at least the dual wielding angel didn't fall on his face.

Tomiko applauds for the arriving Deus, then gets down to the real business. She opens up her sketchpad and, peering through her glasses, starts sketching the two Deuses and their Angels. Thank God for monitors for that part.
Give to whom?

On the Arena, The Announcer adjusts his sun-glasses and attempts to take on a cool pose while calling out again, "The arena for this fight will be. . ." a long dramatic pause is taken while his hand goes flying up into the air. Below the layer begins flickering through the various possible sceneries before finally setting itself to the empty void of space, littered with little dots that would be stars. There is an obvious lack of gravity here as well, because both angels begin to float up into the air. Moving around was going to be troublesome in this place. "The void of Space! What kind of fight will they show us in this empty vaccum that is the stage? Let's find out! Angelic Fight-o!"

Tomiko oohs appreciatively. How'd they make the Layer do that? A moonlight backround is added to her sketch of the Angels, a vague idea running off with her again.

Kyousuke blinks as the layer scenery finally comes up, and silently groans to himself. He isn't even going to get a chance to remember how to move around it seems, not in a layer like that. It's been a while since he's had to duel on it, and he remembers hating it every time. They won't have a choice though. At least Kensei had fallen in close enough to his zombie opponent that they'd be in range for an attack.

The timer starts ticking down and the start of the match is indicated! Zankoku flexes a bit and peers around with a frown on his face, he hated this particular layer. It was difficult to move around in, and hard to close the distance. An aura of dark energy sprouts up around Zankoku's form and then channels out behind him, scooting him towards Kensei so that he can lash out with a sweeping kick towards the samurai's legs! Of course, there was no ground to fall on but maybe being upside down would be disorienting or something!

In midair, a sweeping kick would be ever so much harder to connect with. Kensei proves this by jerking his legs upwards, away from the zombie's legs. Not that it's the best thing to do. Without gravity holding him down, the motion sends the samurai into a slow spin. A spin that begins speeding up slowly as Kyousuke realizes that he can use a similar ability to Keiichi's and brings around Kensei's white aura. Eventually, his spin reaches the point where the slash he releases becomes quite deadly.

After his sweeping kick misses, Zankoku manages to shift his position just enough to avoid Kensei's without coming to harm. The whipping movement of the blade sends the hood of his cloak fluttering a bit with the force, showing that if he had let it hit it would have been quite painful. The aura around his body remains, as he focuses the dark energies within the palm of his hand. A twisted and sadistic grin creeps over the zombie-angels features as he bursts into Kensei's range again, attempting to smash said energy into his body with a great deal of force!

Tomiko looks up from her sketch when the crowd goes 'ahh' just in time to see the burst of energy. "They can do that? How interesting!" Above the Angel sketch the two duelists watch on, hair flowing majestically in the breeze...

It's difficult to avoid, especially being so out of practice as he is, and so instead of attacking, he decides to give something else a try. As the zombie gets in range. The spin Kensei is in doesn't stop. Instead, he rears his katana back and stabs with the direction of his spin, right up at the zombie. Even if it doesn't hit, it should make his opponent back off from his attack.

Indeed Zankoku does back off, quite a bit so even! He narrowly avoids that rather painful looking attack and grimaces at the amount of force it takes to do so. That wasn't good, this layer, this place was not good for him. He had to do something about it, but what could he do at this point? His eyes flash red briefly as he takes up a defensive posture, quietly and warily watching Kensei.

A spin is quite difficult to work out of, and even Kyousuke, not one that is really known for thinking. However, this layer forces him to do it, it's not like he's ever had any practice with anti gravity fighting, so he certainly can't rely on instincts for it. Of course, while Kyousuke is thinking, the samurai continues spinning in place.

Zankoku notices that Kensei is quite busy attempting to resolve his spin, and decides that perhaps he shouldn't let him. Instead of waiting, another flare of energy flashes out from behind the zombie, sending him sailing towards Kensei in a rather swift fashion. As he closes in, he snaps into a spin sending a roundhouse styled kick towards whatever part of the samurai's body happened to present itself!

An idea surfaces in Kyousuke's mind as soon as Zankoku begins his kick, and the samurai draws his kodachi as he spirals around. The leg is intercepted with the sword in Kensei's offhand, and with a slight burst of chi energy, he's level again, and once again thrusts his katana out at the zombie, though this one is considerably less powerful than the last.

Tomiko says, "Ara! Gambarre, Kensei!" Somewhere along the line she decided she wanted to cheer for the kendoist, apparently. Several more zombies are added to the drawing, and now he's fighting a horde!"

As Zankoku's kick is intercepted, a crash of thunder coarses through the layer and a dark cloud begins forming in space. It's actuall within reach, which is good for Zankoku because what follows is him reaching into it and withdrawing something while spinning around a bit. Something intercepts Kensei's attack, something soft and squish, and this something turns out to be a zombie. The attack still strikes home, but there is a nice buffer to decrease the amount of damage done. Beady and red glowy eyes can be seen within the maelstrom, surely there are more zombies available in there! This wasn't how the move was supposed to go, but improvisation was necessary under the circumstances!

Finally dark lightning streaks out from the inky cloud, streaking into Zankoku's body and increasing the intensity of the aura about the zombie-angel's form. He grins darkly and twists the zombie shield out of the way, lashing out with his leg in a near lighting fast movement, attempting to smash into Kensei and try to send him flying off into the distance!

Kensei doesn't let out a sound as he draws his sword from the new zombie. This is going to be annoying, and Kyousuke still can't work out how to use his best attack again. Still, he has to do something. Especially when he's sent flying back. Zankoku's attack connects easily, and the samurai needs to react before he leaves the layer. So that aura of power returns to his body, slowing down his backwards motion before they gather into his blades. This move again it seems. After he's stopped moving, the two blades come down, launching an x of energy at the zombie.

The crossed blades of energy smash into Zankoku and smash away his life bar easily enough, but he's still got halfway to go! Afterwards he lets out a silent cry as he pulls more energy from the inky cloud behind him, charging up as his eyes glow a brilliant red. The many sets of eyes within the cloud also seem to glow brilliantly, and when Zankoku flashes forward a small horde of zombies come zooming along with him. The small horde then proceed to unleash an unrelenting assault upon Kensei, hoping to smash the daylights out of him before this match goes on for too much longer, because quite frankly the zombie lord didn't know how much longer he could carry on like this.

Tomiko applauds politely for the winner. She'd hoped for Kensei, but it was an interesting match anyway. And now she has an idea for her own Angel, too.

There's only so much Kensei can do, especially with it being so hard to move, and each attack Zankoku releases smashes into him, knocking him back more and more until finally the samurai is just knocked out of the layer. Not that it mattered, this was a definite KO victory, with Kensei's life bar having dropped to zero before he fell out. With his usual smile, Kyousuke gets up from the seat and bows to Keiichi. "Thanks for the duel Misaka-han, it was fun as usual." The kendoist then walks over to his angel and picks it up. He'll need to make some quick repairs, then head off to the practice layers.

As the buzzer sounds and indicates the end of the match, the layer scenery fades away and allows Zankoku to finally fall to the ground. Quite happy to have the gravity back, he lowers into a kneel and remains there silently. Meanwhile the Announcer's voice picks up over the microphone, "And it's over! This match was fast and furious, both angels battling out for supriority in the void of space! It seems that in the end, Zankoku was just barely able to pull off a victory! Zankoku Win!" The crowds all cheer, or boo, or cry, what have you as the results are announced. Keiichi though is quiet, only offering a meek smile and a small wave as his chair comes down so he can pick up his angel. He plucks the zombie-angel from the layer before the chair lowers further to the ground, allowing him to escape. He catches up to Kyousuke, and grins his way. "Good match, Sakamoto-kun. It was rather difficult with the terrain, but I think we both did really well." He's offering a few words for small talk while they make their way back into the waiting room.

Kyousuke seems quite unphases by the loss, and there's little he can do in terms of reviewing his loss. After all, movement is so incredibly hard in that layer, and it's not like Kensei is a guard type. Limited movement destroys him, and Kyousuke is already well aware of that. "Thanks, it's been a while since I've been on the layers." The kendoist just chats back as they walk off the tournament floor.

Keiichi smiles a little and nods, "Yeah, I heard you were off at kendo camp or something like that. I was actually surprised to see your name on the roster. But, I was glad to have had a chance to face you. Even if the layer wasn't very kind to us." He peers down at Zankoku, looking the little angel over a bit as they finally enter into the waiting room area.

"Thankfully they had internet up at the camp, although when I first went up there, I thought it'd be some kinda rustic place that they chose," Kyousuke says, grinning widely. It would figure that the samurai obsessed boy would expect something like that. "'Course, it ended up bein' a really modern place." As they pass into the waiting room, the samurai obsessed boy makes his way over to the backpack and case. He'll be carrying them around a lot today it seems.

"Oh, well that's good." Keiichi smiles again and nods a bit while pausing in his walking, to allow Kyousuke to grab his things. "Well, good luck with the rest of your matches Sakamoto-kun. I think you're going to do pretty good, as long as you don't get shoved into space again." The boy grins a little bit before putting Zankoku away, intending to head up to the stands to watch the next match. He enjoyed watching the angels play with eachother after all, so why not watch while he can?

Kyousuke just smiles brightly at Keiichi again and nods. "Good luck to you too!" Not that he thinks Keiichi needs it. "I'm just hoping to have a better showing than I had last year." Not that hard to do certainly, it's not very difficult to beat one win. But it seems that the two will be parting here. "I'll see ya around sometime Misaka-han!" After all, Kensei needs repairs, and right after that Kyousuke will have to get some practice, and at some point, figure out who his next opponent is.