For the first time since this year's kanto qualifier tournament started, Kyousuke is actually in the waiting room early, though this shouldn't come as any shock to anyone who dueled against him last year. Not that it's all that important though, all the kendoist is doing is sitting there, waiting for the match to start. Just like in the previous rounds though, his luggage, backpack, and the case for his shinai and bokken are in the room with him.

Not so early, is Fukata, he peeks into the waiting room - then steps in, closing the door behind himself. "Sakamoto-san." he says, giving a nod of his head in greeting, looking at the collection of items. "That's... a lot of stuff." he comments, finding himself a seat across from the other player. "We've played before, haven't we?" Fukata asks, "A while ago?"
Kyousuke has a pretty decent memory about the opponent's he's faced, though it has been a while since he's faced Fukata. "Ah, Ito-han right?" he asks. He probably would have forgotten his current opponent's name if it weren't for the fact that he had finally gotten the chance to look it up beforehand. "Ah yeah, I just came in from a kendo training camp, haven't had a chance to go home yet." And he simply nods at Fukata's last question.

Fukata chuckles, "Got here at the last minute, eh?" Fukata waits in silence for a moment, not sure what else to say to the opponent he hasn't seen since several tournaments ago, before saying, "It has been a while, but rumour has it you're one of the deuses I'm going to have real trouble with." He says, casually, adding then "Should be a fun battle, with you and Kensei."

"Yeah, I ran in late for my match with Misaka-han, almost got disqualified," Kyousuke says, grinning at Fukata. The kendoist still vaguely remembering the kind of battle they had last time. "Ah well, I hope I can give you a better duel than I did last time." He's pretty sure he barely hit Fukata's angel, if at all, this time he's hoping to get at least one hit in, if only because one hit is all he needs to knock out some angels, though it is still amazingly hard to do.

The evening matches have begun, and the stands are even more packed than usual, people coming from work to watch the excitement of tournament qualifying! The announcer is kicked back in his suspended chair, letting the excitement swell and ebb around him, until the appointed time comes. Then, without missing a beat, he leans forward, his voice filling this portion of the arena. "Aaand now.. the next round of the 2007 Kanto qualifiers will begin! In the east corner.. with a pair of tournament wins and a powerful angel.. Sakamoto Kyousuke... and Kensei!" As his voice hits the crescendo lights swivel towards the entryway, and music plays. Even for the qualifiers, they don't skimp on the effects!

"Well, I guess we'd better head out." Fukata says, "I'm expecting good things from you." He says with a grin, both a reassurance and a friendly challenge all in one. "Seems like you've to go first though." Fukata says, standing up but waiting for Kyousuke to enter the arena floor first. "Good luck to you and Kensei." he adds when Kyousuke goes to step out.

Kyousuke is still grinning at Fukata as he walks out towards the arena. "Win or lose, I hope we have a good duel," the kendoist says. And with that, he's through the tunnel and onto the arena floor. He just smiles out at the crowd and gives a few nods before taking his seat and plucking Kensei out of his pocket. Now to wait for the announcer to call Fukata in.

The crowd dissolved into it's usual applause and cheering as the dark haired youth enters with his angel. Lights swivel to follow him until he reaches the layer, and just as the applause begins to ebb, the announcer comes right back in. "Aaaand in the west corner.. with 8 tournament wins.. coming to us from Toudai.. Ito Fukata.. and Yuki~!" And just like that, the lights swivel, applause swells again, and the announcer leans back with a satisfied grin, pushing his wraparound shades slightly up his nose.

Stepping out into the arena, Fukata grins, but mutters to himself, "Not so impressive if you consider I've been in 7 tournaments now, but hey - it'll be different by the end of tomorrow." Fukata waves to the crowd as he walks across the floor of the arena, looking up at them before he finds his seat, and reaching for the heaset - climbs in.

Layer 2
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Perfect blue sky with patches of puffy white clouds, beautiful coppery colors of rye that fills this layer in all directions, a uniform sea of rye ears that go up to the angel's waists - simplistic and tasteful. The rye doesn't seem to impede movement much, but it can provide perfect cover if you're willing to duck and be sneaky about it.
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As both contender's take their seats, the lights swivel towards the layer, and the seats lift upwards slightly, the layer flickering to life as both players settle their headsets. Spotlights dim, the audience collectively holds their breath... and. "Today's battlefield is... the field of rye!" And sure enough a vast sea of rye resolves within the layer, and the audience gasps right on cue. "So beatiful.. so simple, which angel will capitolize on this pristine scenery? We'll see soon!" Excitement simmers, the crowd building to a cresendo as the announcer poses dramatically, "Aaand now.. ENTRY ANGEL!"
[Kyousuke:] Kyousuke settles the visor on his head and extends the wings on it, then turns to look at the layer that he and Fukata will be fighting on. Well, the Rye field isn't bad at least. The kendoist winds his arm back and tosses Kensei into the field, shouting, "Kensei! Nitou Ryu! Mairu!" Too bad he's probably not allowed to have Kensei say the fallin phrase, it would sound more dramatic coming from the angel itself. Said angel flies through the air on a direct course for the layer and once he goes through the boundary and gains his mobility, does a simple flip before landing lightly on his feet.

Fukata rides the egg-shaped-chair up to the layer, glancing out at the crowds, but not really giving them much thought, he then looks over at his opponent, appraisingly, wondering how the fight will play out - if he and Yuki should play conservatively, or aggressively. Fukata shrugs, Yuki will react to how the other angel plays when the match has begun. He reaches for his angel, holding her to his chest and calls out his fall-in phrase, which he's been using in almost the exact same form since his first battle with Mikage all those years ago. "Even in the impossible, let us not accept defeat. Ikke! Yuki!"
The small angel is thrown towards the layer, and she awakens as she enters the light field above it. With a twist, she begins to spin downwards, and rights her angle of fall as she nears the ground to come to a gentle landing among the fields. Yuki looks towards her opponent and gives the samurai a bow in proper martial arts style, before settling into a ready posture..

Hmmm, well, it seems like it has been a while since Kyousuke had dueled, he's completely forgotten his manners in his last two duels, and his usual routine for Kensei. The samurai bends at the waist, bowing to his opponent first, then turning and bowing to his deus, or his pseudo-daimyo, whichever you'd prefer to consider Kyousuke as. Then he waits for the announcement for the fight to start.

More ooohs and aaahs from the crowd as the angel's make their entrances, this is the best part of the whole battle opening after all. The announcer just leans back and savors it until both angels have completed to their initial positions, and then he picks up without a beat. "Who will win! Who will master the scenery, and master themselves! We'll know in a matter of minutes! Deuses... ANGELIC... FIGHT!!!" Insert dramatic posing for maximum effect here.

With the battle begun, Yuki wastes no time in going offensive - she rushes through the rye, parting it before her and leaving a trail of swaying rye recoiling to her charge and leaping out of it as she nears to spin and make her opening attack, a simple flying kick - it's clear this attack is a testing blow - she wants to know how fast and how tough her opponent has become before any of her dangerous attacks are let loose.

Kensei reacts well enough, and it seems that he wants to go for a more acrobatic approach this round, as he takes to the air, doing a light flip backwards and landing with both feet together, well out of range of Yuki's attack. Almost immediately after landing, he draws his katana and drops into a low stance. His left foot slides forward, crushing some rye under it as he grips the katana by the very end of the hilt and holds it parallel to the ground. Then, he charges forward, aiming for a simple thrust at Yuki.

With her opponents relatively high speed shown, Yuki thinks she knows how to go about this match. Then Kensei attacks, and she backflips away, coming to a halt out of the impressive reach of the sword. "You're not *too* fast then, but I wonder how tough you are?" she asks, taking a step back towards the other angel, almost menacingly. But she stops there, just inside the reach of the other angel's sword, and doesn't attack.

Kensei remains as silent as ever, swiping his sword once and holding it near his side. Perhaps he's giving up? It doesn't look like a very aggressive stance. Of course, those that know Kyousuke are aware that he doesn't give up, that isn't the way of the samurai. Instead, he's challenging Yuki's comment about his speed, even if he's fully aware that he can't beat hers, as he suddenly blurs out of sight. It's not hard to follow his movement though, not with the trail he's carving through the rye, zigzagging right for Yuki before he reappears with another attempt to run her through with his katana, though this time at point blank range, and throwing all his power into it.

Yuki follows the attack, ready to evade it at the last moment, and recognising it as the same attack from before, she smiles and prepares to teach him not to be so slow. However, she is taken slightly by surprise when the attack begins not at medium range for his sword, but he holds the attack a second longer to attack from within her safe range, it's then she give a slight eep, and flows backward quickly with long steps, the blow coming close - not close enough, but closer than she had intended. Yuki stops, standing her ground for a moment now she wasn't in danger of getting skewered and says "So are you one of the silent types, then?", and not waiting for an answer then she dashes forwards, doing a very similar, but slightly different attack. She doesn't dodge or weave through the rye, and she's not going quite fast enough to blur out of sight, but she rushes up very close to Kensei, before leaping upwards, with a palm thrust aimed at the underside of the chin.

Yes, it seems Kensei is one of those silent ones, as he doesn't answer that either. He just watches her move, or rather, watches her carve her simple path through the rye, and as soon as she gets close, he takes a step. A single step, but it keeps the attack from landing. Not only that, but he blurs out of sight again, though he doesn't do much this time than take a little distance, and return, charging at Yuki, leaving a trail of white light somewhere along the way. As soon as he gets close enough, he's slashing once again, this time harder than before, hard enough to disrupt the very air around them and send a shockwave that ripples through the field.

With a dive backwards, Yuki follows the edge of the shockwave that erupts, more than a little surprised by the speed of the attacks, one closely following on the heels of the first. she crashes into the rye a distance away and it seems for a moment as if she's gone still there, as the rye doesn't give a twitch. But suddenly a streak of the plant tilts and falls to the earth - she's not down, and she's moving fast, this happens almost at the same time as Yuki's attack, she's dashed behind where the samurai was standing and let's off a barrage of punches to his less defended side, perhaps the surprise will shake him from his offensive focus.

Hmmm, this'll get annoying. Kensei was never good at taking hits, and there are a lot of them to block. The samurai drops his left hand down to his waist and quickly grabs the kodachi from it and begins to parry blow after blow. Several hits still get in, but in the end, the attack wasn't quite as effective as it could have been. It still serves its purpose though, as Kensei has no time to counterattack.

As the few attacks land and Kensei is forced onto the defensive, Yuki smiles. After exhausting her barrage, she considers letting up to take a moment and get a better run up - but thinks better of it. From here, she can try to keep the other angel defending from her hammering attacks, and that will stop him from getting to use further fast attacks himself. She does the same thing he does for a moment, focusing all of her speed onto her attack, and at the speed she's known for, her foot shoots out, trying to get behind the samurai and trip him - should he fail to evade, her followup plan is to crescent her foot around into the air and axe-kick his prone body.

Kensei won't let Yuki hit him that easily, and he dances away from the tripping kick, then jumps back to a safe distance. He needs a little breather room for now. The samurai won't resort to hiding though, nor will he try an attack from behind, not that he minded Yuki doing it. Every angel has their own strategies after all.

Frowning at the missed attack, Yuki watches Kensei, and decides to attack, but with a guarded offence, she speaks as she moves closer "You're pretty fast when you want to be, eh?" she says, "And have an acceptable defence in a pinch, too. You don't strike me as a balance type, and yet you keep doing balance-type things. You're kinda weird, you know?" then she rushes the last distance, and spins on the spot to swing a side-kick around at the chest.

Kensei's main type shouldn't be too hard to analyze, or perhaps it wouldn't be if Yuki had actually taken any of the hits he had thrown at her earlier. Analysis doesn't really matter to the sword saint though, and he hops back to avoid the side kick, crushing some more rye underfoot as he hops away, once again to a safe distance. This time is a little different though, as he's started glowing once again. With each hop he takes, the glow does seem to disappear from his body though, as they have been channeled into his twin blades. The following slash sends a cross of energy flying at Yuki.

Yuki knows she can't dodge the cross of energy coming at her so quickly, so she just braces for impact and hopes it doesn't hit too hard. Her yukata flies away, and reveals the close fitting shorts and t-shirt beneath as she tumbles away in the rye, crushing the plants in her path. She gets back to her feet, clearly a little injured - but not seriously yet. Then she simply stands her ground, watching the samurai angel and stepping away slowly - not running away - just getting some breathing space for her defence, and she can cross that distance in a heartbeat if she needs to anyway.

Kensei watches Yuki tumble through the rye, but doesn't chase after her. Desite his silent exterior, he seems to be nice enough, giving her a chance to recover, even if he knows that she can cover the distance between them faster than he could. He could also be plotting something, but the samurai is one that prefers to act on instinct, and not on thoughts.

It's pretty obvious Yuki is planning something, there's that look in her eyes she gets when she has a plan. It's not a cunning plan, in fact it's downright simple - but it will probably work. Yuki leaps into the air, and as she is just above the line of the rye - she vanishes. There is a slight hint of her attack as the rye billows outwards beneath her - did something move upwards at high speed? A flash in the air shows Yuki at the peak of her leap, and she calls out "Yuki! Missile!" as she flies towards the ground, gravity and speed adding to the destructive power of her attack.

The attack is strong, definitely strong enough to knock Kensei out if it hit. Fortunately, the height of the attack gives Kensei ample time to prepare, and even with the high speeds Yuki is moving at, the sword saint's sharp eyes track her movements as she moves closer and closer. Finally, he shifts, just a little, doing so right before she would have hit him, and lets her fly by. At the same time, he whips his katana around, striking the tip of the blade against his sheathe, more for effect than actual purpose, to light the tip of his blade up with bright red flames, and slashes at Yuki while she's moving past him.

Slamming into the ground, it seems like Yuki should be hurt and possibly even dazed by the nearly suicidal attack's miss, and the cloud of destroyed rye and dust that billow out of her landing spot would imply that too - but no, Yuki reacted to the miss and quickly reoriented to land on her feet and ready to pounce forwards, or away. She steps backwards, seeming to step through an invisible space and appear a bit further away that one step should cover. But the fire catches the nearby rye, and that's going to make the fight interesting - the rye catches quickly, and the fire begins to spread.
Yuki knows how to take advantage of an opportunity like that! She waits for a moment while the fire begins to spread, and then she dashes quickly around Kensei to place her opposite the fire, and him in the middle - the fire hasn't spread very far, so it's only inconvenient - but when Yuki lunges at him her movement and attack giving off a thundercrack as she seems to teleport in front of him, it's one more thing to worry about.

Kensei can't keep up the keen vision for that long, and so it's impossible for him to deal with this next strike. He just crosses his arms over his chest and takes it. He feels the impact of the strike against his useless guard, and the next thing the sword saint knows, he's flying backwards, tumbling across the layer. His twin blades fall from his hands, burying themselves in the ground somewhere before the samurai finally skids to a halt. For a moment, his life bar, which had previously been mostly full, flashes dangerously... and then it refills itself, just a little. He shouldn't have been able to get up from something like this, but he does, rising from the ground slowly. Then, as soon as he gets to his feet, an intense killing intent fills the layer, the air seemingly growing heavier as a red aura covers Kensei.Then, slowly but surely, the aura solidifies around him. Coils form, complete with red scales, and it soon becomes apparent that a blood red Chinese dragon has wrapped itself around the unarmed swordsman who, despite the killing intent and anger, continues gazing stoically at Yuki.

Seeing her opponent get up doesn't wholely surprise Yuki, after all Chimera can do that about a dozen times, right? But the ominous feeling, followed by the rising heat on the layer already set alight makes Yuki wary - she takes a defensive posture, and readies herself to move faster than the eye can see, since it looks like whatever's coming up might be not unlike the storm that she has had to weather before - not something to take lightly.

That's all Kensei can do though. He wobbles, and the dragon around him fades momentarily before returning as strong and as deadly looking as ever. Then he takes a step forward... and promptly falls on his face, unconscious. The blinking life bar finally gives out on the samurai, and he is unable to complete his last attack. The expression on Kyousuke's face seems to reveal that he didn't expect it to work though, as he wasn't surprised in the least when Kensei fell over.

"Yuki - Wins!" calls out the announcer over the microphone, bellowing loud enough to cover the cheering crowds, "It looked for a moment as if Kensei was about to release his most terrible and destructive attack - but he didn't have the strength remaining. A lucky dodge for Yuki!" The announcer then proceeds to go over the highlights of the match to the fans in the stands, assisted by flashing images in one of the monitors while the other shows the layer as is, set alight and increasingly blackened.

Kyousuke isn't disappointed by his loss at all, he thinks Kensei put up a pretty good fight this time, he just couldn't deal with Yuki at the very end. "Good match Ito-han," he says, stepping off his seat to retrieve Kensei and the his small swords from the layer. The kendoist checks the angel over for damage. "I hope I gave you the challenge you wanted."

Yuki turns away from the fire, her victory now official, and runs towards the edge of the layer - leaping off towards her deus. Fukata catches his angel, and examining her for damage, as well as reaching into the layer to retrieve her yukata, Fukata the pops her in his shirt pocket again.
After the seats descend and he can talk to Kyousuke withuot the microphones picking up every word, he grins to the other deus and says "Yeah, it was a good fun battle - and you had me worried for a bit when you dodged her first super-speed attack so easily, it's her second strongest attack. I do kinda wish I got to see the end result of that last thing you did - perhaps we can play again, not so far in the future." Fukata asks, leading the way towards the waiting room, and continuing, "And one more thing - you evaded one of my early attacks with a neat trick. I'm not exactly sure what it was, though..."