It's already the fifth round...There have been so many great matches already, and so many that seemed incredibly one-sided, but Akaki Miina doesn't show any sign of tiring or getting any less excited. To her, this entire qualifier is like a grand vacation where she can just play to her heart's content. Winning, losing...neither are really important as long as the match was fun. At least, that's the way SHE sees it. And so, as she comes back out into the arena for the last time in this year's games, she grins just as much as the first time, waving at the crowd as she climbs up into her chair and gets settled, taking a moment then to pull on the winged visor. Her tiny little bunnygirl sits waiting in her lap, seeming somehow just as alert as her deus.

Matches had come and gone and still Kanji felt the same, no longer trying to reason out the mysteries of the layer to instead work on becoming a powerful dues in his own right, the introvert couldn't help but feel as though he was going about it all wrong. He had never been a particularly emotional person, rarely showing his heart to others for fear of ridicule, logic and thought had always been his grounds of existance and he was only happy when he had a problem in front of him that he could only solve with the depth of his thoughts. He didn't much care about winning a battle so much as he did growing for his mentor and friend Daichi, but for the life of him Kanji couldn't figure out how to measure his growth as a person. Faintly he wished he could go back to the simple days when him and Daichi were children, playing for the sake of play alone. As he walked out onto the arena floor, Kanji once again ignored the drowning noise of the crowd, lost in thought as per usual. It wasn't that he didn't care about the crowd, it was just that he didn't really feel as bold as to note their existance, even if it made him less of a fan favorite in the crowds eyes. Without looking at the crowd for fear of losing his concentration, Kanji slipped into his designated chair and produced the bandaged angel Martyr from his pouch at his side. Slipping the layer visor over his eyes the silent boy stared at his angel for a moment before looking across the layer where Miina sat, he had faced her once, it had been a trying battle for Martyr.

"Akaki-san, good luck." He said quietly.

"AAAAAAAAALL RIGHT EVERYBODYYYYYYY! This is the moment you've been waiting for! Prepare to OOOOOOH. Prepare to AHHHHHHHH. Prepare to have your socks knocked off! We have two veteran deus's on board tonight, so this promises to be a GREAT fight! Without further ado, I'll introduce your deus's. In the West Corner, you know 'em, you love 'em. Give it up with a hippity-hop for Akakai Miina and her Angel, Chibi Usagi-tan!" The announcer is completely drowned out by a wall of sound as the audience goes completely nuts. "-and there's just no way to determine if that's true! In the East Corner, we've got power's opossite. No stranger to Angelic Layer, with five wins under his belt, and survivor of last years Round Robin tournament, give a shout out for Fujiwara Kanji, and his Angel, Martyr." For five whole seconds... you could hear a pin drop in the stadium, and then a rush of sound nearly blows out the glass in the stadium as the crowd screams its' head off.
"WOW! Listen to /that/ crowd! Come on out you two!"

"While we wait for our deus's, let's see where there angels will be fighting!" The scenery on the layer switches quickly from a blistering desert, a skyscraper rooftop, the bottom of the ocean, a clock tower, and then comes to rest on the barren red landscape of mars. "OOOOH We have a SPASU BATTARU!! THIS. WILL. BE. GOOOD!"

Miina giggles, waving happily at the crowd as they cheer for the two of them. She raises her angel up high above her head then, grinning up at the tiny bunny. "Alright, Chibi Usagi-tan!" she calls out, turning her eyes to the layer then as the scenery finishes forming. The barren red planet...this could get interesting. "Let's show 'em how we play!" she finishes, launching the tiny angel through the layer barrier and down toward the surface. With how little gravity there seems to be, it takes the carrot-wielding menace a bit longer to descend...and she spends the time spinning about cutely, her ears splayed out like helicopter blades.

Drawing out a heavy sigh, Kanji looked over the layer, mars, from the way Usagi-tan reacted to the enviroment upon entry, he noted that he was going to have a challenge in keeping his speed up. The lower gravity of course meant that he could launch himself a further distnance, but Martyr's legs wouldn't supply as much speed without the resistance of gravity to check against. Holding up the bandaged angel, Kanji gave a small sigh and glanced out to the crowd once, he had wondered if Daichi was watching again trying to make Kanji act like a regular person. "Show them the power of Sacrifice!" Kanji tossed the angel toward the layer. "Martyr!" The bandaged angel crossed the layer and he fell slowly to the surface, the red sand staying compacted against the ground as he fell into a crouch, slowly standing and crossing his arms over his bandaged chest like a mummy.

Usagi-tan, once her opponent is on the layer, offers him a quick little wave from a furred left hand, her eyes as bright and cheerful as those of her deus. As soon as the timer begins to count down, however, she dashes across the dusty red surface, almost seeming not to need to touch it at all after the first powerful kick off. She speeds toward Martyr, sending a one-armed strike from her carrot in his sort of general direction as she passes. Perhaps she picked up a bit too much speed...ah well. It's still early.

Making use of the layers peculiar gravity, Martyr started off the battle like he did any other battle, watching. He watched as his opponent hurtled toward him, and made use of his ability to react by kicking off and ascending over the other angel, descending slowly back to the red earth. As he touched down he made no attempts to keep his momentum up, the gravity of the layer wouldn't be so forgiving if he tried. Instead he took his time and bounded forward after the rabbit, trying to ram an elbow into her back.

Knowing that he will be behind her as soon as he lands, Usagi-tan spins around to face him, kicking up the red dust as she skids backwards a little before stopping. As Martyr sends that elbow toward her, she manages to block with her arm, though it still stings a bit. Just as energetic as always, however, the bunny doesn't even hesitate to send another smack his direction. Again, she only holds that massive weapon with one hand, not putting nearly as much power or control into the strike that she should really be able to...perhaps she's merely testing her opponent?

The frenetic combat style that Martyr usually shows on regular layers seems to be replaced by a careful collected sort of style, either the layer itself is causing him to change the way he fights or its the opponent. Either way, Martyr doesn't do anything to over extend himself once again jumping away from her attack, this time seeming to vault over the carrot, landing on the palm of one hand and kicking out at her with one foot. Its hard to tell if he's pulling punches or not, those who had seen Martyr fight before knew him to either go all out or study before attacking. His patterns didn't seem to rely on either form of strategy.

It isn't really any surprise to Usagi when Martyr gets out of the way. Her opponents avoid her attacks so often it's almost more surprising when she /does/ land a hit. When he flips down into that handstand, the bunny drops down as well, letting his kick fly well over her head, even above those ears of hers. Already down so low, she sends a low sweeping strike from that carrot, trying to knock the one arm out from under him. Mostly just because it would be funny if he fell on his face. Such a silly rabbit.

Once again Martyr moves away from the attack, his upper body seeming to be able to not only support his weight but throw it on the lower gravity enviroment. Rather than travelling back into her range of attack however, the bandaged angel sailed back away from her, landing back at a safe and reactable distance. Almost as if he was signaling waiting, Martyr crossed his arms over his chest, looking back at the rabbit with the same somber face that he was known for.

Awww, darn. And the bunny had really been hoping that he would fall down, too! Oh well. She grins over at him as she stands up straight again, not charging across after him just yet. Instead, she launches herself up high above the surface, maneuvering herself overtop him before she begins her descent. As she falls, she pulls into the now easily recognizable frontflip, lashing out with her heel as she comes down at his head. Of course it seems almost as though the attack is performed in slow motion because of the low gravity...but it still looks cool, at least.

His reaction to the attack wasn't very quick, and it didn't really need to be, Martyr could have easily dodged the strike, but instead seemed to just stand and wait for her to come down. At the last moment he put up his arm, supporting her weight and the strike with his forearm, causing some blunt damage, but not enough to send the angel careening or otherwise hurting him more than he could handle. Martyr again jumped back after taking the brunt of the attack, once again landing quite a distance away from Usagi-tan, he wasn't trying to look cool at this point, he didn't even seem interested in fighting, instead he seemed intent on planning.

Hmm, strange. It certainly isn't the first time that someone has chosen not to attack Usagi-tan for whatever reason, but it isn't really all that common, either. She pauses, tilting her head slightly to the side and giving Martyr a rather quizzical look. She doesn't speak...there's no air here, so the sound logically wouldn't carry anyway, right? After a moment, she grins again, then takes off running in the opposite direction, diving behind a little ridge in the red dirt and taking a little bit of cover. It's anyone's guess as to why...he isn't even attacking her!

There was no reason to persuit, Martyr once again went back to his stance, one arm crossed over the other in a mummyesque fashion. Kanji meanwhile watched the layer with a certain interest, the reason he had changed his attacking style was that he had reasoned ahead of time that his usually frenetic attack patterns would be ineffective. However Kanji had not been able to reason out how he should go about attacking in the low gravity layer, the other angel had the upper hand, she was able to generate more force through will power alone, where as Martyr had always been one to use his momentum to generate power. Now without the proper momentum he was unable to create the force necessary to really do enough damage to the bunny, it would take quite a bit of strategy on his end to be able to keep his attacks constant.

After a few moments more, two little white furry ears poke up over the edge of red dirt, followed by two wide little eyes that blink a few times as she watches Martyr stand and do nothing. Usagi-tan raises up a little more, then leaps over the ledge and darts across at her opponent. It's no fun if he won't play! As she closes in on him, she stabs forward with her carrot's tip, aiming it more carefully than she had her previous strikes and centering the point where Martyr's sternum should be.

Drawing back quickly from the piercing carrot, Martyr moved with his arms still up as though he were planning, he didn't move far out of her reach but he didn't do anything to counter her attack beyond moving out of the way. He wasn't playing, he was only biding his time, waiting for the proper moment to strike. Without momentum on his side he was less as effective as he could have been, there had to be a right time and a place to do everything, and as time went by the moment drew nearer. Soon enought, Usagi-tan would have quite a bit to play with.

This time, Usagi-tan doesn't give Martyr a break at all. The very instant that she realizes her strike will miss, she pulls her arm back and stabs once more, keeping up as close to him as she possibly can. He's definitely fast...she'll give him that much. But just how long can he keep it up? Sooner or later, something's got to give.

Moving to the side of her stab, Martyr seems to be moving in on the carrot. In fact while she was stabbing he had kicked off allowing himself to float gently past the stabbing carrot. As he came in on her defenses, the bandaged angel forced himself to land and drew one of the kopesh's that hung at his hip bringing it up with toward her with a powerful stroke.

Oooh, finally a reaction! Usagi-tan twists sharply to the side, somehow managing to only be slightly nicked by the blade. She grins at Martyr, stepping back for just a moment. She takes hold of the stalk of that carrot in both hands then as she steps toward him again, closing that short distance between them. The powerful strike she launches doesn't have any sort of finesse to it at all...it's just like an oversized baseball bat aimed in his general direction with a LOT of force behind it.

With an unchanging face despite his obvious change from waiting to full defensive, Martyr continued forward toward Usagi-tan with violent intent. Once again with his fast reactions, Martyr is able to vault over the carrot as it clumsily swings toward him with a force that could put most other angels to shame. As he lands, he doesn't at all look detured by the attack, continuing to move forward, bounding like a rabbit would due to the gravity on the planet and finally coming upon her once again. His feet touching down on the read earth, he crouches down slightly lowering his blade wielding hand toward the earth and his free hand at his side, palm facing out. In that same fluid motion the angel sprang from his crouched position pushing the flat palm out toward the nape of Miina's neck, a move that he had been known to use on other angels, Martyr's sundering strike.

The little rabbit watches as Martyr leaps up, seeming almost amused at the little bit of height he manages. As soon as his feet hit the ground, she launches herself up, using the sheer strength of her legs to propel her much, much higher than he had gone. It seems almost as though her avoidance of his strike had simply been a side effect of showing off how high she can jump. As she comes down, she doesn't flip over forwards as she normally would, instead rolling to the side and keeping her body straight. She spins rapidly, picking up speed as she comes down and holding her weapon out. It spins so quickly that it's difficult to tell exactly where it is at any given moment, becoming little more than a circular orange blur surrounding her as she falls straight at Martyr.

The rabbit came up and down, spinning like a top as she hit the red earth causing the soil to come up in a plume of dust. Before the layer had been obscured however it looked as though she might have hit Martyr. But something was wrong, the scoreboards didn't show any damage to Martyr, what had happened to the bandage angel was only a mystery to those who had never seen him battle before. Those that had held their reactions, looking over the layer for wherer he might have appeared, and sure enough he wasn't actually on the ground, instead having found himself on one of the rocks that had intended to make a crater in the red planets surface. Pushing off the rock, he seemed to use all his force to try and create enough speed to get to the other angel quickly, once again attacking with his one of his Khopeshes in a wide powerful swing, no finesse just as much power as the light weight angel could muster.

It takes Usagi-tan a moment to be able to see through the dust cloud, but only until she realizes that she can simply jump up over it. Once in the air again, figuratively speaking since there isn't really any air, she spots the glint of light that shines off of Martyr's blade. As he comes sailing toward her, she twists like a cat trying to land on its feet, arcing up and over the oddly shaped sword. Since he's heading down while she's still going up, he'll hit the ground much sooner than she will. Especially since this time she isn't going to try and speed her fall. For the moment, she'll stay up high, sinking slowly.

True to fashion, Martyr had only started really fighting in the last half of the battle, his deus worked best that way, observing his options rather than letting his gut take over. Landing on the ground softly, Martyr once again straightened to a full standing position, turning his stoic gaze back up to the bunny that he was battling, for a moment it looked like he might attack, his grip on his blade tightened. However instead he lowered his gaze again, staring at nothing in particular and once again brought his arms back up across his chest, he would conserve himself.

Still coming down from above, Usagi-tan watches Martyr rather closely, wondering why he hadn't come flying back up at her. She had more or less been a sitting duck...but oh well. Since she's still got the advantage of height, she finally does pull into that well-known frontflip, forcing a little bit of acceleration into her descent so that the strike will actually have some oomf behind it.

Seeming to recognize the attack, Martry once again threw up his arm just in time, in fact it was the same arm he had used to block the same attack. However it didn't seem to play out exactly the same as before, rather than jump back away from the rabbit, Martyr instead used her sudden stop above him to his advantage. Gripping his curved blade tight, he swung up at her while she was still technically in the air, perched on his arm like some sort of lupine avian hybrid. If hit his blade would most likely catch the leg that she had used to attack him, it was possible that it would even cripple her from further attacks of that nature toward him.

Usagi-tan uses the strength of that leg to kick up off of him, flipping backwards into a handstand before continuing back onto her feet. She hadn't been quite fast enough to avoid the blade altogether, but she manages not to have her leg cut off. Once again, it's little more than a nick. The tiny warrior of a bunny doesn't let it slow her down in the least. She steps quickly forward toward Martyr, striking with a whiplike blow from her carrot's tip aimed at the shoulder of the arm holding the blade. Perhaps she can make him drop it.

Making trails in the red earth, Kanji casually moved to the side of the carrot, showingcasing less of his speed and more of his impressive reaction times. Rather than move about on the layer, he was conserving his energy, doing as much force as he could without the momentum to back him up, he was only lucky that he wasn't facing a more sturdy angel design, if that had been the case then he probably wouldn't have done much damage at all. Without bothering to move toward the other angel, Martyr held up his blade once again as though he were going to strike from where he was, however rather than just swinging his blade he let go of it, throwing it in a spin toward the rabbit. There wasn't much momentum to be had by throwing the blade but the force alone was enough to do quite a bit of damage over a short distance.

As the blade comes whirling toward her, Usagi-tan drops immediately to the ground, flattening herself in the red dust to allow the sword to fly harmlessly over her head. He isn't the only one with quick reactions...his just tend to be a bit more smooth. Once it's safe, she jumps back up and charges straight toward Martyr with all the speed she can possibly build up. At the last moment she launches into a flying kick, aimed directly at her opponent's chest in an attempt at knocking the wind out of him. It's a very well aimed kick, and would almost certainly carries a whole lot of power.

It hit! Or wait? It went THROUGH Martyr. As Usagi-tan's strike moved quickly toward Martyr's chest it seemed as though she were destined to stick the attack, there was no way that Martyr could possibly react at a short distance. Yet somehow he wasn't there, only the image of where he was supposed to be, there was a collective gasp from the audiance, how could it possibly be that an angel could build up enough speed to leave images of themselves behind on such an unforgiving layer for speed angels. Somehow Martyr had been able to not only produce the speed but move far enough that he caugh his own blade still spinning on the low gravity layer. Without any further hesitation he kicked off bounding toward the back of the other angel and quickly striking out with his recently caught blade.

Once again, Usagi-tan shows a bit of her own speed in return. It's rather strange for her to still have so much energy so late in the game, but the tiny bunny doesn't really seem to show any sign of slowing down. She spins around to face Martyr, knocking his blade to the side with her own weapon, again moving the giant thing as though it weighed nothing at all. She quickly retaliates, aiming a wicked strike directly at Martyr's throat. It's a risky move, a difficult place to land a blow, but what has she got to lose?

Another false image, how fast was Kanji's angel really moving on this specific layer?! Martyr's body seemed to move through the carrot as though her attack had completely pierced his body before the image dissapeared completely. The audiance was struck not by the fact that Martyr was moving so fast, but that he was able to move fast enough to dodge two consequitive attacks in the same fashion. This time he appeared on Usagi-tan's side, his other blade in his free hand. He seemed to stop a moment, before bringing both blades down toward her shoulder with as much force as he could muster, perhaps to disarm her of the carrot.

Finally, it seems that he's just a bit too fast for the bunny. For the first time in the entire match, Usagi-tan doesn't seem to be able to react nearly fast enough to defend herself against Martyr's blades. She begins to move back a little, but both blades still connect solidly against that shoulder. Her weapon lowers, but she doesn't quite lose her grip on it, keeping it held in that furry hand, now covered in red dust. Rather than striking at him again, however, she takes a few small jumps backwards and glances quickly up at the screens showing their two health bars and the time remaining. Only seconds left, and she knows she can't raise her weapon again before the buzzer would sound, so instead she simply smiles and bows to him, weapon still held low.

Martyr landed on the layer just as the buzzer was about to sound its siren song, it wasn't the best scenario to win under, but it certainly showed his skill for controlling the battle to his advantage. As the buzzer sounded, Minoru's grip on his weapons loosened and he dropped them to the soil with no intent of picking them up again. He too showed the same sportsmanship and bowed to his opponent as well, the screen flashing away from their two respective hit points and to Martyr as the winner of the battle.

"Good game Akaki-san." Kanji said with a quiet gracefulness, pulling his layer visor off his face and looking to the layer with a discerning eye. The reason he had been so conservative during the final part of the battle wasn't because the layer itself was making it tricky for Martyr to maintain high momentum, it was because he was waiting for the right moment to use his high momentum. The secret of the layer was that it allowed people to start off in fast bursts, effectively escaping the grasp of gravity, however as they continued to move gravity soon caught up with them and forced their momentum to a crawl. By waiting till the last part of the battle, Kanji was attempting to make sure that his opponent wouldn't figure out that secret alone, pulling out extremely quick bursts of speed at the final part of the battle in order to win by points alone. Again it wasn't the best scenario to win under, but it was the only one that his mind could grasp due to the way the layer worked against his angels previous style of combat.