Tournament of Might Junkyard Brawl

[Adrastos]

OOC: Just as a heads up, refunding the 200 reiatsu for Cero due to actions preventing the use of his as Adrastos is restrained after being pushed back. Thus, unabling him to really cast his technique.

IC:

The collision between the two didn't go as expected. The Shinigami forged a shield to guard her against the might of the Beast King, reducing it's effectiveness. The nullified force wasn't entirely reduced as the Hollow forced his way through towards the woman. Seemingly enough, the sole purpose of the tactic was meant to stall for time for the Shinigami to muster up another layer of defenses. All meant to secure her body for what was to come for them both. Although the stone was there, the thought continued to race through his mind as to the reason "why" did she remain, despite knowing he was coming. Regardless if the majority of his strength was reduced, it didn't stop the raw power that he himself had in his muscles. Unless.... The image of the Wanderer, of his stillness against the beast's attacks. It was familiar. No. It couldn't have been.... It was the exact same thing. How could he have forgotten.

The bones and muscle tissue beneath his bone exterior rummaged and exploded. Heavy bruises deep within the tissue to the extent of being utterly useless to the beast. More over, the sudden explosion of force that ruined his legs swiftly forced it's way towards the lower section of the creature's abdomen. It was exactly as before; the cutback effect. The girl applied the cutback to Adrastos, and knowing from his previous experiences with the Wanderer, he knew what would be coming next. The Adjuchas didn't have the force as he use to in his legs no longer. That seized up the moment the cutback initiated it's full effect on his body. His legs became utterly useless for the time being. Without hesitation, his body body was pushed back, tangled in the Earth material that was the Shinigami's Shikai. His mouth, legs, arms, torso, waist, and neck were being bounded as his form was being reeled back to the ground.

Adrastos wailed about as his body was being entrapped by the woman's power. Despite it his body being brought down, the beast struggled. The pain remained consistent with his movements as his will and focus began to suppress the pain. All the more better for him to work with the issue at hand. From what he knew, the Earth material was strong enough to withstand his physical power. Tough enough to keep itself from cracking under the immense pressure of his strength. However, it isn't enough to restrain him so long as his objective wasn't to break it, but to move around in it. As his body made contact with the floor, the beast wailed about. His tail flapping against the ground as his arms stirred and pushed himself away. With 1000 physical strength, the beast could manage to keep himself from being stilled in a single position. This took more effort to do so than moving as he normally would. The restraints kept his body regulated, motions a bit under control rather than being wild and free. This was something that the Shinigami couldn't keep under her thumb, regardless of how much effort she placed on him.

Yetsuna's Earth came to catch the beast in order to restrain it. This is when the beast's struggling movements kicked into play. Bringing him onto the ground gave him better leverage to help operate himself more accordingly. He didn't need to be free to move around, but just about enough so the human spirit didn't have a clear and accurate shot at his vital areas. Before he realized it, the Shinigami appeared before him, standing on his head with spikes in hand. He couldn't flex in time to keep the woman's strikes from piercing him. Not with the time he had left or his swinging motions back and forth on the ground. Even where she stood, Yetsuna wouldn't have an accurate aim as the beast's head swung side to side within the grip of her Shikai. It's durability will prevent it from breaking, allowing it to maintain it's flexibility even as the beast rampaged on the ground. But not enough to keep his body completely still. The bindings were nothing more than rubber bands that restrained a bit of his movements, but never keeping him in a single place. Thus, when striking the spikes wouldn't collide with his eyes, but into the bone forged inner snout of the Adjuchas.

Stone and marble dug into the mask, cracking it and digging into the flesh beneath it. As he did before, the beast winced from the spark of pain only to respond by stirring the muscles in the effected area, keeping the wound from growing larger. He couldn't stop the spike from hurting him, but he could still manage the amount of damage it did to him. Before he could take further action, the Shinigami fled, leaving the beast to himself once more. This gave the beast a moment's reprieve; a time to recover his stamina as his torso remain perched over the ground. Still coiled in the Earth, his chest inhaled, then exhaled. Even the mightiest of warriors required time to draw breath, just as Adrastos was doing. He was in pain, but more to it than that, excited. But from it all, he chuckled. The Hollow was laughing as the lipless jaws peeled open, "Shini-gami......weak..." All of that effort to only to do so much damage.

The Wanderer was feeble just as the Shinigami was-

No, scratch that. The woman had no comparison to the man. He earned the right of respect of that of any proud warrior. He stood toe to toe in the heat of the carnage that their battle's had created. Amidst the heat and the blood and to rage, he earned the Beast King's respect. Not many could stay within his vicinity to take him on. Although he lacked the strength that the Hollow had, the man still challenged. This Shinigami lacked everything that he had. What the woman considered to be "dirty" fighting was only revealing to the Adjuchas that the woman was scared. Frightened of what may come. His talons dug into the Earth, pushing his body up away from the ground. His legs became nothing more than dead weight for him. He needed the moments that the Shinigami had created for him. Time consuming yes, but all worth it in the end as his muscles slowly began to shift and scrounge around under his command beneath the skin.

The muscles were severely damaged from the cutback effect. Beyond repair and would take a considerable amount of healing expertise to truly get them back in working order. However, even without it, he could still manage. The full extent of his strength would make it possible. Scrambling the muscles in his abdomen and joints, the beast was slowly reconfiguring himself. Gnashing the bones together, grinding the layers of muscle against one another. Adrastos was studying his own body, forcing the broken muscles to gnash and place themselves back into working order. He kept his eyes on the Shinigami above him, blood trinkling down his tear ducts and nostrils. The bulging red meat inside the butt and tail pushed against those within his upper abdomen, lifting his rear up slowly. Tucking his butt into his gut by flexing the areas, it would seem as if his legs were coming back to life. Both legs undoubtedly still under confinement of the Shikai, but had a moderate amount of resistance compared to his full strength. In the woman's eyes, it would seem as if the beast was turning his two legs into somewhat of a single pegged leg, utilizing his tail as a means of balancing himself in a crouched position. Both arms raising up further from the ground slowly as the Earth continuously struggled to keep him down to lean himself forward slightly for better control over his posture as his knee caps remained connected to the ground.

Adrastos used what he had available with his broken body, resisting as he drew breath slowly, taking it slowly as he rose up in defiance. Against the Persian hordes, and those that the beast had struggled against before, dealing with this little Shinigami was nothing more than a game of tag. And all terms and purposes, it was to his favor that the game was leaning towards. The ground beneath him was slowly being extended as it's durability maintained itself, however, keeping him in such a state would force the Shinigami to extend her concentration in keeping him down in maintaining it's flexibility. It lacked the strength to keep him from moving as it would come down to her strength in keeping him still to that of his own brute physical force. This was going to be a long fight as the Shinigami was draining herself bit by bit, with the beast hardly using up a sufficient amount of his own.

[Yetsuna Yishnir]

As she thought it would the first part of Yesuna's plan went off without a hitch, with no way to manipulate himself the hollow was unable to avoid crashing into the wall she had made, and furthermore was unable to avoid contacting her triggering her cutback. The beast's legs would shatter as she threw him a respectable distance away from from her using her powers, but that was when things got a little wonky.  As the ground churned and began to work its way to ensnare the beast it began thrashing, preventing her earth from being able to get a totally solid hold on the creature outside of its lower legs, but overall the beast's mobility was heavily restricted so not all was lost. Yetsuna would still use a shunpo to close the distance and make herself appear on top of the hollows mask, but with the eyes being an overly difficult target due to movement she was just going to go for broke.

The female's arms descended rapidly as she forced her stone to move her body, but rather then targeting the eyes she went for the hollow's mask. Her stone blades piercing the bone-like material with little difficulty and as they found flesh she forced each arm outward along the center of the hollow's mask attempting to split it, thus killing the hollow, though a gut feeling told her she likely wasn't gonna be that lucky so she already had another move planned. As her arms reached the end of their ark the female would disappear once more retreating a short distance, but rather then take a break like before she continued to press on because she saw an advantage. While a majority of the stone had thus far been unable to latch onto the monster and preventing his movement, the parts around his lower legs had managed to grab him. With the beast's full body weight on his back, and therefore his tail, the beast wouldn't be able to thrash around his lower half as effectively allowing her to overpower him there and lock down the lower half of his legs. 

Rather then letting the beast break free like before so continued holding it in place, but begin clamping down on the monster's legs, not only causing him no small amount of pain, but also attempting to cut off his feet at the shin. She didn't really have any idea what her odds of success where going to be even though the hollows legs had been shattered to pieces, but if her plan worked she was going to give herself one hell of an advantage. If the hollow did have a way to counter it would have to act quickly, because it would not take much time for Yetsuna's stone to shear through the flesh. During all of this sweat began to bead on her brow and absorb into her bangs, she wasn't gonna get that break she wanted, at least not yet, but hopefully it would all be worth it.

[Adrastos]

Things were growing more tiresome as they were already tedious. Despite the lack of intelligence this form had, Adrastos was already setting himself up, just as the woman did. The two were diligent in their own capabilities. Each taking time to devise a means to counter the other to better secure themselves for a better vantage point. It was at this time that the Shinigami woman would have the edge over the Adjuchas. Yet, believing that she had the upper hand would be a mistake. A deadly one if the warrior allowed themselves to be too confident. It did not matter whether or not that he could use his legs, but how to manipulate the foe into doing what was needed. Adrastos was fighting with what he had, while at the same time taking the ongoing battle to learn more about Shinigami. To learn more about his foe, to study them. Adrastos didn't have the aptitude to pick up her motions and abilities quickly. He had to wait. Patience was not one of his strong traits, never has been, but when encountering the foes he has, then learning how to coupe with such anxiousness was something he could afford to inherit.

Taking back his position, his eyes watched carefully. The muscles beneath him were being rearranged, working their way through the pain and utter uselessness that they became. Adrastos was still working on finding a method of forcing his legs to operate once again. This was going to take time, somewhat he didn't have the luxury for. Muscles from his rear and upper abdomen were mashing together with those of the effected areas. Applying the full 1000 strength into the paralyzed sections caused by the cutback effect. Pain was nothing to Adrastos as were broken body parts. The tissue beneath the legs were severely damaged. The extent that no one would be able to move without medical care, or at least some time to heal with time. However, Adrastos was not like those weaklings. With the extent of his full strength, he could bring life back into his damaged areas. Not as fully functional as before. Not in their current state. Adrastos would need time to heal to properly move them. But for now, just momentary spasms, a shock that pushed a single domino into the others. If anything, his working muscles would push the immobile muscles into the positions that they needed to be in. This was the moment that he could utilize.

Yetsuna moved. The Hollow's eyes followed. Blinding speed, he couldn't keep track of the woman. Though he wouldn't need to do so as she made herself more present jerking his head. Her fast paced motion, colliding with his face, alerted the beast to take notice to the woman's immediate position. Her momentary brace was what jerked the creature's head, alerting him to her presence as her arms rose up. Moving his head again, her sense of balance could easily be lost if not careful. Was she going to go for his eyes again? No. This was different. Her actions and body language were not as they were before. What could she be aiming for on his face? He wasn't going to let her do as she pleased. Adrastos' head tossed and turned, stretching out the Earth made restraints on his torso and head. This was definitely going to be a wild ride for the Shinigami, if she thought it would be easy to strike his face as she did before. His senses were on par with that of a wild animal, taking to the woman's posture as a threat.

Her blades came down, and Adrastos flexed the facial muscles within his forehead and cheeks. Their combined effort pressed against each other to close any possible gaps. However, it was too late. The stone blades cracked the mask at the point of puncturing, though that was as far they got as the dual blades entered the skin. To Yetsuna, she would find no amount of effort she would give that would allow her blades to run any deeper into his flesh, or allow the blades cut into any direction she intended. And as she would attempt to pull the blades into her desired arch, the Adjuchas slammed his head against the ground. Little less than a bruise to him, but holding on to those blades would cause her to be tossed and turned, nearly hitting the ground as his bounded arms rose to snatch the woman in his grips. The Shinigami was two dimensional. While he may not be able to predict much of her efforts, she gave much away in order to try to finish him off with simple tactics.

Yetsuna vanished again before his claws could wrap around her. The mask remained intact, with the woman retreating once again. Adrastos could not help but find himself laughing once more. All the woman was able to do was deliver pot shots left and right. Adrastos' stamina was draining with such efforts, but with the change in her tactics, shifting from ranged to close quarters combat, contemplating on what to do, this gave the Hollow time to regain his composure once again. His strength had it's limts, but for all of the Shinigami's thinking and strategizing, it meant next to nothing with the Hollow's raw strength. She continued to target different areas of his body while all he had to do was move, keeping her to shift her focus and place more effort into her own mental control over the Earth. Pressure was building. His legs felt it. He felt it. The only issue about it was the accumulating intensity within the his legs, Earth looking to crush his shins, the pain of motioning his dead legs was stirred. What came with it was his rage.

The woman really thought she could crush his damaged areas? If she did, then she was a bigger fool than he had previously thought. It was too soon before he could really muster control again to his legs, but he did with what he could manage with. Adrastos extended his upper abdomen, using it slam into his lower stomach region to press his lower body into the Earth. The durability of Yetsuna's Earth would serve to act as a solid platform, keeping his body still enough while be applied his full strength into the ground only to act in cohesion with his arms. Together with his motioning abs, his arms would jerk his body forward with his tail flicking into the surface it rested on. The three areas working together would be more than enough to pull his legs out of the Earth, stretching what would be looking to crush his shin sections. If Yetsuna was to keep him still, in the same position, then she would need to place some effort in doing so. And if not, then the beast would be able to stretch out his binds to the point of breaking as his body advanced closer to the woman.

However, this motion itself required mostly upper body strength. Naturally, the motion itself would cause the beast's muscles to harden as they were achieving movement for the body. Both deep tissue and muscle fabric that rest above them contracted and expanded as the beast would look to jettison himself out from the position he currently was in. The Hollow wouldn't travel far, but enough to place strain on the Shinigami in her attempts to hold him back. The jaws opened. Fangs bared as fumes of heat and breath exhaled from deep within the beast's lungs. He was exerting himself. Which was all the more reason his motions were to be coordinated as a single body movement. In unison with the other body parts to place less strain on himself while keeping reserves of stamina for the right moments to strike back. Regardless of this, he was beginning to tire. The Shinigami will have to do better to truly hurt the King of Beasts. To hurt a Spartan. "Axi....osss....Axiossss...." Adrastos uttered. Despite his condition. He was ready for more.

Inhaling the aroma of combat, the beast pushed again. Contracting his abdomen inside to push off his dead legs. Muscles pushing against the damaged muscles, forcing them to work for the beast as another push was made towards the Shinigami. The Earth bounds that would keep to the Hollow would be more than close to breaking away, unless the Shinigami attempted to bind him again. Even so, the strength of her spiritual pressure would not sufficient in keeping him from moving. If she did not do so, or move, then his body would come onto her position; pin the woman into against his own body as his arms reached outwards in a hugging gesture. This form would prevent the cutback effect from triggering as his body would press her against the ground with his sheer weight and size. At the same time, with his arms reaching out in a swiping motion, her body would be carried to be pressed into his body. If successful, she would find herself being crushed alive with a 1000 strength of force. Even if he did miss, it would not mean anything. Just moving the battle along.

[Adrastos]

OOC: Bumping this to see what is going on. If done, then please state so. If not, I do wish to continue if able. Thanks.

[Yetsuna Yishnir]

I was thinking about replying to this the other day since the tourney seems to have just ground to a halt and my life finally settled down a bit. If you wanna keep going I can likely have something up by this weekend.

Edit: Asmo hit me up, mods are gonna rule soon, but I figured we could still end the thread on our own time anyway and then cash it in.

[Yetsuna Yishnir]

OOC: I didn't quite understand how he was moving so I just assumed you made him stand or something because that's really the only way he has any chance of actually trying to catch her with the bear hug thing. Let me know if I'm wrong.

Yetsuna quickly ramped up the pressure on the beasts damaged legs, applying more than enough force to crush a normal person in a moment, but the beasts durability and strength, however diminished it was, managed to keep her from shearing of its legs in a clean motion. In that brief moment the hollow managed to find a to make attempting to continue to hold him an effort no longer worth trying. With another thrash and flex Yetsuna felt the strain on her stone the hollow tried to free itself from her grasp; in theory she could have fought back and maybe even held onto the beast successfully, but it wasn't worth the effort to put into it. Thus far the hollow had managed to counter her at every turn while she had it restrained, so to her it would simply be better to release him and regroup for a new approach. When the beast pulled after a short delay the stone would yield and he would find himself free. 

Now free of her stone the beast would utter something again, though she had no idea what it meant. Typically she would have taken that moment to poke fun at the hollow or make some kind of joke, but, like trying to pin it down, she felt it wouldn't be worth the effort. Hollows at the level of development this guy was were generally fairly on the ball with conversation, but thus far this guy had shown no signs of social intelligence, so cracking a joke or any other type of talk would just be wasted breath. Despite the damage to the its legs the hollow would force itself to its feet to re-engage her, which she saw as a double edged sword; on one hand she had REALLY hoped that the force of her cutback would render the monster prone for the remainder of the fight, and therefore an easier target, the amount of effort and pain it must be enduring to stand couldn't be small. Even if it smashed shattered bones back together and could force his muscles to work, the level of damage done would be far to complete to preclude large effort in lower body movement for the rest of the fight. It could force the bones to bend, but it couldn't heal the deep tissue damage.

The hollow would begin to lumber towards her in an attempt to attack her. While fighting what was basically one giant muscle was proving to be more irritating than fun one benefit was that almost all of the beasts movements were heavily telegraphed because she could see almost everyone muscle on the hollow flex as it moved, making it easy to predict what it was going to do; that and, as said before, its low speed. As the beast closed in Yetsuna would remain stationary, though once she was within its reach she would disappear, this time literally. The beast could look around the field all it wanted, but she would be nowhere to be found and unless it developed x-ray vision it would never find her for Yetsuna had disappeared into the ground. One of Yetsuna's weirder abilities was the ability to move through her earth at her normal rate of speed, so she simply used a shunpo to break line of sight and then concealed herself underground. Even the hollows energy sensory would be useless as the entire arena, and the ground in particular, was flooded with her reiatsu, she could track him using her sensory abilities, as well as using vibrations in the ground, granted the latter only worked due to the beasts extreme weight, size, and strength.

Overall, she didn't expect much from the tactic other than to hopefully throw the beast off balance, as having your opponent seemingly disappear into thin air can generally catch most people off guard. Yetsuna would quickly make her way through the earth, phasing through it like a ghost near where she last saw/felt the hollow to be. She hadn't felt any vibrations and it had only been but a brief moment since she used a shunpo so chances were the hollow had yet to move, but even if it did she could track it. Once in position she struck fast and hard; With no warning a spike would erupt from the ground, impaling one of the hollows feet, and even with the hollows reaction times there was virtually no way for it to defend itself by flexing before the spike had bore a decent size hole through its foot. Even, if by some miracle it managed to flex, it was still going to hurt; a bruise to still hurts even if you flex a muscle, and both of his legs were basically enormous, deep tissue bruises.

She didn't have a lot of money on the hollow being hurt overly bad by the attack regardless of outcome, but it's focus was now likely to be on the ground below it which bought her a brief moment she needed. When Yetsuna attacked she had been close to the surface and just out of the hollows reach. As the spike would begin piercing the hollows foot she would quickly rise out of the ground using her stone cover limbs before executing another shunpo before the spike had finished digging into the hollows flesh. She would end her shunpo just behind the beast's skull and floating in the air, her fist already mid-swing and in the same moment her shunpo ended she execute a shunpo karin, causing her bladed gauntlet to accelerate to 3000 speed as she attempted to split the back of the hollows skull from the back.

-200 for shunpos

6425/8000

[Adrastos]

Adrastos wouldn't have made the same mistake again when flopping himself towards the Shinigami woman. His legs didn't work as they did before after being struck by the Cutback effect. All that he could do was utilize the individual segments of muscle to motion his already crippled legs. Pretty much, limping towards his desired path. Running was completely out of the question, unless using his arms to propel himself forward. But even that wouldn't control his speed or approach. Nevertheless, against the odds, against who his adversary may be, the Adjuchas continued to fight on. For certain he had the Shinigami, yet it would have been foolish to believe one as quick as her would be easily captured. If that were the case, then Yetsuna would have surely planned to have been caught as he flopped towards her. Like the previous encounters they had with each other, the Shinigami easily escaped him. Whether escaping, or constructing some form of object to deny him of his plan. Adrastos had to be ready for anything.

Before he could plop on the site, the Shinigami was gone. Before his eyes the woman vanished out of thin air when coming down on top. What should be something pressed down beneath him was instead nothing. No entity or foreign texture lay scrapping against his chest or abdomen. All that he could tell that was for certain that the woman's reiatsu peaked upon falling on her. It was for a second, but it was certainly there. Like before, she must have used something to help her escape at the last moment of impact. Adrastos' minimal Energy Sensory kicked in. A Perma Release such as Yetsuna would be unable to conceal her reiatsu from any direction. The Hollow didn't need the use of his eyes when it came to tracking an individual who lacked control over their spiritual pressure. As meager as it was, it would suffice to track Yetsuna.

However, that too didn't work. Against someone like her it would have been simple to track her reiatsu. But this time however he couldn't. Either the woman found a means to conceal her reiatsu from him, or she hid herself somewhere that mixed her reiatsu with that of something else that could hide hers. Either way, it was bad. With no means to track her he had to wait for her to come to- POP His foot exploded. Or to be more precise, a small area of it was punctured through by what felt as a large nail stubbing him from the bottom of his foot. Yet, what he thought before didn't matter as Yetsuna's reiatsu came back into the picture. ...behind... his mind proclaimed.

The Shinigami came forth from her hiding spot with her alarming presence of spiritual pressure. Adrastos already knew he couldn't keep up with her speed. Expecting to compete with her speed was just a pipe dream of Adrastos, as is with those that could outran the Adjuchas. Garret, and the Shinigami that hunted him before the woman, usually did so. It was solely on reflex that the beast turned his head towards the striking Shinigami. His muscles acting out to defend themselves. Flexing was his sole defense in a case scenario such as this. However, that too would come to fail to stop the woman's blow from coming into contact from the mask's surface. And there it was. A pain that he hadn't felt before. A pain that rang from the back of his head as the jagged Earth made construct punctured the small area of the back of his head.

Punching through the mask wasn't difficult as there was no muscle to protect the bone made material. As such, Yetsuna's strike would go through unopposed through the small area as her fist managed to break through the bone mask surface. The mask towards the rear was cracked, splintering towards the sides of the Hollow's helm, but not broken yet. Yet, the knuckled edges of the woman's Earth gauntlets did enough damage as they targeted a vulnerable spot. The Shinigami was lucky this time around. As a beast with limited skills, and capabilities, this round came to her side. The end of the blow came to Adrastos being called back to where he was first taken. His weaknesses exposed, and his strengths brought back, and more, strengthened. His rage, fueling again once more for the Shinigami. He will have his revenge on their kind. It won't be long before then.

OOC: Ending the thread here. Thanks

[Himitsu Kasumi'Oji]

+610 TP to Adrastos

+420 TP and an additional 100 victory TP to Yetsuna