A petty squabble had spilled over and blown up into a near full-blown brawl between opposing factions, some still distrusting of others, and for reasons well worth their warranted hesitancy. When a member of the Inu Clan and the hot-headed leader of the Shikoku Merchant Company's Swords drew steel, it was Saionji's rapier which stopped their clash in an instant, the wind blowing past her and through her hair as she stared them both down. Reasons not worth her time glossed by her ears, and she looked out to the woods around the encampment. "There would be no reason to steal from one another here... it must have been some outside party." Saionji thought to herself.
Okuri stood firm, his features sharp as Big-Hat and Dove of the once Kochi-based, once more nomadic parties made sure to step up beside the leader, whom they had grown to respect in a way, ignoring his suspicious past. He commanded respect, which was earned rather quickly from the previously outraged masses. "Keep a level head, Inu Clan. We are no petty thieves, we have nothing to prove!" He howled to the skies above, piercing the chatter and quarreling.
Red-Claws stood down, clearly sour. The Inu Clan fighter retracted his blade, then dipped his head in apology. Saionji met with Inoshishi and Hattori, alongside the pink-clad samurai of the Swords, Cherry-Fang. They looked about, then in that moment, somebody shouted from the edge of the mass of people. Something had been plucked from their very pockets? A doctor of the Inu Clan grunted in confusion as the sack at his side had come undone, vanishing into the treeline beside him.
Snapping to attention, the Wind warrior Saionji managed to focus her mana before the rustling leaves ceased their movement. She held her rapier at her side after having sheathed it again, and focused power into her legs as Alpha.1's sword began to levitate, and the partially repaired android bolted off with terrifying speed. It was only matched by the gale of wind which carried Saionji in the direction of the thief. "Together... this pickpocket is fast!" Saionji shouted to Alpha, the two converging into one side-by-side formation and breaking the trees.
Okuri simply saw a streak of Saionji's emerald green mana tracing behind her, and his aura flared up in an instant, followed by Big-Hat's own Ch'i, then Dove's drawing of a hand-fashioned crossbow, a hefty wooden stake fixed on the center of it and locking into place. The three leaders took off in order, their soldiers suddenly left in awe at their speed, both the beastkin commanders with their ki powers, and Dove with her own brutish, raw power. "Not without us, those are our belongings too!" The Bounty Huntress shouted, beginning to lag behind Big-Hat's agility and Okuri's own superhuman mass.
In an instant, both Saionji and Alpha were keeping track of rapidly approaching obstacles... their thief had been quite well-versed in this place, clearly. As Saionji leapt a snapped tree trunk, her boots landing atop it and dancing around stray limbs before reaching for air and meeting the top of the stump, she gritted her teeth, then heard a snapping sound somewhere ahead of her. "Alpha-!"
As a burst of Wind magic from ahead cleaved through the trunk of a massive tree, Alpha's levitating sword raised to catch it, the flat side of the blade catching it before unleashing a powerful expulsion of exhaust mana, something which caused the thing to splinter in half right beneath Alpha. Saionji watched in awe for a moment, but quickly readjusted her priorities back to their target ahead. Just in time to catch a number of Wind magic slashes approaching them at a hair-raising speed. Flicking her rapier upwards, she parted a spell with nothing but her black-purple blade. "Keep attention, Saionji." The android said bluntly.
As she spoke, her blade rose to cut the lit air before her. Alpha stepped through it with a powerful crushing of the ground under her bare heel. The single stomp rocketed her forward, and Saionji realized now that the android was easily widening the gap between them. Her brow furrowing, the girl felt her internal stores of mana beginning to strain, and she made an effort to step lighter, but eventually, her thoughts beat out her logic. "To hell with all this... I'll catch that damn crook myself!" She yelled internally, and gritted her teeth, beginning to yell with a wordless, primal warcry now in response to herself. Now a trail of emerald green streaked behind her constantly, radiating from each of her footsteps left behind for a few moments.
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CALAMITY CORE : FREE THE WORLD
Action- BOUND THE WORLD - After falling from the sky in a blaze of glory, without so much as a memory to his name, and cleaving a path through the whole of the Tokyo Dead Zone with the discovery of his nature as a half-human half-Chimera, a monster from a...
