Title: Soul Calibur: Slayer
Author:Joshua
Disclaimer:Namco owns the Soul Calibur series, and all related characters of course, meanwhile Joss Whedon and Mutant/Enemy Productions created the characters Xander, Buffy, and Faith, and other related such characters. A lot of the relationships between all characters is different from what might be "said" to happen in the games, mostly due that these characters are the "descendants" of those characters, living in modern times, yet still weapons masters of the same martial art forms and weapons and all, of course, are looking for Soul Edge and/or Soul Calibur.
Summary:Soul Edge, after centuries of imprisonment, has finally escaped its Seal under Soul Calibur, coinciding with the activation of the Slayer Line. Reading the signs, the Watcher's send a team out to recover both blades, meanwhile other warriors across the globe begin their own search for the mystic weapons.
Author's Notes:Post Angel Season 5, the Scooby Gang, with notable exceptions of Giles, Dawn and Willow, took vacations, with the others reforging the New Watcher's Council, going to school in Cleveland, and mastering Magick, which was more fun except in Dawn's case. Buffy, after living it up in Italy for a year, finally got over herself and returned to her happy normal self and was no longer depressed, or attracted to 'evil guys', just the bad boys. Faith received counseling and dated Wood for all of a month before moving on and returning, in part, to her previous lifestyle of action, sex, and one-night stands, and finally made peace with Buffy and the rest of the Scoobies, just because. Xander, took a looong vacation away from demons, and then under the advice of Giles and Willow, began studying martial arts, partly to teach them to Slayers, partly to use for himself. After his sojourn to Africa and setting up the Slayer Camp there, he took another vacation before returning to England just in time for this latest assignment. He hasn't seen Buffy, Faith, or Willow in more than a year, yet has maintained correspondence. Dawn got over her Xander-crush, has dated in High School, is now attending Oxford in England, is NOT a part of the story, WILL NOT be a part of the story, and because she was made out of Buffy's Blood, became a Slayer after she turned 18 and Willow took the last of the Key out of her. Willow is still working on learning more about magic, but is argued to be the most powerful magic-user in North America as well as across all of Europe. She's also the one that detected Soul Edge's Awakening.
Story:
Battle 1:Xander vs. Taki
A Hellmouth, believe it or not, can often be very convenient.
Xander missed the Hellmouth.
Because then he could blame the dark forces of Hell and mystical convergences for things like this instead of his own shitty luck.
Things like facing off against a demon-hunting Kunoichi in mortal combat. For those not fluent in multi-cultural references, a kunoichi is a female, that is woman, ninja, which is BIG trouble for the Xan-man!
"Well, at least your stance is correct, heh," she teased him as she placed her hands on her weapons, a pair of ninja-swords, known as tantō, one on her back across her right shoulder, the other on her lower back, able to be drawn from her left hip. She was wearing a midnight-blue form-fitting leotard, with armored shin-guards, shoulder-pads, and fingerless gloves, and had her dark black hair pulled back into a functional ponytail.
Of course Xander, being Xander, couldn't help notice that her form was more for that of a Baywatch lifeguard, or Penthouse supermodel, and her pale skin only highlighted the beauty of her Asian features, making allusions in the Field-Watcher's mind about how kunoichi used to be viewed as prostitute-assassins.
But what a way to go!
Xander, himself, however, was in a garish multi-colored Hawaiian shirt, like many American tourists would be, gray cargo pants, and Nike® sneakers, all topped off by his eye patch. He was also holding his specially crafted (by himself) fighting staff, six-feet long with a grip-pad at the center that covered the inner-two-feet, and he actually was holding it in the proper defense-stance for a staff of this type and weight. Given that he'd spent the last two and a half years studying and training in the martial arts, and specifically the Bojutsu discipline coupled with English quarterstaff arts, and Escrima Arnis stick fighting thrown in (mostly because he kept getting his staff broken in half by his teachers, he had little choice).
"Are you sure we have to do this?" Xander said back nervously, readying himself for her attack anyway.
She just glared hard at him, and they seemed to be waiting, waiting for some kind of signal, waiting for the other to attack first. It seemed to come, ironically after a 3-count in Xander's head, and the ninja-lady drew the tantō from her back and charged right at him. If he didn't move she would gut him right there!
Good thing he did move, side-stepping her charge and twisting his body to put as much force as he could into a horizontal sweep with his staff, landing it in the middle of the woman's chest and knocking the breath out of her. Not really wanting to fight at all, and certainly not wanting to kill a fellow human being, not to mention fellow demon hunter, Xander backed up as she fell to the ground, holding her chest, keeping his guard up.
"Stay down!" he warned, not wanting to seriously hurt her. Or for her to seriously hurt him!
Instead of heeding his advice, she rolled up to her feet, her weapons sheathed once more, but her hands still on them. She eyed him with distrust and an analyzing eye. Without another word she charged him again, and he planned on just side-stepping again, though maybe to the other side to throw her off, but he was the one thrown off as instead of stabbing with one, she drew both blades, and he was momentarily stunned when he saw bluish green flames ignite around both of them.
"What the . . . ?!" he exclaimed, and all he had time to do before she struck.
She drew both blades straight out and then spun them in her hands, creating flaming disks in both her hands and slashed them at Xander, knocking him back and to the ground. Shaking himself to clear the cobwebs, he quickly scrambled to his feet, screaming, "What the fuck?!"
In response she just grinned at him and then made a sealing motion with her hands and if he didn't know any better, her body was suddenly surrounded by a blue aura, and when she charged him next, she was moving much faster than before.
"WHAT THE FUCK?!" he repeated with more volume and just kept his guard up.
She was hitting harder too, he noticed, but so far he was managing to block all of her hits. So long as she didn't catch him off guard any more, he hoped he could hold her off. Thank god she wasn't a Slayer! Although in retrospect, he thought, it was probably a good thing that he had so much experience getting beat on by Slayers. It made getting beat on by beautiful ninja women that less jarring.
Suddenly she stopped and did that sealing thing again, glowed blue all over again, and then pause as she drew back her right fist, the blue glow converging on her closed hand. Xander only had time to think, '/Oh shit!/' before she punched the ground at his feet and there was an explosion!
Surprised, and also a bit hurt, he took a step back, but then she slammed her fist down again! And there was a slightly bigger explosion, knocking him further back. Then she did it again!
Really hurting now, Xander was just trying to stay upright despite the pain and hoping it was over, when he noticed she had put both hands together and then slammed them down right at his feet this time and the explosion was so massive, it actually sent him flying into the air!
He groaned as he landed on the flat of his back and struggled to make his body move, to get away from the crazy ninja woman with explosive magic. He managed to roll back and at least get into a crouched position, breathing heavily and hurting like he /had/ just fought a slayer or two!
"You won't be able to move for a while," she said to him before adding in a condescending tone, "try not to struggle."
'/How the hell did I get myself into this situation?/' he asked himself, and then recalled exactly how.
/New Watchers Council HQ/
/London, England/
/1 Week Ago/
"Hey G-man!" Xander exclaimed from right behind the Senior Watcher as he snuck into the room. "I'm back from my vacation! Can I have another?"
"Very funny Xander," the only true Englishman in the room drawled and turned to regard the Sunnydale Survivor. That title came to mean a great deal to both new Watchers and many of the new Slayers that heard the tales of the select few who guarded the Hellmouth for almost seven years.
"Now please join Buffy, Faith, and Willow in the sitting room, I'll be along to join you shortly, I just need to collect a few more books," Giles ordered.
Xander's happy expression immediately vanished and without a word he turned around and just as he'd reached the door and was about to leave the room, Giles, without turning around and his eyes solidly on the task before him, called out, "And don't even think about trying and slipping out, I had Aimee set up a ward to keep you inside the building until you're released, and I've informed Janice and Patrice that you've arrived."
Xander winced and almost drew his gun and shot the man behind him in the back of the head. Talk about cruel and unusual punishment! Aimee, Willow's "apprentice" for lack of a better term, had the skewed notion that wards are supposed to /hurt/ when you touch them, and Janice and Patrice were a couple of precocious and borderline-lethal slayers that Xander had personally recruited and trained for a little while. They also took up the torch of Dawn's crush on him, and tended more often than not to end up with him being in the literal middle of a tug-of-war between the two.
"Low blow G-man, low blow," the carpenter-turned-watcher growled back at the one man who was more a father to him than anyone else on the planet.
"Sitting room," was Giles' only reply.
Grumbling about Senior-Watcher power trips, Xander turned down the hall and quickly made his way to the closed off parlor where he found Buffy and Willow already sitting and waiting for him.
"Hey," he greeted jovially, having said Official Hellos on his way in, "where's Faith? G-man said she was waiting too."
"I think she's actually trying to get past Aimee's wards," Willow grinned at her lifelong friend as he sat down next to her.
"You, by chance, wouldn't happen to be willing to help us out a little there, wouldja Wills?" he battered her with his waiting-for-patent-approval 'Puppy Dog Eyes' as he begged.
"Sorry Xander," she grinned affectionately at him, "but no can do. Besides, this is my meeting, and it wouldn't make much sense for me to help you escape when I'm the one that needs to talk to you."
Xander, and Buffy both blinked, slightly alarmed. Giles calling a meeting and mentioning 'grabbing more books' was one thing. /Willow/ calling a meeting of the two best Slayers and /the/ best Field Watcher at the New Council's disposal was quite another.
"Buff," Xander called urgently, "you wanna go get Faith and get her back here. Now!"
She didn't even hesitate or look at her High School friend twice before jumping up to follow his orders. Nobody, not even Giles or Willow, argued when Xander pulled out his "Watcher" Voice. It was a voice and tone that /demanded/ immediate respect and obedience. Xander didn't contest this, he just praised the results as the only time he did pull out his Watcher Voice was when the situation warranted immediate and decisive action. Or, more often, to end stupid arguments between Slayers.
Shortly, Buffy, Faith, and Giles, all having arrived at the same moment, took their seats and turned their attention largely to Willow.
"Sorry for tricking you guys earlier," Willow apologized, "But Giles begged me as he never gets to have any fun, or so he claims."
The young adults turned briefly to glare at the sheepishly shrugging Giles, and then turned serious back to Willow.
"C'mon Wills, you never call meetings," Xander logically pointed out, "unless of course it's monumentally huge, like that Avatar business in San Francisco, or that time in New York."
"Well, on the plus side of that, we did get to meet the Hunters and the Daywalker and we've started organizing all the free lance groups into one conglomerate to handle the vampire and demon threats," the super-witch argued.
"Our point," Buffy intervened, "is that the only time you get involved and the only times you call meetings is when it's world-changing Armageddon-around-the-corner type stuff. So what's the crisis this time?"
Seeing that they weren't teasing her, instead saying they understood that the situation was dire and wanted to do whatever it took to help as soon as possible, Willow turned around and blinked hard at the TV screen in the room. The device flickered to life and showed a news report on "Ares Comet", a blazing red shooting star that had been seen from one end to the other of the entire Eurasian continent, as well as portions of a few others.
Once the report was over, Willow blinked again and the TV turned off.
"Ares Comet wasn't a comet," Willow began, nodding to Giles as he handed out folders and put down a number of his books before him. "It was mystical in origin, but worse than that, it's the signal that something long thought buried or destroyed has reawakened. I'll let Giles give you the basic history before telling you exactly what it means, so you can really understand /what/ it means. Giles?"
"Approximately five hundred years ago, during the 16th Century, much of the known world was under terrible strife. Historians claim it to be just a continuation of the Dark Age, but needless to say, none of us believe much of what /historians/ have to say," Giles displayed his contempt, and continued, "The true reason that much of the world was so devastated was because of a single weapon. /Soul Edge, and those that sought it, and the . . . the one that used it."
"First," Giles pulled out his books and began passing them around to the others, "it should be known that nobody actually knows the origin of the sword, but what it can do is very well documented. It's known by many other names. To those in northern Europe, it was known as the Soul Blade. To the Ancient Chinese, then Ming Empire, it was known as the "Sword of Heroes", or the "Hero Sword" to the Japanese, to the Persians as the "Sword of Salvation", and by many simply as the "Ultimate Sword". For quite simply that's what it was."
"It increases the Wielder's power and strength by magnitudes, but unfortunately it also brings great misfortune to those that seek and possess it." Giles paused as the three young heroes looked through the files, reading the overview of Giles' research of some of the massacres Soul Edge had been inherently responsible for.
"Somehow," he continued, "it came to be sold on an auction block to the dread Spanish pirate Cervantes, and forced him to consume the souls of the warriors that fought him for possession of Soul Edge, giving him a mockery, a demonic mockery, of eternal life. He remained undefeated for a quarter of a century before he faced a trinity of warriors that fought the darkness and destroyed demons. Unfortunately, in the process, Soul Edge shattered and it's hilt landed in the hands of a young knight, Siegfried Schtauffen. The rest of Soul Edge, it's fragments, flew up and scattered all across the world. The event came to be known as the /Evil Seed, bound to bring calamity and death across its path. For Siegfried was changed, transformed by Soul Edge into a living /Nightmare/. Nightmare, or the Azure Knight, reigned devastation and destruction all across Europe for the better part of the century. Whole armies were sent against the Azure Knight, and the demonic warrior, bearer of Soul Edge, slaughtered them all with severe ease."
"Sounds like the Judge," Buffy commented.
"Yes, well, that was the century before actually," Giles started furiously cleaning his glasses before continuing.
"Eventually, due to the combined efforts of a number of warriors, Soul Edge, and Nightmare were defeated, keeping the blade from reforging itself from its lost fragments. Unfortunately, that was not the end of it, as Nightmare still lived and possessed a piece of Soul Edge, and its fragments still existed out in the world. It wasn't until the spirit sword known as Soul Calibur came into existence that a way to truly be rid of Soul Edge was found. After much more fighting and many warriors searching for both blades, Siegfried, freed from Soul Edge's control, took Soul Calibur and pierced the center of what remained of Soul Edge, sealing the evil blade and it's dark powers away."
"I'm taking it that wasn't the end of it?" Faith asked.
"Soul Edge's evil, it's . . . demonic essence if you will, escaped into the vacated armor of the Azure Knight. Siegfried was freed and returned to human form, but the armor still remained you see, so Nightmare lived again, this time with no human occupant to fight against the demonic spirit. Despite Soul Edge being sealed by Soul Calibur, the fragments of Soul Edge were still out in the world, so the resurrected Nightmare began to seek them out once more and looking for the way to reattain its full power."
"Unfortunately, all we really know after that is that Nightmare was defeated yet again, this time by Siegfried, and then there is mention of another collaboration of numerous warriors searching for Soul Edge in dealing with the final destruction of Soul Edge and destroying the power of the remaining fragments forever. I've been able to gather some clues about exactly which warriors were present and what may have been done, but I'm afraid . . ."
"Thanks Giles," Willow suddenly interrupted him. "Ares comet is Soul Edge. Or rather, Soul Edge's fragments being scattered once more. I managed to track it back to, more or less, where it ended, the Osthreinsburg Castle, where Soul Edge had been sealed with Soul Calibur. I think somebody stupid, and now dead or worse, tried to do either a ritual or a spell there that woke up Soul Edge, or destroyed the seal Soul Calibur had it under. Either way, fragments of Soul Edge have now scattered all across both Europe and Asia."
"Which means either Soul Edge . . ." Xander began.
"Or Nightmare aren't far behind," Buffy finished.
"When do we leave?" Faith asked.
"In the morning, but you won't be going together," Willow answered. Then she nodded at Giles.
"As I was saying, I've been able to find some clues about the warriors involved in Soul Edge's ultimate defeat . . . or so we'd hoped. There were, well, legends you might say, of some of the warriors. A Priestess of the Wind, which I've traced to either Pakistan or portions of northern India," he handed one file to Faith, "A demon-hunting ninja clan known as the Fu-Ma," he handed another file to Xander, "which I've traced to Japan. And then the legends of two female warriors, sisters, and at least one said to be a priestess of Hephaestus. So, I'm going to assume that there would at least be some clues in Greece, at the primary temple of Hephaestus." He handed the last folder to Buffy.
"You'll find all the travel arrangements already prepared," Giles gestured to the file folders, "and of course you'll have unlimited access to the Council's funds, although I warn you now, be sure to keep your receipts."
Ironically it was Xander and Faith who winced at the reminder, while Buffy just blushed, as while she always made sure to keep the receipts and report what she bought with Council funds, she didn't tend very often to spend it strictly on Slayer or Council business.
"Also," Willow spoke up, "call me when you get there. I'm going to try and track down all of the Soul Edge fragments, as well as trying to see if I can find Soul Calibur. Chances are good, though unlikely, that once Soul Edge resurfaces, so will Soul Calibur. And anyway, I'll call you once I have a definite location, but I should still be able to guide you in the general direction until I can get a solid fix on a fragment."
"Furthermore," Giles brought the meeting to a close, standing up, "we don't know how many fragments there may be at this point, so this is going to take some time. And whatever you do, don't handle the fragments yourselves! We've prepared special containers for each of you, and these containers will seal on contact to your blood, so just ship them back to us and once you return you can open them up and we'll figure out what to do from there. There's always the Vault of course, but never mind that. We'll be working on that while you search for the fragments. In the meantime, god speed."
/Abandoned Buddhist's Temple/
/Fu-Ma Province, Japan/
/Present/
Given that the kunoichi seemed to be giving him some time, whether to catch his breath, think, or try and escape, Xander took full advantage of it and decided to see if he could buy any more time by engaging her in a battle of wits, while he tried to recover his wit in this battle so he could stop getting his butt kicked! By teenage girls that barely knew /how/ to fight was one thing, they were slayers after all, but by a demon-hunting super model looking ninja girl!
Although the blue flames and the exploding fists were definitely stuff to look out for, he had to admit.
"So, any chance you're part of the Fu-Ma clan?" he asked tiredly, over-exaggerating his weakness. But not by much.
"And how would you know of the Fu-Ma clan?" her hard voice demanded.
Damn! Even her voice is sexy, he thought.
"Well, was kinda looking for them, asked a few questions of the people down in the village. They didn't say anything by the way. So then I started asking about places to sleep, they said the motels were all full up. So people started suggesting I go beg a place on the floor at the nearest Buddhist temple, and this just happened to be the nearest one. Then you showed up and started attacking me. So that either means that I was tricked and the people sent me to the Fu-Ma clan under the guise of benevolence so the badass demon hunting ninjas would kill me, or I turned left instead of right at Albuquerque."
"Or you're just a fool," she insulted him.
"Or that," he admitted with a shrug, not really caring. He'd been called worse by prettier. Scary how true that was, now that he thought about it.
"Time to die!" and she charged again, moving quickly to close the distance between them.
"Damn," he cursed and rolled out of the way and backing away from her as fast as he could and still keep up his guard.
She didn't comment on how he was only defending, which meant she wasn't underestimating him unfortunately, but the way she kept circling around him maybe said she was overestimating him just the tiniest bit? Or maybe she just didn't want to get the wind knocked out of her again and she was looking for all of his weaknesses to exploit before absolutely destroying him. Xander's money was on the last one.
"Look, I know this was probably a mistake on my part," he said, keeping his distance and his guard up, "and I just know I'm stupid for even mentioning this at all, but I'm looking for Soul Edge, or rather its fragments so I can send them back to England where they'll either be destroyed or locked away forever! It's the truth!" he screamed when she charged again.
Thankfully he managed to block her strike and pushed her back some, yet deliberately did not take the opening that left him. Another mistake, he mused.
"If you seek Soul Edge, then you will fail!" she screamed at him and started a lightning-fast combo of high, low, mid and roundhouse kicks that he barely managed to block or dodge.
"Actually, I seek to destroy or prevent Soul Edge from coming back!" he shouted. "Something I /thought/ the Fu-Ma clan would be interested in helping me out with since one of theirs was there to help seal away Soul Edge the last time!"
She squinted her eyes in distrust at her opponent, yet didn't alter her stance in the slightest. Finally, "It does not matter anyway. If you cannot even defeat me, you are not worthy to even search for the demon sword! If what you say is true, then only the strong and the powerful with the hopes of attaining the blade can help in the fight to destroy it."
"So you're saying unless I fight you, you're gonna keep on trying to kill me, and unless I beat you, you aren't gonna help me," the one-eyed watcher surmised.
She just nodded and readied her stance once more, drawing her back blade and said, "Let's do this."
Xander took a deep breath, nodded, and said back, "What you said."
This time taking the aggressive stance, Xander charged and put his whole weight behind an overhead thrust, which the ninja then dodged. So, before his staff even hit the ground, he altered his grip and swung it around in a horizontal strike that hit the woman in the side of her ribs and knocked her back, but unfortunately she stayed on her feet.
Not letting up for a second, Xander swung his staff around again in an overhead strike, then pulled it back and thrust it like a pool cue at her guarding arm, driving her further back with his rapid attacks. He then swung down low with a sweeper kick, which got past her guard and flung her to the ground. Without stopping, he swung his staff around in a tight circle to build up force before bringing it down painfully on top of her torso.
Quickly he backed up, knowing the woman could jump and flip like nobodies business, and he wasn't particularly looking forward to getting beat anymore. Keeping an eye on her, he wasn't disappointed when she rolled back and away from him into a crouched stance, her blade drawn and her gaze steady on him.
"Not bad. So you're a worthy opponent after all," she teased.
"Yeah well, don't let it spread around, I've got a reputation to protect," he teased back with a lopsided grin. He spun the staff in another tight circle and waggled his eyebrows at her.
She snorted and nodded, charging in, fast as ever, once more.
Expecting her to attack with her blades again, he was unprepared for her to suddenly drop down and spin her long legs around like a propeller while she made like a disco-dancer, and kicked him several times over in the gut. Rather than allow himself to fall back, he swung his staff around but she managed to dodge him, rolling around and moving away and circling back around. He tried to keep his eye on her, but he was getting fed up with her fast-strike and run technique. Time to do what he told his Slayers to do in situations like these.
Stay alive, and win.
He charged his opponent, spinning his staff around on either side of his body, and spinning them faster and with more force with each rotation. She kept circling around him, making sure to stay a certain distance from him. He, meanwhile kept his eye on her, especially her footwork, and when he saw an opening, he took it, and spun around to his left and ran forward as fast as he could while adding the centrifugal force of his body spin to his already spinning staff. His move was so quick and unexpected, she couldn't react in time, just stumbling to a halt as he charged right at where she was, and slammed her with a devastating blow to her mid-torso, knocking her clear across their battleground.
Rather than let up, he charged her again, but this time, using his staff as a pole vault, he kicked his body high into the air, supported only by his weapon, and then began to fall towards her. About halfway down, he suddenly accelerated and brought his staff down in an overhead strike that landed painfully upon the ninja's body, causing her to cry out and try to roll away from him.
"Now about you trying to kill me?" he allowed her to get to her feet.
She regarded him, keeping her guard up, until she seemed to catch her second wind. Finally she said to him, getting back into her ready stance, "Leave this place!"
"Not until I get some answers," he resigned himself and held his staff before him, grasping it in the middle with both hands. "Now either talk or fight!"
"Have it your way," she said resignedly.
This time they both charged, the ninja drawing both her blades, and Xander making a twist with his wrists. They met in a full body blow, both knocked back a little by the force, and took the time to size each other up anew. Xander still held his staff by the middle and the ninja had both her tantō drawn and their defenses were just about equal.
Xander moved first, utilizing a horizontal strike combo, hitting nothing but her raised armored gauntlet each time. Then she struck, hitting nothing by his staff each time, and for some reason her blades couldn't even scratch the surface of the weapon, despite it apparently being made of wood.
They traded blows like this several times, always blocking, parrying, or knocking back from the force of the defense. Finally, came the decisive blow that spelled the end of the battle.
The ninja had just finished a kicking combo that had forced Xander to retreat some, and she saw an opening as he reeled back some. She drew her the tantō from her back and made an upward slicing attack. Xander barely managed to get his staff back up in time, so her blade hit the exact middle of his staff. An amazing thing then happened, to the kunoichi at least.
Xander's staff snapped right in two!
Stunned by this, as she had noticed earlier how his staff seemed to be impervious to existential damage, she backed away in confusion and shock. Until she noticed that he wasn't shocked at all, instead he was grinning savagely at her.
"Oh, you shouldn'ta done that," he teased her, now twirling both halves of his staff on his wrists. He shifted his stance from Bojutsu to Escrima and charged her again, this time instead of going directly at her with his weapon, he slid the last few feet in a slider-kick at her unprotected legs, slamming her into the ground.
Rolling back to his feet while she picked herself up, Xander slipped in quicker than she thought he could move and knocked her on the back of the head with one of his Arnis-staff sticks, then slammed the other under her chin, then the first one into the middle of her back knocking her forward, he spun around even faster and this time swung both of them into her torso, then he spun down into a sweeper kick that knocked her to the floor again. Before she could get back up again though, he twirled the sticks around until he brought them up over his head and dropped them, before reasserting his grip once the other ends were in his hands and thrust them painfully down onto her prone body.
Figuring she'd had enough by now, he backed away and waited.
"Had enough yet?" he asked, slightly out of breath, he reattached his sticks into a single staff.
"Funny," she groaned as she got back to her feet for the third time, "I was just about to ask you the same question."
Before they could resume, either battle of weapons or battle of wits, they stopped as they both felt the tickle at the back of their necks that spoke to them of approaching danger. Without warning, they both suddenly rolled towards each other, narrowly escaping several throwing stars and kunais that had landed where they'd both just been standing.
Now standing back-to-back, Xander whispered over his shoulder, "Is there something I should know about?"
"I'm a renegade of the Fu-Ma clan, for arguing against acquiring Soul Edge for the Leader," she explained quietly.
"So . . . the Fu-Ma want Soul Edge for . . ."
"For it's power and because the Leader has become obsessed with it and I believe is truly insane."
"So . . ." Xander did some fast thinking, "chances are pretty good the your . . . ex-friends out there just heard or saw our whole duel there and they're gonna wanna kill me for trespassing as well as the fact that I'm looking for Soul Edge too, and they're gonna wanna kill you because you just went renegade?"
She merely grunted in acknowledgment as they watched the ninja drop out from nowhere or appear out of the shadows better than Dead Boy ever could.
"OK, so how about this, since we suddenly find ourselves on the same side," he whispered back to her, "we help each other out, get the hell out of here, and talk about Soul Edge, fragments, and Soul Calibur later after we aren't in danger of getting killed. Sound good?"
She was silent for several moments until one really big guy silently appeared right in front of her. "Agreed," she quickly hissed at her unexpected ally.
"Name's Xander," he twisted the staff once more to unlock it, "Yours?"
"Taki," she introduced herself, not taking her eyes off the enemies surrounding them.
"Nice to meet ya," he said back, then adjusted his grip on his staff and continued, "But as much fun as I've been having, I think I've worn out my welcome and I personally feel like leaving. So, how about we take our leave, and since it looks like you're not having any fun anymore either, you're more than welcome to join me for a moonlit stroll through the countryside. How does that sound to you?"
She would have shot him a dirty look, but instead merely grunted her agreement and tightened her grip on her weapons. "Break for the cliff on three, block what you can, but stay with me," he ordered, more serious now. "THREE!" he then charged at the open space between two of the new ninja, spinning his staff around his body, and Taki's, as much as possible to block incoming weaponry. Apparently taking that as the signal, the ninjas all moved to attack, or threw more stars and knives at them, but Taki, moving with Xander, made sure to keep any from directly hitting them.
Taki cursed, staying close behind him, sparks dancing off of her blades as she blocked shuriken, kunai, and even a few poisoned senbon needles and then, before any of them, even Taki, knew it, the two were past the line of ninjas and on the edge of a cliff, opposite the side of the stairs that Xander had climbed to get to the temple.
"Hold on to me!" he cried, pausing for half a beat, allowing her to realize the plan before he jumped, his staff still whirling about deflecting the occasional attack. Meanwhile, for that half a beat, Taki, deciding to trust him for some unexplainable reason, jumped just as he did and grabbed and held on to his back for dear life as they went over the cliff, many of the ninja jumping after them.
END Battle 1