The face of Trujano Kuroda shriveled from the sadistic smile he wore proudly to something that resembled a shrunken raisin. This sudden shift of expression assisted the swordsman in spitting the iron needle he chewed on. Lord Mifune lowered his head, putting the beak of his helmet forward to absorb the whistling projectile, but instead of absorbing it, the chakra-infused needle punched right through the tip and bit into Mifune's forehead. This released a couple of bloody trickles down the face of the elder samurai.
While this disrespectful move did nothing in inflicting bodily harm upon Lord Mifune, the diversion and the bloody aftereffects sprinkling into the samurai's eyes from under his helmet made the elder and more respectful of the two samurai flinch and surrender the initiative of making the first move. Using the advantage of his move, Trujano Kuroda charged forward his superior with his katana held in a reverse grip while his free hand moved behind his jacket.
With a husky grunt, Mifune answered Kuroda's call for violence and the two samurai clashed their blades on Mifune's side of the arena. Kuroda turned his entire body, revealing a second katana drawn from a scabbard attached to a belt tied around the bulky body of the adopted samurai. With a distraught and bloody expression, Mifune began scrambling back. Despite the relentless and ruthlessly aggressive advance, bold and uncompromising in its thirst to draw blood, Mifune maintained a proper defensive form and impeccable footwork even if he surrendered all of his ground and retreated frantically. This retreat was necessary to answer all of Kuroda's ruthless blade swings.
Swinging both of his swords at once, Kuroda smashed his katana at Mifune's forcing terror into the eyes of the elder armored samurai as all three colliding blades spewed chips of hardened tamahagane steel in all directions, and scary cracks littered all three edges. Aghast Mifune refused to clash with the final hammering smash of Kuroda's blades into the ground, instead stumbling back and falling on his rear to avoid taking any damage from the crushing swing and rolling back to regain a properly balanced sword fighting stance.
"You sure fight like a pussy…" Kuroda spat to the side while tapping his shoulder with the bag of his chipped sword, all the while grinning at his opponent like a cat that was as mad as it was prophetic. "I thought you put all that armor on and take those stout stances to hold the line."
"You fight like a barbarian punk!" Mifune scolded the sadistic warrior who, despite his quirks and blatant disrespect to the ancient warrior tradition, earned the name of samurai and was brought up and trained as one. "Swinging your blessed sword like builder swings a mallet. Such despicable disrespect to the swords of the stars and the warrior lifestyle doesn't deserve a dignified response of a proper defense. If you intend on shattering your swords, battering your enemies with them, and embarrassing yourself, so be it. But I will not allow you to dishonor the samurai any longer."
"Talk is cheap, geezer," Kuroda cracked his neck. "I'm yet to see one cut. A pansy like you probably couldn't even cut me, to begin with. Your girly dancing is good only for cutting handkerchiefs."
Lord Mifune kicked off the ground, shattering the tiles underneath his feet and sending a rabid wall of dust in the direction opposite to his movement. The sudden outburst of speed and power forced Kuroda Trujano to stagger back, but the brutish samurai didn't raise his swords to defend himself. Instead, he swung them crossed to counterattack with no bother for his own well-being. Mifune pushed his sheathed sword horizontally upward and placed it in the way, letting the brutish swing crack through the scabbard and click against the chipped backside of the blade.
In a single stroke, the elder samurai drew his blade and slashed Kuroda once on the chest, extending a bloody streak horizontally by the man's core. The whited-out adopted samurai staggered back, spitting blood up from his mouth, but his superior wasn't finished. Instantly switching to a reverse grip, he slashed again by slashing in a directly opposite direction and adding another deep cut straight on his opponent's body.
"This ridiculous obsession with the power of your cut!" Mifune bellowed while raising his sword over his head with both hands and bringing it down again, only to switch to a reverse double-hand grip and rise into the air with a hop to his step as a flashing silver streak extended in the trajectory of his rising blade. "Your refusal to block your opponent's strikes or fight defensively will be your undoing!"
Rolling horizontally in an aerial motion, Mifune transferred the full strength of his swing with the added force of inertia into a single sideways slash that gleamed mint-green with a sprinkling silver outline and carved its path to the outer edges of the arena, splitting the entire square structure into two while slicing the very Sun Disc fortification open by the western side as it carried Kuroda's weightless and unconscious body all the way for the ride. Mountainous ridges of stone and dirt rose from both sides of Mifune's majestic slash, and even the clouds over his head split in two.
"Furinkazan Style Hidden Technique: Matchless Secret Split…" Mifune exhaled while sheathing his sword, mumbling under his nose as he broke his rigid sword fighting stance and turned around to seek his next challenger. "No matter how tough a man is, Kuroda, steel will always be tougher. For we mold steel to cut tough men down from the beginning."
"The peerless Lord Mifune has eliminated his fellow samurai warrior - Trujano Kuroda! The remaining number of warriors fighting in the arena is 164, however, after Lord Mifune's signature secret technique, the arena appears to be shifted and split into two parts! This split the remaining contestants into two sides of the arena with two mountainous walls and a ridge in the middle for a barrier!" the announcer declared, turning to the audience as he pointed at the split arena.
So far, the warriors had held themselves off from ruining the arena since that would've hindered all of them and could have easily made an overachieving arena-wrecker the target of all those seeking punishment for meddling with everybody's business this way. However, likely because he saw that victory in any other way than executing his most powerful secret swordsmanship technique and hitting his opponent head-on with it, Lord Mifune took the gamble of making himself a potential target, as long as Trajano Kuroda no longer sullied the samurai name by fighting for it.
"Don't just walk away after pulling a stunt like that," a sultry feminine voice halted Lord Mifune from moving toward a position where he could shuffle into the madness of the battle royale and find himself another desirable opponent. Surprised, the respected samurai warrior from the Land of Iron turned around to see a white-haired woman in a tight black bodysuit with white streaks in decorative patterns advancing toward him. The woman wore a similar ocular gadget to the one that another spy wore, defined by its protruded goggles with pink lenses.
"I shan't strike a woman. My warrior's code demands honor - a vivid consciousness of personal dignity and worth to characterize a true samurai," Lord Mifune sneered at his swaying, bodysuit-clad opponent.
"That works for me," the white-haired woman smiled and cast a steel wire line attached to a three-fingered claw that grabbed hold of the samurai and allowed the female spy to yank herself toward her chosen target with a slide while forcing the caught samurai lord to fumble forward while his sword remained sheathed.
Without flinching, Mifune charged forward with a rushing shoulder strike. Tsking with her tongue, the spy woman stretched out on the ground and skid underneath her rushing opponent's shoulder, attempting to wrap her legs around his calves and bring him down that way. Despite the spy's best efforts, Lord Mifune did not move from the place. The weathered samurai swung his sheathed blade diagonally up and to the right. Despite swinging his sheathed weapon once, the spy in a tight bodysuit cried out in pain as a ruthless barrage of cracks riddled her body and tossed her aside violently.
"I seem to have been mistaken. My apologies. I find myself in a melee of the world's finest warriors and you approached me head-on, after having already seen the full extent of my swordsmanship abilities no less. You are no mere woman and it appears that I should treat you as a warrior," Lord Mifune cast a solemn look at the bodysuit-clad challenger.
"Aww, shucks. You're making me blush…" the female spy replied with a husky and pained tone while standing back up and wiping blood off her lip. The old-timer was right. She had seen through his swordsmanship and saw the extent to which he could elevate it. And yet still, when he struck her at least thirty-two times while his scabbard appeared to move only once, even she was caught off-guard. If the sword would've been drawn at that point, this challenge may have been over before it could properly kick off.
Lord Mifune skidded across the entire sliced-off portion of the arena while drawing his sword, delivering a horizontal slash with a blinding intensity that took the female spy off her feet. Her bodysuit spat out flocks of sparks where the sword contacted it instead of blood and didn't seem to tear at all. Despite it, Mifune slashed his sword diagonally upward and to the left, seeking to open his opponent up but succeeding only by elevating the spy into the air with another sparky collision of his blade and her uncuttable bodysuit.
Trying to aim for her lower face and mouth, Mifune dashed off into the air and dragged his hand across his blade before thrusting it forward, but the woman deflected it with a spinning kick of her leg. The spy's spiky heel deflected the thrust and the concussive aerial beam of pressurized air that emitted from the tip of Mifune's blade and left a hole in the arena's surface down below.
"Furinkazan Style: Kawa Cut!" Mifune exclaimed while slashing his sword from his right side to the left and emitting a crescent-shaped, azure blue slash that pummeled the woman back down to the ground, though still didn't cut through her bodysuit. "Hmm… Your armor is impressive. Befitting a warrior such as yourself. Unassuming at the first glance, but tougher than most would give credit for. Not even with a coated blade could I make a cut."
"That's tamahagane weave for you. Every fiber comprising every strand is tamahagane nanofiber, highly chakra-conductive. Sure beats wearing a whole house on you in battle…" the woman rolled on her knees, to a more dignified position, wiping the blood and grazes off her face as although her chakra conductive bodysuit absorbed all cutting force of even the highest grade samurai's blade, a portion of concussive blunt force damage still reflected on her body and left some dents.
"You didn't challenge me intending to defeat me, did you, young lady?" Lord Mifune realized as he took a balanced and strict sword-fighting stance before his opponent. "You challenged me to test the integrity of your body armor, did you not?"
"Guilty as charged," the white-haired woman dragged the back of her hand across her bloody and dirtied face, leaving smears of dust, sand, and blood on it. "If the prototype bodysuit can deflect even the blade of one of the greatest living elites of the samurai class, it's fitting to outfit spies operating on the field. Though the blunt shock absorption qualities still need some work. I thank you for your cooperation."
"Your name?" Lord Mifune inquired. "The daring way you fight, your willingness to put your own life and body on the line for your mission, your speed, and agility. You make for a fine warrior, and I'd like to know your name."
"Sorry, I've got a strict no-names policy," the spy played it off nonchalantly while masking the full effects of the physical damage she took from the sword strikes her bodysuit deflected.
Seeking her opportunity to shuffle into the crowd of wild warriors surrounding them, the spy fired her clawed wire into the sky and grabbed onto the wing of one of the airborne Cursed Warriors, skidding across the ground as if windsurfing and avoiding all the surrounding warriors going through their wild bouts. Despite her best efforts, it was as if Lord Mifune blinked up to the location where she was meant to go with his sword lowered by his side. It didn't take a veteran to conclude that his following slash would pack most of his potency as a swordsman.
Rolling horizontally through the air with an elegant spin, the spy kicked at the hilt of Mifune's sword with one leg while tapping its blade with her other heel. The impressive precision and agility forcefully sheathed the blade of the samurai lord and opened him up for a beat down. Mifune's gauntlet shot up to his side out of sheer instinct. It was just in time to absorb a compact half-moon roundhouse kick from his opponent. The force of the hit made Lord Mifune wince and grunt, but his opponent wasn't finished. A swift standing push kick threw the samurai off-balance while the woman rolled horizontally with a double aerial rolling kick. Mifune hunkered down, pressing his gauntlets in front of his chest and hunching his face to hide behind them as well. The spy pressed on with a jumping roundhouse before grabbing of both of her opponent's arms.
Lord Mifune bellowed in pain as hidden blades shot out from the woman's arms and stung his wrists. Not feeling content with just crippling his fighting potential, the masked spy expelled a potent electric jolt that passed down the body of the veteran samurai and left him dazed and wobbly. Turning her body around once more, the spy delivered another spinning roundhouse, shooting the stunned samurai off into the air and kicking off his helmet while shattering multiple plates of his impressive armor.
"Not bad. Unfortunately for you, I am used to pain and abominable battlefield conditions!" Mifune exclaimed while drawing his sword in a split-instant, just as his opponent fired her clawed steel wire and pulled herself up to him. Swinging his sword around him, Mifune fended off the woman's follow-up hidden blade stings and took his time until their feet touched the ground. The ambitious spy thrust the hidden blade in her heel to punch through Mifune's chest, but the samurai lord brought his blade diagonally down to his right side.
The hidden heel blade forced a wooden crack and a dull thud as it etched into Mifune's damaged war armor, but it failed to crack it. Closing his eyes and regulating his breathing in for a split second, Lord Mifune brought his sword up with a horizontal slash. "Furinkazan Style: Fukyusoku!" Lord Mifune chanted out as his lone horizontal slash resonated with an entire network of sea-foam-colored flashes. The woman Lord Mifune struggled against froze in place before a wild expulsion of sparks emanating from all four corners and at least twelve different locations on her body at once sent her flying out of the arena and smashing against the protective wall and then flopping below.
"Agent Codename: Nasateiya has been eliminated! As expected from the right-hand man and the most trusted warrior of the Iron Shogun himself–Lord Mifune, any breed of warrior that faces him in battle must beware! There are now 163 warriors fighting in the arena, split amongst two sides of the ring!" the announcer proudly proclaimed while gesturing at the arena split by two mountainous ridges and a burrowed trench between them.
"Hmph… To think that I had to resort to your dirty fighting style and abandon all defense to defeat this woman, Kuroda…" Lord Mifune staggered, looking around in front of him while trying to pinpoint his next challenger from the queuing bunch as everyone wanted to get their hands on the one that nearly leveled the entire ring and caused mass eliminations. Some others had an entirely different motive in confronting the peerless swordsman Lord Mifune, however. Some more serpentine-natured warriors sought an opportunity in eliminating the esteemed samurai warrior now while his gauntlet of daring challengers had taken their toll as they've realized that eliminating this man one-on-one during the later stages of the tournament would've been impossible.
A tall, tanned-skin woman clad in a hood and a cape made entirely of snow-white and owl feathers with black decorations and donning a black mask with orange markings encircling the eye area that split off to a sharp and curved black beak-like decoration by the nose soared across the arena, fixing herself atop of one of the mountain ridges splitting the two different halves of the arena. The hood of owl feathers extended down her chest and a cross-shaped bronze decoration held the hood and cape together. Her tattooed waist had been bare, though she wore a weathered breechcloth to cover her legs and had brass claws attached to her leather boots that seemed to work like hooks and dig in tightly whenever she needed them to.
The sharp gaze of the Sky Warrior fixed onto a challenger, stepping out from the fold and gazing right up at her with a confident smirk on his face. It was a tall and athletic man with a persian orange punch perm, though he wore a traditional onmyoji garment that clashed with his chosen hairstyle. What could've been seen of the man's skin was entirely covered in curse markings. This was most apparent in the diverse set of ink covering the man's face.
"You…" he pointed up at the Sky Warrior with a polite smile. "That ink… I like your style. I'd like to test your strength to see if your body is to my liking."
Even though the Sky Warrior couldn't make sense of the proclamation of the delinquent onmyoji, she flapped her feathered cape, revealing a simple palm wood bow in her hand. Thusly, the Sky Warrior had accepted the challenge from one of the magician group, seeking to build a nexus for wizardry, alchemy, and all manners of sorcery in Agbarah, and prepared to confront him in battle.