Match #4

Below, in all directions, there is northing but blue. The white sea is not here, but the elevation is the same. Falling now would mean demise for anyone; from this heigth, it would be like hitting a wall of diamond by the time you hit the water. You would be literally obliterated. What's keeping you from falling to your death? A ship half the size of an island. It is solid gold and has helicopter-like masts. There are assorted dials, guns, swords, shields, trinkets, and treasures on this ship. Nothing too great, but there is a indefinite supply of flame dials, axe dials, impact dials, cutlasses, rapiers, pistols, rifles, and shields made from silver. There is a huge round arena, taking up most of the space of the ship. It is solid marble; it is about as hard to break as steel, as dense as it is. The captains quarters is make from kairoseki. There are transponder snails in indefinite amount relaying your battles to the captain. When someone steps out of the arena completely and lands on the wood outside without also touching the arena at the same time, suddenly they find themselves so far away from the ship, it looks like a pea in the distance. In this battleground, staying in the ring is more important than defeat, because you are not certain to die if you lose; you are if you leave the ring. At the front of the ship, a giant sign says "fight and you'll be rich; lose and forever wallow in grief".

A tall muscular man walked across the ship, ignoring the weapons and dials as he went along.  Things like that were nothing to the man, weak weapons made out of weak metal would get him nowhere.  The fact that they were made from silver didn't even concern him in the slightest.  He merely walked forward, without hesitation.  Not once did he even bother glancing at such trashy weapons.  Instead, he clung to the hilt of the top sword attached to his belt.  

The man wore a black leather belt which two sheathed katana shaped blades hung.  His boosts seemed to be made of the same leather that his belt had been made from.  Covering the lace part of his boots was a pair of green cargo pants that hugged his exposed midsection.  On top, the man wore a large orange coat that dropped nearly to the ground.  The coat was left open in the front showing off his muscular chest and stomach, both of which were covered in scars.  

As the man walked forward the breezy atmosphere in which the massive airship sailed caused his hair to blow sideways.  Like his brown locks his coat also fluttered gallantly in the wind.  Once he reached the arena he leaped on the the stage.  At no time did he lose the grip on the hilt of his blade.  The sign on the front of the ship blinked and his name ran across it, announcing his arrival.  
"Lets get this thing done.  I have more important things to do than waste my time here." Iken said as if the whole ordeal was nothing more than a minor nuisance.

1/15

A second man walked across the ship.  The lean, tanned man stopped near the weapons and took off his large black boots.  Walking barefooted, the man walked straight past the weapons and dials.  He didn't need them.  Why would anyone need them?  The man sniggered to himself lowly as he took off his leather jacket, exposing his torso.  The man tied the jacket to his waist by the arms of the jacket.  The jacket blew behind him in the wind, showing an emblem of a dog's skull on the back with the word "Hellhound" underneath.  The man continued to walk towards the arena as he slowly changed.  He became ever so slightly taller, and became slightly broader.  His jaw elongated as his nose took on a more canine look.  Fur began to shoot out of his body at every crevice.  Claws erupted from his fingertips and thicker claws broke through the tips of his toes.  Looking at his feet, it was clear to see that his boots would have broken had he kept them on.  Looking like a bipedal dog with yellow eyes, the man jumped onto the stage as the sign wrote out his name;


Hal smirked, pointing his index finger out towards Iken.  Hal's fur blew wildly up at this altitude.  He opened his mouth and spoke with his usual low voice; "I'll give you one last chance to drop out now before you get hurt."

A slender, tall figure made its way across the ship. As she went closer, you could make out the gender, a girl. She was wearing a white short sleeved sweater that has a hoodie with small animal-like ears (like a cat's or bear's), which have pink in the ears, it also has a pink bear in the middle. Under the pullover she had a black tanktop. And black short shorts and black tights. Her walking was graceful, and she walked past the weapons and continued towards the men that were already standing there waiting for the matches to begin. She didn't let out anything from her facial expressions, but her walking was slightly tiff, maybe showing that she was nervous about it. As she walked, the screen before her flashed with her name. She looked up to it and smirked.


Saki approached the men, and stood by Iken. She smiled. She waited for either to do something. Saki wasn't sure if the other man had said something to him, but now that she was there, she didn't really care. She was ready to kick some asses and do whatever she could to win this tournament thing, after all, it would be one step closer to accomplishing her dream, and Saki loved it. Besides, as much as it made her nervous, it did seem like fun.

Iken smirked when the foe suggested that he should drop out before he got hurt. The man certainly had attitude and confidence to spares. Or was that arrogance? It didn't really matter, not to Iken. Confidence and arrogance was like saying potato or potato. They merely sounded different, but deep down they're the same. A lot like the marines and pirates are a lot alike, especially when compared to the well-known pirates.

"I'll extend the same offer to you, dog breath. If not I'll send you home yelping with your tail between your legs." Iken said as he broke the seal on his sheath exposing a sliver of the blade.

Soon after, the exchange; Iken's partner entered the ring. Her name wasn't familiar to him, nor was her face. That meant she was either new or a small fry, either way the probably meant she was weak. Iken generally didn't like to under estimate his people, but he could help it with the girl. It wasn't long before Iken's attention shifted from his partner to the foe, he wasn't really interested in some flat chested loli.

His foe was obviously a zoan of some kind, a canine or dog species most likely. However even with this knowledge, Iken couldn't help but feel there was more to it. The man in this form seemed like he was and wasn't there. It was as if there was some type of secondary ability that went along with it. As far as Iken has seen, most zoans were pretty cut and dry, what you see is what you get. He was different somehow, like is presence was only half there. Despite all of the clues, Iken wasn't sure what the secondary ability was.

2/15

Hal smirked as the man replied to him.  Of course it wasn't going to be as easy as simply asking the man to step down, but it was worth the try at least.  As a woman entered the arena, Hal replied to the man known as Iken, all the while keeping the same smirk of his face;
"Good to know that you're here to fight.  Now I can go full out without any guilt.", Hal looked about slowly before snapping his head back to face Iken, continuing from his previous sentence, "Oh, and I have no intentions of running away from this fight.  Just had to be sure that you weren't either."

Glancing at the woman, she seemed to physical weaker than Iken.  Though, while it may be true that she definitely had less muscle mass, Hal himself was proof that just because someone didn't have large muscle didn't make them weak.  This was going to be a difficult fight.  It was fairly obvious that Iken fought with a sword, given that he had just flashed his sword at Hal.  Saki, the women, however, had no such weapons.  There was no way to tell her fighting style just from sight alone.  Hal scratched his head lightly as he looked about.  Where was his partner?  Wait.  Is this really happening?  Hal's smirked slipped from his face for a second before laughing slightly.  Nothing about his laugh said that he was nervous.  Oddly, his laugh seemed to be more from excitement than anything else;
"Well, it seems that we have a two versus one scenario just now.  I hope you won't go easy on me just because I'm alone.  There's a reason I'm known as a Hellhound in my home town."
Straight after speaking, Hal, while still in his hybrid form, would slowly go invisible.  It may be two versus one, but he had the bonus of being able to turn invisible.  Running towards Saki, Hal had his fingers move together to form a spear-like shape with his claws.  A feeling of exhilaration filled him.  He got two opponents all to himself.  Unfortunately, he wouldn't have time to toy with them.  Probably best to just end one of them as quickly as possible and toy with the other one.  Hal moved his spear-like hand up, getting ready to aim straight at Saki's chest, right where her heart would be.

---

Note:  Hal's invisibility causes anyone trying to see him have a penalty to their perception; Hybrid form has a 15% penalty, Full form has a 30% penalty.  Eg. Someone with perception 25% would see the Hybrid form as if they had 10% perception and would not be able to see the full form at all.

Iken moved as soon as his foe had made his move. The strange zoan attacked Iken's partner instead of Iken, assumingly trying to weed out the weaker of the two before hand. It was a valid stratagy, that meant only one attack would be at his throat. However, unfortunatly for Hal; Iken wasn't the kind of man to allow a woman to be cut down in front of him. Iken was able to get in front of and defend the woman long before Hal would have been able to reach her. The unlucky part of the situation was that when Iken went in to defend his partner, he accidentally and unknowingly pushed her out of the arena. Saki was immeaditatly teleported off of the ship.

"Counter Strike"

With his powerful black blade, Iken unsheathed and swung his blade in one motion. The intent of the technique was to cancle out the foes attack while inflicting as much damage on the foe or reducing as much damage to himself as possible. The total damage of the technique if successful would be foe's skill plus strength minus Iken's skill plus strength. If the total turns out negative the foe takes that much damage while if the total is possitive, Iken takes that much damage.

Hal 10 str + 10 sk + 20 str boost + 10 sk boost - Iken 30 str + 40 sk + 20 sw boost = -40

3/15

Hal continued forward towards Saki, confident in the fact that neither her or Iken could see him. Hal smiled as he drew closer, his hand-spear raising to his shoulder level. Suddenly, Iken had appeared in front of Saki. It was obvious to Hal that the man was protecting her. It was the most logical conclusion that he would go straight for the weaker of the two. Hal smiled a toothy grin as he watched the efforts of Iken's "protection". Saki, the woman that he was meant to protect, had been pushed out of the arena. Well, that took care of one problem, now to just take care of the other one. Hal continued on his course, aiming straight for Iken's chest this time. Hal had no worry within him. Though there was a man in the past that had been able to sense him when he was invisible, Hal had confidence that this man had no such ability.

As Hal went to attack the man in his chest, Iken took out his sword and countered with another attack. Having very little time to react to the counter, Hal continued to lunge with his spear-hand. The sudden counter from Iken's sword sent a firm shock wave through Hal's arm. The bones shattered one after another before stopping at his sturdy chest. The middle of his hand was cut in half from the blade. Instinctively, Hal grabbed his hand to hold it together and jumped back, away from Iken. The man had seen him while he was invisible. Hal could have went into his full form, though the damage to his hand would make any movement in that form nigh-impossible. Hal's vision blurred into a sea of red. He was at the end of his rope. If he didn't end this now, there was no way he could win. Staying invisible, Hal switched into his full form. From where he was, Hal ran straight at Iken with his head down, aiming to push him out of the arena. Hal would be hobbling on his front right leg, blood marking a print on the floor as he ran straight towards Iken.

There were telltale signs of the man's presence other than what was left of his ghost like figure. Though his sight was nearly failing him in this battle, there were signs other than what Iken could strictly see. Specs of the fur floating about every time a strong gust blew or the taps the man, made every time he took a step. His claws didn't mesh well with the hard stone that composed the arena. Now there was yet another sign. Blood dripping from the wound Iken has just inflicted upon his foe. Iken knew all too well that even if he had inflicted such a wound on his foe, not to let his guard down. Time and time again men have been able to make incredible come backs, seemingly on will power alone.

In one hand Iken held his drawn sword, ready to strike. However he let his other slide down to his side the second he lost sight of his foe. Though Iken could not see his foe he, could still make out signs of his presence. The clicking of his foes claws on the stone and the trail of blood behind him gave Iken a decent idea of where the foe was. When the paw print and clacking sound had gotten close, Iken drew his second blade. With his seastone blade Iken attempted to stab his foe in order to cancel out any devil fruit ability he could have been using. Upon the strikes success, Iken would let go of the hilt to grip both hands to his main sword. Spinning to the right Iken raised the blade over his head, before bringing it down upon his foe in an attempt to cleave Hal in half.

"Iron Guillotine"

4/15

Hal continued to run straight towards his intended target, Iken.  The pain in his front-right arm was enormous, but Hal continued to push through and run straight towards Iken.  His vision was red and Hal could only concentrate on his target.  If he slipped up for a single moment, it could mean the end of the fight for him.  He had been fairly lucky in the beginning.  Iken had knocked his own partner out of the arena while Hal had no partner to be seen.  Hal was now [i]absolutely[i] positive that Iken could no longer see him.  No person had been able to see Hal in his current form.  The invisibility was far too strong to allow anyone such privilege.  Once he got close, Hal ducked his head to try and take out Iken's legs.  At that moment, a blade slipped in Hal's right shoulder.  Forcibly switching back into his human form, Hal growled out in both pain and anger.

It can't end like this.  He was so close.  Just a bit further and he could have pushed Iken out of the arena.  Hal took all his anger and pain and threw it away.  He can't concentrate on that.  He needs to concentrate on winning.  Winning.  Balling up his left hand, Hal pushed himself forward through the pain.  Moving out his left arm, Hal intended to continue to run straight into Iken.  They would both be thrown out of the arena.  Suddenly, Hal could feel a cold blade cut into his spine.  The blade continued through him.  Sharp pain echoed through his body.  A silent scream of agony.  Nothing.

The winner of Match #4 is the Iken and Saki team. Saki will be allowed to participate in the next round despite disqualification.