Rebirth

[dimitri]

One hour ago, Dimitri knelt at the altar to the Elisian high temple, praying to the gods to give him insight into his abilities. For so long it seemed the soul energy was elusive to his knowledge, that he would never understand their patterns and ways. Day in and day out for a year now he had knelt at this altar. Dusk till dawn he prayed to the gods for their guidance and revelation to aid his understanding of the mysterious energy. But for three hundred fifty seven days, and it was now just past noon, there was nothing. No vision, no knowledge, not even a whisper filled the temple altar room. Regardless, he prayed for wisdom and peace of mind which has granted him the patience not to find a faster approach to heaven.

Half an hour ago, it seemed as if his luck had changed for the better. He began to hear the whispers of truth, the voice of understanding as it echoed through his head and his entire being. What the gods were revealing to him was incomparable to anything he had hoped to feel, but it was done in such an odd manner. He could envision himself in a room full of the wisest men and women in the spiritual realm. Many faces, all new with the exception of Ryan's father, Katsumoto. He had no idea where to start and who to ask. His heart raced as he fell to one knee to thank the gods for this opportunity. In an instant, his heart seemed to skip a beat as an ominous and familiar voice filled his mind. Bit by bit, the room began to fade away and a darkened Elisian temple was back in his vision, filled with yelling and anguish.

Ten minutes ago, a familiar figure, quite unwelcome to his sight, appeared in the archway to the temple. His long white hair and black attire, the scent of blood emanating from his bastard sword the size of a a grown worker's bicep. The aura of Loki tainted the temple and the entire land of Eliseia. Most discomforting to Dimitri was the fact that he had lost the communication with heaven that he had sought for so long. Dimitri, in his usual character, let his temper flare and picked up his blade, and thus ensued a battle between a warrior of the souls and a lord of hell once again. His rage in that moment filled him so much, that he failed to notice the gem on the end of Luciendar turn red, an ominous sign known to the Joshuen, but it's only important when the Joshuen sees it.

Right now, things aren't looking so good as Dimitri stares at Loki who knowingly now has the upper hand and is looking down at Dimitri, a nice portion of the temple and Eliseia already in ruins. The town was already abandoned as was their custom once an evil spirit entered their land, let alone a lord of hell. Dimitri, however, was determined to save at least some part of this place that has hosted him for just under a year now. Gripping Luciendar, his eyes never wandering from Loki, he prepared to battle at his full intensity. Their games were over and the battle was about to begin.

[Ryan - Loki]

“I’ve finally found you Joshuen!” Loki’s voice bellowed out through the quiet air, echoing despite half of the ancient temple having been destroyed in his arrival. The only sounds that could be herd were that of the snow-filled wind and the crackling of fire that resided across the ruins of the once beautiful city. Not even the distant cry of the cities citizens could be heard as they fled with their loved ones, the injured and the dead.

The two had been locked in battle for close to ten minutes by this point, and in all honesty Loki had sustained the upper hand from the very start. A year of pray and not a sufficient amount of practise had obviously greatly effected Dimitri’s abilities and fighting skills, whereas Loki had been immensely active during this time, and as such had greatly grown in every sense of the word. This was not a fair fight in any way, Loki knew this before going into it, and he was taking great pleasure in torturing the Joshuen.

“I told you I’d kill you for the scar you gave me.” His words were spoken quietly but echoed through the silence of the temple. The scar was open for all the world to see, as Loki never wore anything on his top half that would cover up his chest, other than his coat of course. “Do you honestly think you can defeat me?!” Quickly he swung his arm over his shoulder and clasped onto the hilt of Bane once more, swinging it over his shoulder through some nearby flames before stopping and holding it strongly in front of his body, with one hand.

As he did so flames erupted and encompassed the surface of his enormous sword. Upon Loki bringing the sword to a halt, having slashed it through the air, it caused the flames to fly off across the ground and partially through the air towards Dimitri, in the shape of the slash. It greatly resembled one of Dimitri’s Soul Waves, only the attack was created of fire rather than souls. It was merely child’s play, but until the soul warrior gave Loki something to be serious about he wouldn’t trouble himself.

[dimitri]

“Do you honestly think you can defeat me?!” The truth in his mind was that there was no possible way to defeat him at this point. He was out of practice for almost a year and Loki was obviously at the top of his game. It was obvious considering the fact that Loki was all smiles and after just ten minutes, Dimitri was winded. This was a major problem that he needed to find some kind of solution to. Normally, he was crafty enough to avoid most enemies or to get them to cause an opening for him to strike, but Loki was focussed and determined to defeat him. Still, it wouldn't hurt to give his old mind games a try, and maybe find an opening. But before he could do that, he had another issue to deal with, a wave of fire headed straight towards him and at a high velocity now.

Obviously he didn't have much time to examine the wave, so he had to assume it was directly similar to his soul wave. For a brief second, his blade once again glowed blue just as Loki had seen several times by now, but this was not an offensive strike. He slashed his own soul wave the same angle and direction that the incoming fire wave was flying at him. Thankfully, it looked like he hit it in the right spot as the he saw his soul wave completely disappear, engulfed by the fire, but it managed to hit a vital point in the wave and begin to dissipate it. Unfortunately, the wave was traveling with such velocity, that it wasn't completely gone until it passed Dimitri, thus singing part of his body and clothes. He stood his ground as the cool air of the pole felt nice on his skin, so it wasn't so terrible.

He took an offensive stance again and smirked slightly, glaring at Loki. "I see you still have your scar for the world to see. Ladies digging the mark I left on you?" The sarcasm in his voice was so evident, the winds rushing through the partially destroyed city seemed to boo at the comment. With a shrug, he turned back to Loki and for a second, closed his eyes. The winds seemingly picked up and seemed to swirl around him with what appeared to be small blue crystals that began to amass. His eyes opened and he stared into Loki's eyes in all seriousness now. This was a time that he could no longer afford to take his time. He had to end this and escape or end it and kill Loki, but the longer the battle drew out, the more his life would be at stake. His own contemplation began to emanate from the red jewel at the end of Luciendar.

The blue crystals began to expand and for what seemed like an eternity surrounded Dimitri in a cocoon shape. This was his ultimate, the culmination of his power brought out only once before, and it was only fitting that it be brought out against the person who revealed this strength to him. Emerging from the cocoon were a pair of wings, one black, one white, both of which were secured onto Dimitri. The blue sphere disappeared and he stood in his only transformation, warrior of the souls. Within the second, he was dashing near sound towards Loki to slash his being across the scar that he had once given him so long ago.

Playtime was over and this needed to end quickly, and with that in mind, he didn't stop at the quickslash. He turned and fired another soul wave directly at Loki, following him with his lightly glazed over, blue eyes, giving him some minor foresight of where Loki would go. There was no doubt in his mind that Loki would survive this onslaught, but he needed to try and even the odds here and find some way to hinder him. After a few more feet, he slid to a stop and kept his eyes locked onto Loki, being sure that Loki would not take advantage of his weariness.

[Ryan - Loki]

“Heh… ” it was a short chuckle. So he had finally brought forward his transformation had he? It seemed as if he had stopped playing and had started to take things seriously at least, well, at least as serious as his transformation would prove to be. Loki slowly moved his arms and re-sheathed Bane upon his back once more. “Awww, has the little blackbird come out to play?” he asked mockingly, flapping his arms about at his side as he sprung up, backwards, through the air in attempt to gain some space between him and the oncoming Warrior of the Souls.

Having darted backwards through the air Dimitri’s first slash of his sword came up short, the very tip of the steel blade only a few millimetres away from finely slicing through the scar across Loki’s chest. It was a close call, the last thing he wanted was a brand new scar, let alone a re-open scar. But the onslaught didn’t end there. With a flick of the wrist and a slash of his sword yet another soul wave was fired off at Loki, with a blackbird Dimitri close behind. How quaint. Loki smirked.

Quickly grabbing Bane once more Loki flung the great sword out in front of him, slicing through the middle of the soul wave. Due to him moving away from the wave it gave an extra moment or two for the wave to part upon it being sliced in two, the force of the two separate parts shredding Loki’s jacket to the point of it falling off of his torso. Shit...I really liked that jacket. but it was nothing more than a passing thought, but Loki was cocky enough and egocentric enough to piss about with Dimitri.

Suddenly Loki stopped moving, but only for a split second. His feet seemingly pressed against a hard surface, only there was nothing there but air, and in the blink of an eye Loki was moving through the air towards Dimitri, the ever closing gap between them both shortening by the second. Bane brandished in his right hand Loki took a one-handed swing at Dimitri. It would be far weaker than it could have been with two hands and his full body weight behind it, but a one-handed one would do for what he had planned.

Loki knew that his attack would at least cause Bane and Luciendar to clash, even momentarily, and when they did - if that was indeed what happened - Loki reached underneath his arm holding Bane and moved to place his palm flat against the centre of Dimitri’s chest, as he lent in towards Dimitri’s face and whispered. “Even perfection has it’s scars.” and with that he exploded a mixture of energy and fire from his palm. It wasn’t a ball, it wasn’t a blast, just a suddenly explosion of the two directed forward. Either way things were certainly becoming entertaining.

[dimitri]

It was evident that Loki was not playing around and he wanted to end this battle as quickly as possible. Not to mention he was probably pissed to lose yet another part of his persona to a soul wave just moments ago. Dimitri had to admit though, it made him smile to see that even out of practice he could still get him off guard enough to partially land a hit on him. His only regret was that there was no damage done to Loki's physical being, but his ego may have taken a shot. However, he could not afford to draw out the battle anymore than he should. His singed arms were proof enough that he was not at the top of his game at the moment.

Unfortunately, before he could think of a gameplan, he heard a boom to break the gusts of wind and looked up to see Loki shredding the sky to get to him. Clenching bane with one hand and hurling his way towards him, Dimitri now had to focus on stopping the blade that would soon threaten to cut his body severely. He was as patient as he could be and waited for the opportune moment to deflect his blade. Cutting it a lot closer than he would like, he raised Luceindar to clash with Bane, but his balance was off and he needed to use his other hand to support his blade's efforts to deflect the attack. He placed his hand on the flat of the blade and held his ground in that spot, only to realize what a grevious mistake he had made.

As he felt the palm of Loki's hand on his chest, he felt lost in his error that for a second he didn't know how to react. However, Loki's whisper echoed louder to him than the greatest boom, “Even perfection has it’s scars.” In that one instance, he feared for his being as he dropped his support hand to attempt to bat Loki's hand away while dashing in the opposite direction, trying to get as little of the blast as possible. It was too late for him though as he backed away and got good distance between the two of them.

He fell to his knee and clenched both his arms, one nearly bright red from second degree burns of Loki's attack, the other bleeding from giving into Bane's slash while he tried to escape. His breathing was ragged and difficult. The mixture of pain and cold was becoming unbearable for him to even function, and to make matters worse, he just noticed the worst thing that could possibly have occured.

At Loki's feet lay Luciendar, far away from his reach and most probably not going to come back to him easily. Loki would probably be defensive of it and make him come, considering that Loki knew he had little to no hand to hand experience. Even worse, his face began to grow pale as amidst the snow covered floor was noticeable the end of Luciendar, a bright red crystal. His heart skipped a beat and he gulped and tried to keep some kind of composure. He knew what the crystal meant and he was determined to avoid that fate. But now he needed to get the sword back, otherwise the truth of the crystal would occur sooner than he would hope.

[Ryan - Loki]

Loki’s feet softly landed upon the ground once again, his body no more worse for wear than it had been before Dimitri had gone on the attack a few moments beforehand. He merely smirked as he looked on at a slightly singed Dimitri. This was hilarious. “Dimitri, Dimitri, Dimitri… ” Loki said, forcing his voice to echo out across the partially destroyed temple. “You look a little, well, hot.” with that he burst into laughter.

It wasn’t until that moment that it really clocked to Loki that Dimitri was without his precious Luciendar, and there it was. Just off to Loki’s side, basically at his feet, lay Luciendar, Dimitri’s sword. This was too good to be true. Then it struck him, the absolute perfect idea, and what a way to have a little fun with Dimitri, to torture him, before he finally finished him off.

Slowly Loki bent down and grasped Luciendar in his palm, he could instantly feel the outrage of all the souls within the blade at one so evil such as Loki’s holding the sword in his possession. It was a good feeling, to say the least, and he could only imagine what was running through the Joshuens mind after this turn of events. Tilting his head somewhat Loki glanced on sideways at Dimitri, smirking, his burning crimson eyes glowing through the long fringe of his hair, which was handing down over his face.

Without warning Loki slammed Luciendar down into the ground, blade first, before flipping backwards through the air and landing good distance away, roughly the same distance that Dimitri was from the blade. “Now Dimitri, we’re going to play a little game.” Loki began, standing tall and brushing the hair out from his eyes. “We’re both an equal distance away from your precious sword, so the first to it, well, I don’t really have to say what will happen…” he hadn’t stopped smirking, and now he leaned forward as if getting ready to sprint.

“…Ready? Three…Two…One…GO!”