rakuen | Round 4 | Day 4 - [See the Setting Sun]

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Round 4 | Day 4 - [See the Setting Sun]

Zoro Roronoa vs. Sherlock Holmes

Weapons: Theta Buckley, Lloyd Asplund
Location: Main Courtyard
Time of day: Late Morning

If the truth were to be known, Zoro actually felt a little nervous about this battle. 'Nervous' may have been the wrong word to use, though - excitement, however, was too strong on the opposite side. Either way, there was a thrill to be sure, one that sent a current of pure lightning running up and down the length of his spine.

But why? Zoro had faced dozens of opponents before; strong ones, enemies capable of ripping apart galleons with their bare hands and foes as fast or as powerful as gods, so a powerless battle here would hardly be anything dramatic.

While there was something to be said about the danger of having his real, hard-earned strength removed and being forced to fight without it, the thrill today came from fighting with a less-than-orthodox weapon; more specifically, the thrill of not knowing if he could win in such a fashion.

Standing in the center of the courtyard, though, Zoro showed no sign of his inner discomposure. As always, his arms locked over his chest, he stared straight ahead with an aire of discipline, while still somehow exuding the unequivocal sense of tangibile bloodlust and ferocity. With Theta beside him, his Weapon of choice for his second battle of the day, he waited for his opponent to arrive.

Zoro glanced at her from the side, but he did so as briefly as possible, hoping she wouldn't notice. The challenge had been issued so quickly that he hadn't even had a chance to practice with her 'weapon' - marbles. An unconventional means of fighting to be certain, Zoro had thought of a few crazy ways that he might be able to fight effectively with her, but as the saying goes, 'all the best laid plans'...

He wanted to win, though. Not just for himself, for the chance to determine how successful his training had been, but perhaps for the long-shot chance to prove to Theta...well, prove something to her about her attitude. He hadn't quite figured out just what yet.

"Hmph..." he grunted, sounding oddly impatient for someone who normally prided himself on his conduct. "C'mon, buddy. It'd be great to get this over with."

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"Don't tell me you're nervous," came Theta's easy reply. She didn't think he could win with her weapon, though she had promised him her full support. "I'm putting my strength in, the least you can do is put in your composure." Her words were bold, but not acidic. Perhaps there was a bubbling respect growing for him.

"Though it would be even more helpful if you'd tell me what it is you expect me to do," she mused. Yes, that would help greatly. What did a weapon do besides stand on the sidelines while the players fought?

Sherlock and Lloyd approach from the direction of Lloyd's repurposed classroom. Sherlock has something in his pocket.

He has explained already that he will only be using it if he has to. The risks are too great otherwise; he does not know that it will win him the battle, after all, and he does know that the administration does not take kindly to cheating.

The first thing he does on arriving in the courtyard, therefore, is study his opponent closely. He has seen the man around, of course. The population of this supposed academy is not yet so large that Sherlock cannot keep track of them all. But he has never made a careful analysis. Now he has to, because now he has to decide if a conventional battle will do the trick.

As for Sherlock's own fighting ability, he doesn't look like much at first glance. There are dark circles under his eyes and he is rather small and altogether not imposing. But the way he moves puts the lie to that: easy, efficient, quietly graceful, as though every step is calculated in advance and the calculation is a trivial one.

"Hell no, I'm not nervous," Zoro suddenly shot back, his tone rather exaggerated. "You just watch! I'm going to kick this guy's ass!"

No sooner had the words left his mouth, Zoro's eyes widened; strangely, he seemed a bit embarassed by his own reaction, turning away and clearing his throat suddenly in hopes of regaining his poise.

Zoro is still practically bleeding ferocity from his pores, giving off a purely animalistic sense to anyone with the proper perception, and as Sherlock finally arrives and steps into view, Zoro stares him down instantly, the depths of his eyes losing their humanity in lieu of a chilling sort of venom. His body tenses, pushing his athletic shape closer to the surface; his posture is perfect, as he carries himself tall and upright, and as befitting a prroud warrior, he stands ready.

"You don't really have to do anything," he replied, though he kept his eyes glued on Sherlock the entire time. His voice was lower than usual, practically growling. "Once I draw your Weapon out, we're in this together - we fight together, my strength and your's. Trust in me, the same as I'm trusting in you."

With surprising tenderness, despite the emergence of his killer's instinct and the explosion of muscle across his body, Zoro touched Theta's shoulder with his Exaclan glove, causing the Clockwork Balls to appear, clutched in his palms.

"But when Suzaku fought me, he didn't use you at all," he added quietly. Holding up one of the brass balls in his hand, Zoro raised it up to eye-level directly between himself and Theta. "No trust, no strength."

With as many as he could fit in each hand, Zoro pocketed the rest, then began to pace towards Sherlock. He said nothing, leaving his malevolent expressions to speak volumes for him as he waited for Sherlock to draw his own Weapon and officially begin the fight.

Well then.

He turns to Lloyd and speaks softly, appearing entirely unconcerned.

"May I?"

Ah, but Lloyd had countered by saying they would never know if they didn't take those risks. That, however, is back then, not here and now. He gave a cheerful wave and smile to the swordsman and the other Weapon, then an equally cheery look to Sherlock.

"Haha, what a scary looking man~. Well, go right ahead. I certainly didn't come here to just watch!" And, quieter, he added, "If you could keep the emitter concealed at all should you use it, I would appreciate it, but..." He shrugged. "We'll see what happens!"

He draws Lloyd's staff, spins it once, and then hands it back.

"I believe the contest will be more even if you keep this," he says with a slight smile.

The emitter is indiscriminate. He is not going to take the chance on destroying his own weapon at the same moment that he destroys his opponent's. He will have to get close enough to touch, far enough from Lloyd that he is certain the staff is out of range, and then trigger the device and hope that, whatever else happens, it grants him an official victory.

With this strategy in mind, Sherlock turns to face Zoro.

As Sherlock, having armed and then disarmed himself, turned towards Zoro, he was greeted not with a gutteral snarl nor an echoing battlecry, but instead, with a sigh.

"You're no fun, y'know that?" he said, shaking his head.

All that effort to get himself psyched up, excited for the fight, thirsty for the impending carnage, to display his inner strength, and his opponent does not respond in kind.

"Look, just..." he began, then exhaled again, releasing an exasperated breath. "...sorry, it's just hard for me to enjoy this when you don't get into it."

With that, Zoro threw out the ceremonial first punch, launching his arm forward into a quick, biting jab.

Sherlock laughs, dodging to the side—away from Lloyd.

"I could almost be convinced you were discussing something other than violence," he says dryly.

Zoro steps to the side as well, mirroring Sherlock's movement. He takes another swing, thrusting hard with each attempted blow with his entire frame behind them.

The second comes a little closer than the first, but Sherlock still manages to skip out of the way, and he still doesn't counterattack. Neither of those conditions is likely to persist past a third strike, and he has not yet gone far enough to cheat.

Zoro's displeasure with the fight grows, but now that the battle has started, an uncanny sense of calm and focus is the only semblance of emotion he shows.

Another attack is thrown, but this one comes with a feint with his left fist before whipping his right around in a hook.

With a small part of his attention still continually devoted to calculating his distance from Lloyd, Sherlock dodges again. This time, however, he is not quite fast enough; the blow catches his shoulder.

He cannot hit that hard. If he wants to keep up long enough to put fifteen feet between the pair of them and his Weapon, he will just have to move faster—although he can already tell he does not have nearly the speed advantage here that he is used to having over his fellow humans—and aim more precisely. For Zoro's jaw, for example.

As a swordsman, Zoro is used to intercepting fast attacks; keen and razor-thin, blades often travel faster and with greater lethality than fists and feet, and his eyes have grown accostomed to following an opponent's aim.

While he does follow Sherlock's movements and his attacks, he does not perceive 'why' the man moves in such a fashion; all Zoro does is interpret immediate danger and parry accordingly. Using his arms as he would a sword to deflect and respond instantly, he forcefully bats the fist away before it can flow close enough to his jaw, then responds by lashing out with a one-two thrust of his knee towards Holmes' stomach and an uppercut aimed at his throat.

Sherlock is beginning to get a sense of how Zoro fights; he cedes his ground again to avoid both attacks. That's ten feet at least. Far enough to chance it?

Not yet, he decides. Accordingly, he takes another half-step back and launches a roundhouse kick at Zoro's side.

Zoro takes the kick, only 'able' to take a half-step away in order to lessen the impact; Sherlock's foot sinks in nicely against his side, finding a bit of purchase into his muscled body.

On his face, though, Zoro smiles wolfishly as if he enjoyed the experience, and instantly moves to grab his opponent's leg there. If he were quick enough to get a firm hold, he'd pull the man in towards him, then viciously ram a fist, combined with the weight and thickness of the brass balls in his hands, squarely towards Sherlock's forehead.

Thankfully, Sherlock retreats in time. The fact that he is barely able to keep ahead is worth noting. He hangs back cautiously, as though the near escape has made him wary of attacking again.

Forcing himself to dismiss the pain from the kick, Zoro presses forward even as Sherlock manages to slip away, his own style too aggressive for a pause. Moving swiftly in, the hunger in his eyes apparent, he thrusts one of his legs forward, aiming to stamp his foot down on his opponents and throw off his footing.

A prime excuse for Sherlock to move back another step, which he does, watching for an opening but still reluctant to match aggression for aggression.

Zoro's blood is boiling; he clearly wants a piece of Sherlock, but every move he makes remains perfectly focused and alert. He continues to make more efforts to trip Sherlock up, but, begins to mix in additional swings with his balled-up fists.

Suddenly, in the middle of his flurry of attacks, he stops, plants a foot as a pivot, then makes a sudden, quick spin. The twist, using a nice dash of momentum, lets Zoro thrust his arms out quickly, his hands releasing the few of Theta's Clockwork Balls he is carrying, sending a small grouping of them hurtling towards Sherlock.

Sherlock lets Zoro's forceful tactics push him back farther and farther. Fifteen feet, then sixteen, seventeen—

He'd like to have a little more distance, but Lloyd is now outside the range of the emitter as he judges it, and he knows from experience that he can't catch Theta's weapon without hurting her. If one of those brass spheres rolls a little too far away, his entire strategy is shot. Now or never.

He stops retreating and throws an arm up to protect his face, the obvious movement distracting attention from the way his other hand slides against his pocket to trigger the EMP device. Every part of Theta's weapon is within arm's reach; if it works as it did during their first test, every part of Theta's weapon is about to break.

Zoro doesn't see Sherlock preparing to execute his plan; he only sees the balls flying towards him, and his effort to shield himself from the impact.

Of course, this was his own plan - get Sherlock to guard, focused only on the projectile attack, while he sprints in, digging his feet deep and hard to move as fast as he can. Zoro leaps at his opponent, tossing a punch with every ounce of rock-smashing strength he can muster around Sherlock's guard.

The device is triggered. Zoro is in mid-air, and the brass balls are only inches away from Sherlock. They shatter and dissolve, however, before striking him.

Zoro does not shatter or dissolve, nor does the fist still aimed at the side of Sherlock's head.

He drops back, not quite fast enough. Zoro's fist catches his upraised arm in almost exactly the same spot that took a kick from Suzaku two days ago. Sherlock manages not to wince.

"Excuse me," he says a little breathlessly, "but I feel it is incumbent upon me to point out that the battle is over."

The fact that Lloyd's staff has also disappeared—not shattered, just vanished, the way weapons usually do when they are no longer needed—is sign enough of that.

Theta's eyes went wide when the balls disappeared. How had that even happened? Was it a mistake? But Sherlock seemed to know they had disappeared for a reason. She wasn't sure if she should be proud of him or outraged that the fight had stopped short for no apparent reason.

Somehow, she settled on simply being shocked. "How did you do that?" she demanded, not angry at him, but her surprise showing through clearly in her tone.

Zoro's arms were still tensed, still raised up and still ready to fight, and with eyes aflame and glued upon Sherlock suspiciously, he reached testingly down to his pockets in hopes of finding Theta's weapon still there.

It wasn't.

Zoro grabs the collar of Sherlock's shirt, looking positively enraged, unlike Theta. "Yeah, do tell! What did you do!?"

He can't help it. The opportunity is too good to resist.

"Magic," he says cheerfully.

The kind from which sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable, of course. Tony would laugh himself silly.

Releasing his grip, Zoro steps back, but the fire in his eyes have not yet been extinguished. As he glares at Sherlock, his body screams at him, urging him to continue the fight and not allow this to go unchallenged - it was cowardly! It was dishonorable! It was...well, clever, but still!

But he can't. It has nothing to do with the rules of the system, though; he is simply physically unable to go against his own code of conduct, murky as it was.

Zoro straightens his clothes, brushes a few loose strands of grass from his shoes, then holds his head up confidently as he regards his victorious opponent. It did feel a bit odd to walk away from a fight without having gained any new sense of strength or not to be suffering from any new wounds, but signalled by a soft sigh he exhaled from the pit of his lungs, he knew that the fight was truly over.

He opens his mouth to speak, but...nothing emerges. Nothing comes to mind.

Instead, he turns towards Theta. Masking his frustration, he nods to her.

"I'm sorry," he simply says, then turns and begins to walk away.

Sherlock finds that reaction very... curious.

And the entire time, Lloyd has been lingering off to the side. He did stumble a step when the staff Sherlock had given him for safekeeping vanished -- due to the fight's end, not the emitter -- but that was all. The scientist has been watching quietly, intently, otherwise.

Thankfully no one here knows he's usually more chatty than this, but that smile on his face. It's like the cat that ate the canary.

Theta watched Zoro leave, not sure if she should feel victorious in his loss to Sherlock...or cheated by such an underhanded means to victory. She'd wanted Sherlock to win, but....

She nodded in reply to him, then turned her attention to Sherlock. "Now for the truth, Sherlock. How did you do that? I doubt it was 'magic' at all."

She turned to look at Sherlock's weapon in the fight, taking note of his overly pleased expression. She'd want to talk to him later, but for now she merely nodded politely at him.

"It is not mine to tell, I am afraid." He smiles apologetically. "Let it suffice to say I have access to unusual resources, and I did not wish to chance losing an ordinary battle against such a formidable opponent."

She frowns softly, not sure what to say to that. All in all, it sounds like it's her fault, then. She nods quietly, trying to smile again. She manages, but it's obviously for politeness' sake. "Oh... I'm grateful you went to such lengths for me."

He shrugs.

"I'd have done the same for anyone. You wanted to leave him; he did not let you. I won't stand for that."

"Mm...he wasn't so bad once I had a chance to really talk to him..." She sighed, shaking her head. "I just got upset that Suzaku lost. You're not going to get in trouble for your 'magic trick', are you?"

"The administration is generally quick about registering their displeasure. If I am not in trouble for it yet, I am not ever likely to be."

She nodded quietly, her smile firming up at that. "Well...I suppose as long as there won't be trouble~."

"I am sure if I want trouble I can find other ways to get it," he says cheerfully.

"We~ell," she says, drawing her word out dramatically. "If it's going to be ~fun~, then perhaps you'd better invite me along for whatever you come up with~."

"You may be sure I will consider it."

As to whether or not he actually issues such an invitation, well, that depends on his assessment of the risks.

Her face, for a moment, is the picture of shock. Then of careful plotting. Then she reaches for his hand, playfully whining. "Sherlo~ock, you wouldn't leave me o~out, would you~?"

"I see no reason for him to include you, either~."

Suddenly, Lloyd. He lives to be an interruption. As ever, he sounds awfully cheerful, but at least he has cause today. Today's been a good day! He's walked over to give Sherlock a pat on the shoulder. "Good show! But if we're done here, I think it's time to go."

"I will at all times include exactly those persons whom I think suitable to the task at hand," he says, smiling very prettily at her. "And if you will excuse me, I have some business to take care of, but I look forward to speaking with you again on the subject of trouble."

Theta was stunned wordless, which was a very unusual occurrence. Nonetheless, she was flabbergasted and couldn't come up with a single thing to say to him. She just watched him, wouldn't even stop him trying to leave. Of course, without that other young man around, she'd corner him to talk to him in the dorm later, she firmly thought to herself.

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Round 4 | Day 4 - [See the Setting Sun]

Zoro Roronoa vs. Sherlock Holmes

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