Room 56 [Safer]

OoC: I absolutely despise the quality, creativity and length of this post, but I said I’d finish it today; regardless of how uninspired I feel.

IC:

Heishuro,

I’d like you to meet me in Room 56 today, for a rather special assignment. I won’t explain fully in this note, but it will certainly be unique to anything you’re likely to experience in your time here.

Orysius Solian

With that more than slightly charred note from his teacher clutched in his hand, Heishuro was making his way down the narrow hallways of the Dome. Although curiosity accompanied his anticipation, anxiety was—and rightfully—the victor of his emotions.

“…thirty-five… thirty-six…” Maruchi murmured distractedly.

It wasn’t every day that Orysius prepared a “special assignment”, and this would be Heishuro’s first taste of anything “unique” from his routine.

“…forty-one … forty-two…”

Racking his memory, the student couldn’t recollect what Room 56 held. He doubted he had ever been in there, but that gave no reason for him not to try to remember.

“…forty-nine… fifty…”

Unlike these teaching quarters; the rooms in the living quarters of the dome bore no names on them, so the only way to remember your room was to memorise your direct neighbours. Luckily for Maruchi, there weren’t many people called “Gorg” or “Victor Stone” in the Dome. Even more luckily for the fighter; he had never met either of them.

“…fifty-five and…”

Heishuro frowned as his eyes came to rest on a door with no number on it. Fifty-five and fifty-seven were either side of the nameless door, so this was surely the door that Solian had meant; but this gave no comfort to Maruchi, who opened the door with extra caution.

“Well,” Orysius said, smiling at his student before him, “I can see I don’t have to teach you punctuality. Good…” He outstretched his hands, turning his head about in a gesture for Heishuro to look upon all that was around them. The fighter stood in the doorway before a long bridge that outstretched towards a floating two-on-two arena on which Orysius stood—one that hung from nowhere in an endless sky.

“Come along,” Orysius said. “I’d like to dance with you.”

It was all Orysius could do to hold down a chuckle at Heishuro’s expression.

“Dance?” the fighter asked. “Here…? Why?”

Orysius laughed. “I speak merely in metaphors, my friend. I mean to fight you.”

Heishuro shrugged, and wordlessly withdrew his nunchaku.

“A most peculiar weapon,” Orysius said quietly, unbuckling the Xoeda and tossing it to the side. He grabbed the fringe of his cloak as well, and threw it on top of his sword, revealing a pair of blue crystalline gauntlets on his forearms. “A sword isn’t suited for fighting against such. You will have my own hands to contend with!”

It was then that Orysius rushed forward, and jumped in the air as the nunchaku were swung. He landed gracefully behind Heishuro, and ducked again as the fighter—quick in his reflexes—turned around with a swing of his foreign weapon. Just as Heishuro extended his arm, Orysius wrapped his own around it, twisting it backwards and bringing Heishuro down to the ground. However, the fighter had anticipated this, and swept his leg under the back of Orysius’; they both fell into a heap upon the floor of the floating arena.

“Very good!” Orysius said, standing back up into a fighting stance. “Your reflexes are superb.” He smirked as Heishuro rose to his feet. “But your insight fails you. Look at your arm.”

Heishuro took a glance at the arm Orysius had pulled him down with, and saw blood flowing down it. Alarmed, he looked back up to see Orysius holding his own arm up, smiling—sharp points not before seen flowed from the sides of his gauntlets, glistening in crimson.

Biting his lip, Heishuro took a deep breath and let a pulse of liquid flow from his nunchaku, which iced on his perspiration; and chilled in his blood.

“Be glad that that was merely razor wire,” Orysius rose from the floor, “rather than anything more deadly.”

Feeling his cheeks burn a furious scarlet, the martial artist responded passed the verbal, kicking himself to his feet in the same heartbeat as letting Xuriken bite at the captain; lightning flicking its barbed tongue in unison. Orysius raised his arms at an “X” to prevent the attack, but hissed in agony as he felt the velocity of heat writhe in his forearm’s marrow.

“Don’t get cocky, Orysius,” Maruchi mocked in a parallel tone to Solian’s. “Overconfidence killed the cat.”

“That’s curiosity, but I appreciate the endeavour.” His brow descended into a face that contrasted his words.

As if on cue, the pair rushed each other, coming together in a flurry of fists and metal. Levitating himself mid-jump, the crimson fighter swung his left foot towards his teacher’s face, modifying his chainsaw kick. Yet he failed to compensate for Orysius’ two free hands, and realised the obvious way as his foot was and pushed upwards, uprooting the elevated Maruchi.

Solian smiled as his student broke his magical concentration and crashed to the floor in a awkward mess, his left leg bent painfully under his right. His intake of breath sharpened as he noticed the base of his crimson trousers blacken in blots. He lifted his left leg’s trouser to reveal a fresh—and slightly deeper—array of cuts; almost patterned it its splatter.

“If you learn of your adversary’s strengths, do not let them use them!” the captain yelled in an emotionless tone to hide his disappointment. “You mustn’t let them-ugh!”

The guard groaned as his legs gave way beneath him, solely due to Heishuro hooking his left leg behind the officer’s knees, then giving him a powerful kick to the abdomen.

Bringing his knees into his chest, Maruchi used his leg power to kick himself to his feet, shadowing Shawn Michaels from his days in Japan.

“I ought to explain you the same thing, teacher.”