Eld had reacted a little too quickly, as just as he began his jump towards Oboreru he was sent flying past him, to crash into the shore. Instead, he had Kaze to deal with, but he was still unwilling to attack her.

He was, however, willing to spare himself some pain, so he raised his weapon to block her strike; it didn't, however, change the outcome she had intended. Unlike her, Eld had no way to resist force in air, so the downward attack still sent him plunging into the water, albeit without the bruise he would have otherwise received. Kaze would be able to use the momentum gained to get to shore as she intended.

It was fortunate that Oboreru was distracted, because Eld knew well that in the water was the last place he wanted to be. Temporarily placing the middle of his weapon between his teeth, he swam as fast as he was able back to shore; at least if/when he made it, he'd have an easier time making a difference in the battle if it was on solid ground.

Indeed, Akizets was provided all the force she needed to propel herself upward and forward in simultaneous lashing. She had herself expertly projected forward, towards the beachhead . . .

By the time that Eld hit the water, Oboreru stood up from a once ruined position upon the beach. It was the opposite shore from where Eld originally came in, and was almost excessively rocky compared to the other shore. Tears and rips were run throughout the man's clothes, but he didn't appear to be much more than bruised in a couple of places, dirty, and temporarily fatigued. He stood, briefly, with his back hunched forward and he took in a deep wheeze.

Perhaps the man felt as if he was momentarily safe within the cloud of dirt still lingering about him. It did cloud of him entirely, after all . . .

But it was a pipe dream. The dust was cleared as soon as Akizets was upon it. She landed gracefully, hitting the ground with her right foot out, hitting first with her toes and slipping down to her heel, bending subtly at her knee, and setting her next foot in front of the other, slowly, carefully, all leading to another step forward, as if she hadn't so much falling to a landing state, but landing into a walking state.

The dust cleared almost instantly. A waft of air bereaved their vicinity and disposed of Oboreru's brief concealment. The man should have been upset, but he could do little more than grin.

"I'm not going to go easy on you, sister," Oboreru declared playfully, "Not like last time."

Akizets nodded. "I didn't expect you to. But that's fine . . . it just means . . ."

The woman flipped open her fan. Rather than keeping it in her right hand, though, she swapped its position, throwing it to her left hand and catching it under handed. She flipped it about an open pinky finger twice, letting the fan rotate on momentum and subtle guidance alone, before catching it in her hand properly. It was at that very same moment that another flash of light assaulted the area for less than a fraction of a second, carrying with it a strong headwind, and leaving behind a closed steel fan within Akizetsumei's right hand.

Two fans . . .

". . . that I won't go easy on you, either."

Oboreru's grin widened, nearly filled his face ear to ear. Without so much as a word, he lifted his quarterstaff, took a strong step forward, and brought down upon his sister an initial strong swing. She batted it off course with the closed fan, but it met not the earth, and he spun the weapon reactively at the middle. It came across again, and again the woman parried, bashing the closed fan upon the northern, downward swung tip of the steel staff, halting it instantly--

But as Oboreru once proved earlier, it was difficult to put a stop to him once he started. The northern tip met the closed weapon, causing the southern tip to rise up instead, again faced towards her stomach.

This was not to be, however. It might look as if she parried again with the open fan in her left hand, stepping back with her right leg and withdrawing her closed fan, to waft the open fan towards her brother at the same speed of his strike. Just a fraction of a second before their weapons collided, though, a wind kicked up, assaulted the man's sternum and lurched him back.

Knowing what happened, Oboreru twisted on his quarterstaff in mid-air, ending with him twisting it down, embedding it into the earth, and letting himself skid to a stop. Akizets straightened up just as Oboreru did-- Oboreru, who looked at her with a furrowed brow and an amused grin.

It was at about that time that Eldridge Tsukimono once again arrived upon the scene . . .

While putting his weapon in his mouth allowed him to swim faster, it also made breathing a lot trickier; for a few seconds after he beached himself he could only cough up water that he'd swallowed.

He'd caught enough of the action in his peripheral vision, however, to realize that sitting out wasn't going to be an option. Kaze and her brother were nearly evenly matched; while she seemed to have the upper hand, at the rate they went she wouldn't beat him until it was too late. He had to get involved for any chance to end it quickly, and just had to hope that she wasn't going to aggressively attack him.

Though he didn't outright charge, Eld advanced aggressively towards Oboreru; hopefully Kaze would do the same. He might be good, but he couldn't fight both of them at the same time--assuming Kaze was actually willing to do that.

Eld beached himself, but Oboreru didn't seem to notice, or at least didn't care enough at the moment. His attention was primarily upon his sister now, who he regarded with tear soaked eyes. He brought his quarterstaff out of the ground, set it before him defensively, and inched towards Akizetsumei at about the same paced that Eld was heading for him.

Akizets, on the other hand, did notice Eld. She held her steel fan towards him, then, and almost instinctively moved towards him, just as Oboreru moved towards her and he towards Oboreru. None of them seemed to say anything, not yet. In fact, if any one person noticed, they might all slow down and approach at a slower, less aggressive pass.

The three were at a stalemate-- a very temporary stalemate, one that depended upon any one of them breaking it in order to set off what could very well be a catastrophe in the making . . .

It was a powder keg in the truest of circumstances.

Again, it was a stalemate; all three had their eyes on another, and none were willing to make an immediate move. Eld couldn't help but sigh in frustration; if Kaze would just be willing to work together with him, they could take Oboreru down in short order, but she'd already made it clear that wasn't going to happen.

Normally Eld would have been perfectly willing to wait for one of the others to make the first move, but unlike them he was working with a time limit. Every second the fight dragged on made it more likely someone in Hillcrest would get hurt or killed. Recklessness would do him no good, but he couldn't afford to wait, either.

Gathering his Qi, he broke into a run at Oboreru--but while he intended to strike at the man, the Qi was not for him. Eld realized by this point that Kaze would try and interfere with anything he did, so he readied a blast to counter her inevitable interruption: either to negate a burst of her own wind power, or to push her back if she tried to attack him with her fans.

And indeed, just as Eld expected, as soon as he dashed forward, so did Akizetsumei. Her eyes were narrowed upon him, as if he'd suddenly become the only target she was after. She kicked forward, and was already clearly faster than Eld. It was almost like she was giving him the benefit of the doubt, though, perhaps subconsciously, as she'd already displayed the ability to move short lengths in an instant, and she instead leaped towards him. Her full goal was clearly to smack him in the back of the skull with the blunt side of her closed fan.

This, however, was not to be, as Eld focused on her at the right moment to let forth a surprise gust of wind. Had she ever seen him produce such a thing? Was she even aware of the fact that he had powers at all? She might have been, she might have forgotten-- but either way, it took her off guard, sent her back several feet, but not off her own two feet. She covered her face with her arms and skidded back, leaving two trails before her feet.

However, in the moment that Eld produced a strong gust of wind in Akizetsumei's direction, Oboreru changed his focus. Akizets was no longer his immediate threat. No, not in the slightest. She wasn't the one he really wanted to hurt, anyways. That loathing was reserved specifically for Eldridge Tsukimono. It was almost as soon as Eld focused on Akizets that he spun his weapon once and swung at Eld's chest. A face hit would've been too easy to dodge, after all . . .

Sorry, Kaze, he apologized in his mind; fortunately, a blast of that size was unlikely to hurt someone even of Kaze's relatively weak constitution.

But his attention was on her only for a moment, and because Oboreru sought to capitalize on that distraction he could spare her no more than that. He fell backwards, and for a moment it might seem like the blow connected--but his opponent would feel nothing but continued air.

Eld had dropped into a slide, ducking well under the blow, but aware of the ground being a tenuous position at best he did not stay there long. Planting his hands on the ground (though, one closed into a fist, since he had to hold the scythe) he thrust himself back up feet first--using a burst of strength at his arms--and aiming a kick for Oboreru's own chest.

Since his burst of strength was concentrated on his upward momentum and not on the kick itself, it didn't have the lethality a normal attack using it would have, but it did ensure that even if Oboreru blocked it the force wouldn't be something he could readily ignore.

Oboreru stumbled back, but not by much. The man was collected; it was difficult to interrupt his constantly shifting momentum as soon as he started-- a fact would led him, instead, to stumble back by only a few feet, before digging one foot into the ground and spinning a single rotation, allowing the backwards momentum to play itself out as a means of stabilizing himself.

It was the moment that he was stable again that Oboreru, with a flash of a childish smile across his face, charged Eld again. He began to spin the quarterstaff again, fully intending to strike down with a horizontal blow, but . . .

The distance between Oboreru and Eld was suddenly filled. Eld, who'd just stood up and Oboreru, who'd just began his charge, interrupted by Akizetsumei.

Both fans were shut this time. She had little intention of pushing either of the two men away in the near future, it seemed. Just as before, the warning of her immediate arrival in their space was that of a powerful gust of wind; not powerful enough to knock either man off of their feet, but enough that they'd recognize they had someone else to contend with.

Coming along with this, however, was a blow like a slap to Eld's face, except one that actually had a cutting edge. It would cut across Eld's cheekbone and down to his chin if she managed to hit him, all the while her other hand and closed fan was devoted to blocking a downward strike from Oboreru. This, however, grounded her immediately, forcing her to bend at her knees for the sake of support against the blow-- though, it also served to amplify the strength of both her swipe and the simultaneous block . . .

Eld's vaulting kick managed to connect, and he sprung lightly off his chest into a back flip, landing lightly on his feet. He may not have been as graceful as Kaze, but in practicing how to glide he'd gotten a lot better at acrobatics than he used to be.

But even as he started to block Oboreru's attack, raising his scythe over his head with both hands, it was instead blocked for him by Kaze's arrival, foreshadowed only by a brief gust of wind.

Unfortunately, since Eld was prepared to block a different attack he could get his weapon in between his face and Kaze's fan, and she succeeded in cutting him, a line of blood drawn from his cheek to his chin. It wasn't particularly deep, but it made him wince.

Rather than retaliate against her, though, he extended left hand in front of her, and Kaze would feel the ripple of wind across her chest as he loosed another Qi blast, this one aimed past her at her brother.

Akizetsumei's fan ran across Eld's face; it was meant to be a slash, and while it didn't cut him too deeply, it did glide across his face. That weapon, held underhanded for the sake of ease, passed by Eld's head as her arm did-- and unlike Oboreru, she didn't manipulate the flow of her own body. She wound up turned somewhat, mostly facing her back to Eld and front to her brother, who was still a source of holding resistance against her other fan. It made her privy to him, who posed something of a stronger threat, comparatively.

While Oboreru's momentum would seem to have been stopped short, it continued. At the point of his previous overhead attack, his hands were close together upon the quarterstaff. Now, one let go . . .

As Eld pushed one hand past Akizetsumei, Oboreru took hold of the woman by the wrist, the right wrist, the same hand that blocked his attack prior. He was about to drag her in towards himself, but plans changed rather quickly. Eld created another powerful gust of wind, one to strike Oboreru in his chest-- something which was already hurting quite a bit, more than he expected, considering his thoughts on Eld's previous kick --as a means of throwing him back. He did just that, but the same thing happened as before. Oboreru stumbled several paces, and worked to stop himself.

The only difference, this time, was that his sister was suddenly dragged along with him. She kept her balance perfectly; it was next to impossible to knock her to her feet without physically harming her, after all. Akizets walked forward as if it were choreographed, but she didn't expect her brother to suddenly spin around. She especially didn't expect him to have his steel quarterstaff hoisted up and held against his back, perfectly parallel to the ground, wedged between his shoulder and arm holding Akizets and held with his other hand.

Akizets didn't spin with him, nor did she follow him. Instead, she tried to worm her wrist away from him, whilst raising her left hand; Oboreru was spinning opposite to her, to move towards her back, and she fully intended to strike him with a backhand as soon as he was in range of her left hand. She didn't expect the quarterstaff, wedged across his back, to strike her in shoulderblades. Akizets tightened up immediately. One foot was placed forward strongly, as her eyes grew wide and mouth fell agape.

However, with the pole still pressed up against her back, she was powerless to stop her brother when he let go of her wrist, grabbed the polearm with both hands again, and twisted it harshly: a strong horizontal strike that batted the woman in the opposite direction of the initial strike, something which was vastly less powerful than the first one. Akizetsumei was flung forward, dropping her weapons as she hit the ground chest first-- and curled up, whilst she let out the smallest of whines, but the kind of whine only uttered by someone who was suddenly on the brink of bawling in pain.

Oboreru had a vicious combo lined up for Kaze, but he was neglecting an important fact: he was facing two opponents, not one. After firing the Qi burst, Eld followed the two like a shadow. He couldn't prevent the first strike, but when Oboreru let go of Kaze Eld grabbed her instead, yanking her out of the way from the second attack. It wasn't likely to hurt her, especially compared to a hit from a steel staff, but in order to get her out of the way in time he couldn't afford to be gentle either.

With a glare, Eld stepped in, not giving Oboreru time to recover as swung both ends of the scythe rapidly, delivering a flurry of blows. Rather than any one being decisive, he was trying to keep his opponent on the defensive, make him slip up and create an opening.

And Oboreru would find that while Eld lacked his raw skill, he made up for it with his reactions: every time he went to block Eld would adjust his strike minutely, so that every blow made the next harder to intercept.

Akizetsumei didn't expect any of it. Oboreru's tactics, which bordered somewhat on grappling, and Eld's rescue of her-- though it didn't quite feel like one to her. To her, she felt her other arm grabbed after Oboreru's first attack, something which had her stunned in pain to begin with, and before she knew it, her shoulder was hitting the ground hard, followed soon after by the left side of her face. For a moment, there, she did nothing more than lay on the ground in pain, whimpering silently. It felt like someone had broken her back and shoulder. It wasn't the case, but genuinely, the feeling was the exact same to her . . .

Eldridge Tsukimono then commence an attack that lead to a mess-- a difficult to follow slur of movements between he and Oboreru.

It started with the first blow. That one-- that one got him. It had a downward edge to it, struck Oboreru right in the shoulder, cut down across his shoulder, flew off at the middle of his chest, departed from his body, and came back around as a second blow. By that moment, however, Oboreru had already stepped back hard, putting enough distance between he and Eld to cover the second blow. As if he weren't bleeding at all, he lifted his quarterstaff with both hands at the middle, and parried the second blow: a shot aimed much like an upward slash, using the same end that cut him the first time.

The block sent the next edge coming, but at a bit of a disadvantage on Eld's case: it required him to turn himself around to make use of the momentum he, himself, gained with Oboreru's downward parry. This was impractical when slow, but when spinning quickly, it helped to boost one's own momentum entirely. This, however, Oboreru stepped back again to avoid. Unfortunately for him, that lifted Eldridge Tsukimono's temporary space problem, and a downward attack was viable again.

And, perhaps as expected, Oboreru clashed against it-- but only for the opposite end of the scythe to come around from below, a trick Oboreru had used against both Eld and Akizetsumei. It was a bit of a dirty trick, but it required a lot of skill to pull off. Unfortunately for Eld, this was Oboreru's trick, and likely something that he learned from experiencing it first hand.

Oboreru let go of the quarterstaff with his left hand, and let his right guide the block. he used this time a different technique: a single handed technique, one geared just for this sort of situation. Having only one hand upon the pole reduced the basic strength of one's attacks, but amplified the strength tremendously as momentum was gained. The block knocked the pole back and lead to another attack with the north end of Eld's double-edged scythe, which was met by the other side of Oboreru's staff. Oboreru rotated the weapon in his hand. The strength of the first blow sent it in one direction quickly, the next knocked it in the opposite even quicker. With a roll of his hand, he let the steel pole make a single rotation before the hitting against Eld's next southern-blade strike, before letting the strength of that double the speed again, caressing two whole rotations before the next parry-- three, four, five--

It was all he needed. Eld's own flurry of blows were met with a blinding fury that was Oboreru's own raw skill. He spun the quarter staff at a rapid pace with one hand, spinning it before him, moving it to his side just a bit, and even switching hands in mid-spin when Eld threw out a horizontal attack at Oboreru's left.

It was just a matter of time until Oboreru, who'd been backing up during the process, finally stopped backing up and took a step forward. His parries became more aggressive. He switched hands more often. He used the added strength of two hands on the weapon at once during the switch to time out parries, to knock back Eld's own blade-- and he'd move forward, pushing, now, just as Eld had pushed-- attacking, now, just as Eld had attacked.

Eld started strong on the offensive, pushed by a simmering anger at seeing Kaze get hurt and, after his first attack connected, a sudden, in explicable desire to draw more.

But it wasn't long before the tide was turned against him again. It was frustrating, as the difference between their skill was becoming clear to him; while he could react very quickly to every move, he simply didn't have the experience or training to know what move was the best one--his attempt to use one of Oboreru's tricks against him backfired and put him in the position to begin with.

Which meant that Eld wouldn't win like this; he had to rely more on his other abilities, mix them in--every time he tried to attack with one ability alone he seemed to fail to do anything, but the few times he'd mixed them up he'd done a bit of damage.

Increasing his momentum with each blow, Oboreru's strikes only got fiercer, causing Eld's arms to ache every time he blocked, until finally a brutal strike aimed down diagonally forced him to let go with one hand in order to get the scythe in place to block the following horizontal attack in time, aimed right for his ribs.

Oboreru should have easily overpowered him with that blow and either disarmed him or sent him sprawling, but he'd find Eld pushing his staff away with far more force than he should have had.

Eld used a strength burst to add more than enough force where he should have been lacking it, and stepping forward threw a punch with his now-free right hand at Oboreru's chest, where he'd been hit before and also where it'd be difficult to avoid.

In a dark world, a shadeling, concentrating to the very best of her ability, broke concentration when she felt a strong, almost feral sensation. She let out a gasp, before a brief pain flared throughout her stomach. It wasn't the kind of discomforting pain of a stomach ache, either. It was something like . . .

Hunger.

The shadeling shook her head and disregarded this feeling. She returned swiftly to concentrating on the battle at hand. Truth be told, if she didn't focus, Eld lost her ability to anticipate blows the moment they were thrown out.

Eld blocked another one handed strike; had Oboreru been thinking about it, he'd have made it a two handed strike, as Eld himself looked as if he'd been thrown off his guard. But alas, he continued with the raw speed tactics that he'd introduced as soon as he turned the tide of the battle, and when the south side of his weapon met Eld's scythe, it was thrown back-- not out of his hand, but Oboreru himself was forced to reverse its spin so he did not lose it.

This, in turn, sent it coming for Eld with the other side, in the opposite direction, though by that point, Tsukimono already threw out his other hand . . .

Oboreru would smash down on Eld's shoulder at just the moment that Eld's fist connected with the left side of Oboreru's chest-- something which was still bleeding badly. If connected, Eld would hear a gasp and a cry of pain, as a shadeling huddled in a dark world, clutching her shoulder, and buried her head in her lap in the midst of a series of shocked gasps. That, perhaps, would hurt him worse than the pain in his actual shoulder-- something which would otherwise break under Oboreru's attack, but would, in actuality, retain little more than a bruise . . .

Eld saw the attack, but was already committed to his own and couldn't avoid it in time. Truthfully he'd underestimated Oboreru again, as he thought his step in would have eliminated the chance of being countered--but Oboreru's skill with the quarterstaff was high, and he'd managed to twist it around and continue the assault.

The attacks hit at about the same time, but while his shoulder hurt it wasn't the bone-jarring impact he'd expected--instead, he was more startled by the sudden cry that echoed through his head.

Assuming Oboreru didn't immediately assault him, Eld would take a step back to collect himself and check on his partner. Kageko, are you alright? What happened? He knew Kageko was less resistant to pain than he was, but that attack hardly damaged him; it shouldn't have been any worse for her.