"I'm on it!"

The seemingly useless in a fight, apparently defenseless, rather silly girl in the ornate kimono broke off into a run after the bandits. She didn't even appear to have her weapon on her, insofar as any observer could tell... but Torako herself knew better. Regardless, to any observes, including the people she had come here with, her actions looked completely and utterly foolish. In any case, Torako didn't want to let them escape. She'd catch up to them as quickly as possible, and, well... she'd have to see from there, wouldn't she? That was that, quite simply.

Xin nodded slightly as Kyang pointed out that the bandits would want to surround someone, and that there might be some who had taken to the trees like themselves. He broadened his field of view further...

On the other side of the road, just as Kyang had suspected, something too large to be an animal moved in the treetops. There was an almost reflective quality to parts of it--exposed skin on the hands and face, something that in monochrome vision caught the light of the sun in a way that plant matter and fur didn't. Dai Xin focused on the movement, memorizing the body shape as color rushed back and time's natural flow resumed...

In the few seconds it took to reorient himself, Liu fended off an attack but took a wound. Dai Xin's already stony face became as hard and sharp as flint as the younger man bore the pain in his shoulder. Liu pointed and shouted.

The main body of the tree behind Dai Xin let out a sharp crack. The red-robed man flew like an arrow himself, his footprint leaving a deep imprint in the wood. He soared in an arc over the road, pulling his legs up to his chest and throwing his arms back as if he were flapping wings. He came down on another branch across the way, landing on all fours and scurrying along its length for just a moment, to get his feet under him, then shot off again at an angle. He landed, and stood straight this time, along the length of another branch--the same one the fleeing archer had just jumped to himself. He saw the man's eyes widen in fear even as honed reflexes drew the bow and let loose a shaft. Dai Xin ducked under it and darted to the side, leaping again and this time stepping off of the trunk of the tree. In mid air he twisted and kicked the man across the face. The man's head spun as his jaw let out a loud crack, and the bow dropped from limp hands as he began to tumble off the branch.

Dai Xin's hand shot out and caught him. Then the world suddenly became a rush of wind and color as they returned to the road. Dai Xin landed with a loud thump, a cloud of dust shooting away from the point of impact. As he stood, he held the stunned thief fully off the ground by the collar, like a kitten, with a single hand.

"Young master, there were too many arrows for one archer." he said quickly. "Keep this one for questioning or as a hostage--I shall pursue!" He dropped the man to the ground in a tumble, and turned back towards the forest...

Kyang wished she could have paid more attention. These bandits outright shot to kill. Now that they were fleeing, they probably intended to disappear so they could take more shots. However, now that Xin had played his hand, there was no telling how they would react. If they were lucky, the bandits would focus on him. He probably had an easier time deflecting arrows than most, if they could even lead him as a target.

The reaction Kyang had was just the same as everyone else at first. She jumped through the trees in pursuit of their assailants, barely keeping up with the injured Liu. But if they know we'll pursue, perhaps they'll try to use that to their advantage, Kyang's eyes widened. She was wrong about the bandits needing someone to bumble into a trap on the road. If it was bounty hunters they knew they were dealing with, then they could lure one into being surrounded on their own terms. "Watch your feet!" Kyang shouted below, "Don't let them lure you into traps!"

In preparation, Kyang took her glaive off her shoulder and held it in one hand. It was easier to move fast when using it as a balancing pole anyway.

Moving through a forest at high speeds was one thing, but doing so with an arrow stuck in a shoulder was a completely different story. Liu, forcefully ignoring the pain that came about as the arrow shook around inside of his arm, broke into a run. Xin's dropping of a hostage in front of him, though, caused Liu to stumble momentarily before catching himself against the trunk of a tree. The arrow, luckily enough, hadn't been messed with this entire time, but things could likely get worse if it wasn't dealt with. This was a good a time as ever, it seemed, to take a moment's reprieve as the others did their thing.

"Understood. I'll stay behind here, then," Liu replied, looking around before taking some of the nearby vines and wrapping the victim of Xin's scare tactics onto the trunk of a nearby tree. With that fighter secured, Liu took a deep breath and, preparing himself for the worst, began to slowly work the arrow out of his shoulder.

Arrows, it seemed, hurt a lot more coming out than they did going in.

---

The chase in the trees above, however, became a lot more chaotic once the archers from earlier moved deeper into the forest. Left and right, forward and back, up and down... It was as if another group of archers had suddenly joined in the fight. In actuality, the ordeal was a series of tripwires that the bandits were triggering to fire as they moved, causing chaos on both sides of the fight. One barked an order unintelligible to anyone not in his immediate vicinity, and the remaining assailants split their forces all over the place. Down below, one of the fleeing bandits dropped to the ground and let out a loud whistle before drawing his blade, in hopes of stalling whoever came his way... Even if only for a few moments. What that meant, only the bandits really knew.

One of the bandits dropped down ahead of her, drawing his sword as she came into view.

Torako slowed, her sandals padding against the grass as she did. At this moment, she hardly looked threatening. A young woman in an ornate kimono, seemingly unarmed. As she approached, she gave him a stern, but still rather non-threatening look, before raising one arm to point at him. There was only one serious condemnation she could think of at the moment, or at least, one that she could actually say. Staring with utmost seriousness at the bandit, she belted out one single phrase.

"What would your mother think of what you've been doing?!"

As Xin pursued, now on foot on the ground, he heard Kyang's shout of warning. If the bandits wished to lure him into a trap...

For the first time Dai Xin gave an actual genuine smile. It was terrifying.

As arrows flew from the trees, whether from actual bowmen or traps the bandits had rigged to protect their territory, Dai Xin simply flooded his legs with Qi and kept moving. Traps couldn't lead a target, and an archer who could still could not change the speed of an arrow after it had left the string. Faster and faster he went, the projectiles thudding into the ground or the trees mere seconds after his passing, as he charged through the foliage and into a blinding light...

Several men, armed with all manner of axe, club, and blade suddenly surrounded him in the clearing. As the martial artist blinked in the light, three more dropped down from the trees, cutting off his escape.

"Watch him fellas, he knows how to fight!"

"Won't matter, when we've got the weapons!"

One charged forward and brought down his sword with a battle cry. Dai Xin lifted his knee, smoke trailing from the bottom of his foot, and snapped out a blow.

"Fist of the Sky, Twenty Five Basic Movements. Front Kick."

The bandit's strike carried all the way through, the swipe passing clean from Dai Xin's shoulder down to his hip. The man smirked...then realized most of his blade above the hand guard was missing. He looked up at Dai Xin, eyes growing wide. The red haired man pointed upwards. The broken blade was embedded in a tree branch just above them, having gone all the way through the wood. Slowly the bandit lowered his gaze until he met Dai Xin's eyes again.

"Twenty Five Basic Movements. Straight Punch."

It happened too fast to even see the transition; the next instant Dai Xin was in his stance, arm extended, and the bandit was doubled over, his feet lifting clear of the ground. His chest literally caved inward, a crater that rippled outward like a pebble thrown in water. When time resumed he flew backwards, a comet's tail of blood flowing from his mouth and nose as translucent smoke rose from Dai Xin's fist.

Not quite understanding what had just happened, the other bandits had already started to charge, and even as they began to realize it, many of them were too committed to their swings as they closed in on Dai Xin from all angles.

He was still smiling.

Kyang had her jaw clenched as she leapt from branch to branch. As soon as the first set of arrows came from a flank, she stopped behind a tree trunk to cover herself. The thuds were quickly replaced by more whistling arrows coming from all sorts of directions. It was a chaos that left Kyang incredulous, but thankfully not in too much danger with her being so far up off the ground. There can't be that many! This has to be some kind of trick...

As much as Kyang did not want to be separated from her companions, it was not much use to try and rally everyone now. Xin had run off at an impossible pace, no doubt to take on as many as he could, Liu had been left behind with an arrow in his shoulder and an unconscious suspect to tie up. That just left Torako. Where was she again?

Thankfully, Kyang found Torako by voice, but it was not a pleasant surprise to see what she was doing. She was approaching one of the armed bandits with a chide on her tongue as if she was talking to a child. He's got a sword, you maniac! Kyang had to resist the urge not to shout out at her.

No matter what Torako's plan for this bandit was, Kyang wasn't going to let Torako be cut up on the off chance that she was actually crazy. She found a lower branch to bound down from and pulled the sheathe from the blade of her glaive. When Kyang leapt down, she had her weapon held high in both hands. She attempted to bring the blade down onto the bandit from behind, hopefully to split his head right before she landed. Out of habit, she had a scream of defiance leave her throat while airborn, "KYEEAAAAA!"

After an intense minute of deliberate easing of the arrow from his shoulder, Liu let out a huge sigh of relief as it finally came out. No poison, it seemed; usually, the blood around the arrow would be dyed black or something if that was the case. Throwing the arrow to the ground, the young hunter took up a meditative position against the tree trunk and, after tearing off a strip of cloth from his clothes, bound the wound to prevent it from bleeding out any further. With that out of the way, he took a deep breath and began to actually meditate. He was still aware of his surroundings, but this measure, as he had found in the past, would ease the pain for the moment.

---

The bandit facing off against Torako stood there silently, his face unmoving as he held his weapon at the ready. What good were the words of a child, after all? The two were in completely different positions of power, and he certainly would have no trouble--!
Kyang's battle cry shocked the man out of his thoughts as he turned around, only to see a giant axe coming straight for his face. Barely raising his sword in time, the bandit deflected the weapon to the side before rolling away from both parties.

"Backup, huh? Well, if that's two of you here and one back there..."
A sickening smiled curled up the man's face his eyes gleaming with bloodlust.
"I think I might actually have some fun today~!"

---

A sudden gust of wind blew around Dai Xin as the men closed in around him, and though it did not bring any stop to the bandits' weapons, it certainly heralded something a bit more... Malicious.

"Oh? What have we here?" came a voice from the shadows. Casually landing on a branch right in front of the red-headed martial artist, a pair of grizzled men--fighters looking to be in their late twenties, both draped in tattoos--stared straight at their new opponent.

"You know, the boss might not be happy we lost so many today," the one on Xin's left remarked, his fists covered by spiked knuckles and leather gloves. "Wasn't this meant to be a hit-and-run operation? One of our spies told us that--"

"You know how this usually goes," the other responded, a pair of katars strapped onto his arms. "We send the recruits to deal with the small fries, and we avoid the big fish. Seems they caught on, though."

"Oh, that's not very convenient. Well, the boss will kill us if we don't catch the ones responsible, so I guess we'd best get to work."
"Yeah. Chiu blew the whistle, after all."

The duo's lack of respect was, clearly enough, one based in overconfidence. After all, they had been the undisputed 'arms' of the group, so to speak; nobody had needed them yet...
And for good reason.

The broad side of an axe met a firm palm that pushed ever so slightly, guiding it just off the angle of attack. The elbow of the opposite arm came around as Dai Xin slid into extreme close quarters, and the man's jaw was shattered, his teeth flying as the sheer force tore skin from his cheek.

"Twenty Five Basic Movements--Elbow Strike."

The sliding, spinning motion continued, placing the bandit between himself and a sword blade. Then he let go as steel sank into flesh, and turned his wrist. Explosive power over just a few inches was augmented by focused Qi--it left every other channel and instead traveled to the tendons of the forearm to control that rotation, then the tricep as his hand came down.

"--Knife Edge Palm--"

A collarbone didn't just break, it collapsed, shards of bone puncturing the neck as the man screamed. Dai Xin let his torso bend slightly with the downward force, enough that he could raise his leg and thrust straight backwards without losing balance. A raised sword dropped as the impact went through the gut, rupturing organs before the spine barely stopped it.

"--Reverse Hammer Kick--"

Dai Xin pulled his leg back and stood up straight, looking ahead then turning his gaze over one shoulder. His arms reached out to intercept the wrist and elbow, stopping the club's path, while the same leg he'd kicked with earlier shot out again.

"--Side Hammer Kick--"

Another attacker took the kick in the throat, and surprisingly he did not die immediately, as Dai Xin had to spend too much power blocking the attack while balanced on only one leg. But with his windpipe spasming and enough force to knock him to the ground, the bandit wouldn't be a threat for the moment. Dai Xin twisted his body as he brought his leg back, so that he could drag the man with the club forward and bury his knee in the foe's groin.

"--Battering Knee Strike--"

Something burst. Two somethings. A high pitched, keening scream could be heard for quite a distance. Then another punch silenced it.

Two turned and began trying to run. A red demon loomed behind them, claws reaching out and snagging them by the scruffs of their shirts. He didn't have to use a vice grip or a yank of the arms. He just let their own momentum reach its end, and as they found themselves jerked backwards like a dog jumping at its chain, their feet left the ground. Now Dai Xin did put force into it, slamming them against the earth hard enough to shatter bone and crack stone.

He straightened, shaking drops of blood from his hands. Then he turned to the two who stood watching. His exchange with their underlings had taken about as long as their own verbal one.

"Ah. Then these bandits were indeed part of something larger." he said simply. "Good. I was not satisfied with my match with Five Wheel Striking Style."

He took up his stance, and the cold gust of wind grew warmer as translucent power began to waft around his body.

"This one is Dai Xin, of the Fist of the Sky, pupil of Grandmaster Wu Ji. Be grateful I respect your strength enough to name myself honorably, though you are naught but dogs in the guise of men."

While Kyang wondered if it was her shout that gave the bandit warning enough to parry her glaive, she had to work with what she had. The man was agile, that much was clear as Kyang's follow-up slice only cut through air as her opponent tumbled away. She stomped into a guarding stance with her blade forward and eyed down the man. She did not come all this way to talk trash.

"KYEEEE!" Kyang skipped forward and swung her blade up and to her left, wheeling it behind herself and striking out to cut the bandit at his left elbow. "HA!" With the weight and length of the weapon, she intended to keep the bandit off balance and out of reach respectively by transitioning into a combo of whirling cuts coming in from diagonals. The blade blurred around to the left shoulder, "HA!" it span around to the bandit's bottom-right, "HA!" Kyang struck at the bandit three more times in quick succession before breaking off, "DA! DA! KYA!"

In an instant, Kyang had stepped back and was back in her guard again. Her heart was racing, but she was not giving up any time soon. She knew a counter-attack would ensue. She intended to check and feint off all that she could. She would be paying more attention to flaws in the bandit's fighting, but she was counting on Torako to exploit openings, or force ones that Kyang could exploit herself.

That bandit... he was more skilled then he looked. He was actually beginning to get the upper hand against Kyang... Torako could recognize it. If she left this alone, there was a chance that... well, she wouldn't leave this alone. She couldn't. She was a normal human, without any special abilities, and yet the speed at which she suddenly posed herself between Kyang and the murderous bandit was undeniably impressive. Her sweet, friendly expression had changed, hardening into a stern glare as she eyed the attacking bandit. He paused for a moment, surprised.

"... Hmph, idiot girl, I guess I'll kill you first!"

"... I suppose you can try," Torako replied, as he brought his weapon up and swung it towards her.

Blood splattered on the grass, a spray flashing through the air as steel met flesh, and went through it. It sprayed on Torako's fine clothing, spattering in an arc across the ground.

What had happened would have been entirely missed if you had blinked. One moment, Torako was standing, fine...

... And the next, she was quietly sheathing her blade at her side, and the bandit was falling in two halves on the ground, cut cleanly in half from his right hip to his left shoulder. The warm blood had sprayed onto her face, too. All the whimsy in her nature had evaporated in an instant. Now there stood a young woman spattered in blood, looking all too comfortable with this outcome.

"Oh? Well, well, well, if that isn't a name I haven't heard before! So you're the infamous dojo-slayer that's been in town recently? Well, your hair certainly fits the description..." the man with the knuckles said, a crooked smile forming on his face. "If you're going to be like that, then so shall I! Xu Lao is my name, but to a battle-hungry maniac like you, I doubt it'll stick. of course, I can't say I'm any different!"

Xu's partner looked at him with mild amusement before turning to Xin as well to introduce himself in turn.

"Right; if we're going to be fighting someone with such infamy, we might as well be courteous for once in our lives, eh? Nam-seon Baek; of course, since you're looking to be a worthy opponent, we'll not hold back. We'd expect you to do the same, of course!"

"Now come!" Xu shouted, a wild grin on his face. "We won't back down!"

Their chivalry, though wildly strange given the situation, seemed to be solely out of curiosity. Having been forced to steal from simple merchants and deal with subpar bodyguard up until now, such a bold challenger only riled them up even more. The tedium of being a bandit hidden away in the forests while their boss took joy in the riches he had pilfered, combined with strength that Xin seemed to exhibit... Well, the days seemed to add up. The illusion of riches and fulfilling their lust had dwindled to nothing, even moreso when they were forced to simply guard the hideout. So if someone strong like this showed up, they had no reason to refuse the challenge...
Even if it cost them their lives.

---

The bandit, Chiu, frowned at the girl with a headband's rapid maneuvering of the polearm; such strength was abnormal, and the precision she had with it was quite dangerous. A formidable opponent, to be sure.
...
Well, for the beginners he was guiding earlier, maybe.

With a swift few movements of his blade, the polearm seemed to be deflected, ever so slightly putting it off-balance to cause the attack to miss, but only by a hair. It was a tactic meant for aggravation; the closer she got without hitting, after all, the more exasperated it'd become. His sadistic streak was showing, and how.

But the girl that appeared in front of him just now, the one who had called him out... That put a damper on his plans. He had planned to toy with them, one at a time, but... Apparently this girl was also armed. Well, no matter. He could always work with the psychological shock of killing that other girl's friend in front of her.

The next few moments were... Strange for him. He clearly saw blood on his weapon, but the girl... The girl remained unharmed.

So... Why...?

And thus he fell to the ground, half the man he used to be.

<whoops!>

Dai Xin's Qi flared explosively as he too became curious as to how strong these two were. They both used weapons of a sort; one wore protection for his hands, implying a great deal of strength but a neglected conditioning of his knuckles, and the katars of the other were somewhat unusual though Dai Xin had at least heard of them. They were basically a dagger intended to deliver powerful stabs by using a punch, but they could also be used to slash. They were somewhat deceptive; when dodging a punch one could use the length of the arm to predict the opponent's range, but the katars added to that length without requiring the same kind of leveraging that something like a sword or staff did.

"Yes, let us begin!"

With the Compression Step, the red head leaped at blinding speed, raising one leg up high until he was practically doing a vertical split. Qi surged up the limb until it cloaked his heel, trailing the path of his hamstring--the tendon used to flex the leg.

"Helm Splitting Axe!"

The kick wasn't aimed at one of the men, but the branch they were standing on. Dai Xin shattered it at the center, the impact eliciting a crack even from its growth point at the tree, and if the two didn't move quickly they would be dumped into the open air without a foot-hold to push off from. Dai Xin himself went straight down, falling more swiftly with the impact of his kick and landing directly below in a low crouch. He placed the palm of one hand on the ground, and again used the Compression Step technique--but to make up for the less than ideal position of his current stance, the focus was instead within his palm. A stepping technique, used with a palm?

Still, with a springlike flex of the elbow he propelled himself into the air, and appeared in front of Xu Lao.

"Asura's Wrathful Fists!"

The punches were relatively basic, but intended as a combination of strikes--like the image of a six-armed god of war, Dai Xin let loose a barrage of blows...

At Kyang readied herself to clash with the bandit again, she couldn't help but feel that she was being toyed with. It was possible that this guy was trying to stall them, but then again, he could also be enjoying it. An attack was about to come Kyang's way, but a flash of silver-pink suddenly interposed into her vision.

This wasn't the Torako that Kyang sat next to in a restaurant, even just looking at her stance made that clear. The hesitation and lines of dialogue seemed insignificant. When the next moment passed it would be burned into Kyang's memory. There was almost no sound to it, just a flash of reflected light on steel. Kyang saw a blade swing up for a single frame in her eyes before the bandit that she had been having so much trouble crumpled behind Torako. Kyang paled when she stepped to look around at the remains.

"How did...? How can...?" Kyang struggled. She felt something burn up her oesophagus when she stared at the pool of red insides in the centre for too long, so she turned away and swallowed her bile down. All the things she had previously heard about Torako suddenly seemed much more plausible. "We...ought to find Xin and Liu..." Kyang managed to say with strain in her voice, "Lead the way, please."

Kyang may have trained with the soldiers, but even that didn't expose her to a human corpse cut clean in half.

Torako glanced back over her shoulder, back towards Kyang. From here, the splatter of blood across her face was visible. Her expression was calm, and yet cold. She had shifted entirely from her usual behavior, changed utterly from the silly, friendly, bottomless pit of a girl she had been just earlier that very day. Now there was a calmness about her. And yet it was a cold calmness, stained with blood. Yes... death came so easily to her. The bandit had forfeited his life in a split second, and so she had taken it in the same amount of time. It was not as if she was one to enjoy killing...

But to Torako, it sometimes was simply seen as a necessity.

"Yes, Kyang-dono," she said, softly. Ducking low, one hand on the hilt of her katana, the blood-splattered girl broke into a run. Her ears were listening for the faintest sound that could lead her to their allies.

"Hou?" Xu responded inquisitively as Xin smashed clean through the branch the two bandits were standing on. "Good, good! This wouldn't be a fight without some tricks like these up your sleeve!"

Rising to the occasion, Xu launched himself straight at Xin, his right arm cocked back for a punch as his opponent launched a flurry of his own attacks. The speed at which each strike was executed earned a glint of curiosity in Nam-seon, who had opted to use his katars to keep himself from falling following Xu's earlier leap forward. It took a moment, but the bandit had quickly dislodged his weapon from the tree's trunk and kicked off to try and flank Xin.

Xu, on the other hand, was busy trying to parry the blows as they came. It was, clearly enough, a futile effort; though every now and then he would manage to deflect a hit and get one in, none of hits were ever more than glancing blows. Was this what they meant by 'the best defense if a good offense'? Opting to retreat for the moment, Xu used the force from his left fist colliding with one of Xin's to safely retreat for the moment.

"You... That qi... Quite sharp, isn't it? Guess I should count myself lucky, then!" Xu boasted, landing on a nearby tree and grasping hold of one of the branches above his head. "Maybe if this were under different circumstances I could ask more, but that doesn't seem likely!"

Taking a deep breath, Xu swung himself onto the branch and, with a smile, pulled down the collar of his clothes to reveal a thin, iridescent energy swirling around beneath them. It was nowhere near as strong or as refined as what Xin was using, but for someone of his status, this sort of talent was a godsend just on its own. The blows were dulled, true, but the shockwaves still damaged the fighter's body. Had he not pulled away at that moment, his shield might have broken and he would have been more seriously injured.
Though, clearly, that wasn't the case here.

"Now, let me return the favor!"

With a shout, Xu launched himself forward again, this time leading with his left first to strike Xin headfirst. Nam-seon, still a man of (relatively) fewer words, quickly began to strike out at Xin, weaving his way through his adversary's attacks as they came in turn.

As Xu and Xin fought in a rapid fire flurry, the dojo-smasher flexed his abdomen and exhaled deeply whenever one of the other man's blows got through. His defenses didn't stop there--like the other man, and any sensible fighter, there was a thin layer of Qi over his body to act as a shield. Dai Xin's was not so formidable as Xun's, because so much more of his power was being devoted to his attacks, but what little he had was partitioned more efficiently. Rather than simply reinforcing his whole body, he focused on the point of each impact. The moment he realized a blow had gotten past his guard, he changed the direction of his channeling.

His liver. Qi to the upper obliques, to the serratus anterior, and the pectoralis major. Xu's fist struck his body and he felt the impact, the dull thump, but its power did not penetrate through the fortified muscle.

His floating ribs. Qi to the external obliques and abdominals, and the bones themselves. The blow pushed his body, but his skeleton did not break.

His lower jaw. Qi to the neck, not to harden but to strengthen the tendons at their connecting ends, to allow his head to stretch further back than normal as he turned his cheek, deflecting the brunt of the impact.

Dai Xin's own fists won the exchange even as he took these blows and more, and his opponent was forced to back off lest his own shield be shattered. But before he could pursue Xu Lao his partner attacked from the flank. Dai Xin stepped to the side to avoid a driving punch, the dagger's edge gleaming with blood lust. Nam-seon seemed more agile, relying on speed rather than defense, as he ducked under Dai Xin's counter attack and quickly kept attacking, weaving his way into Dai Xin's guard but staying at the mid-range, where the reach of his weapons allowed him to more easily evade any response.

Xu launched himself like a rocket from the trees from the left, Nam-seon on the right with another flanking attack. Dai Xin channeled his defensive power to his forearms, and the offensive power traveled up through his arms, into his shoulders, then into his throat...

Xu Lao's punch ground against his defense, and the tip of Nam-seon's katar practically threw sparks as it drove deeper, eliciting a crackling sound from the Qi shield. Dai Xin's heels ground into the dirt as he was pushed back, both of them drawing closer.

Dai Xin took a deep breath.

Fist of the Sky, Qi Arts.

A tiger's roar could stun a deer with the sheer rumbling force contained in its bass tone.

Dai Xin's roar was like a physical blow, driving Qi-infused air and force from his lungs like a storm gale...

THUNDER CRY.

Kyang followed the blood-stained Torako through the woods with her glaive trailing from her hand behind herself. She used the pertinence of the fight to clear her mind of what she saw before, knowing that there were more important things to think about. If anything, Torako had played her hand, and now Kyang knew of her capabilities. Perhaps not her limits, but that was not something she dwelt on.

The direction they ran did not seem to show much promise in finding Xin, but there was the sound of conflict in a fairly short distance. It was hard to pinpoint in this forest. Their strained hearing was suddenly overwhelmed when a colossal shout sounded in the distance. It was not the shout of any regular man; not even a small army could concentrate such a war cry. Needless to say, it gave them a clearer direction.

Torako and Kyang came across Xin to find him in something of a more difficult situation to their previous one. He was fighting multiple opponents that were putting up much more of a fight than the instructor at the school he had invaded that morning.

"More ki warriors," Kyang observed, "I think these guys are out of my league, but maybe you could take one by surprise, Torako."

In an effort to find some way to be useful, Kyang looked over all the battered and crushed bodies of Xin's previous kills littered about. There was a crossbow amongst one, a weapon Kyang could use to at least provide a distraction. She waited for a moment in the chaos of combat to try and retrieve it.

Torako simply nodded to Kyang when she spoke. It was a logical course of action in this fight. Xi was in danger of being swiftly overwhelmed, even if he was holding his own. The pale-haired girl dropped low to the ground, her body jostling from the sudden motions, one hand remaining firmly on the hilt of her katana. Taketori was always reliable, no matter what happened. She put on an immediate burst of speed, her sandals near silent as she padded rapidly through the grass, from the side, towards one of the men assaulting Xi.

No hesitation filled her mind. Not even the slightest. Her face was stony and cold, one of grim focus. She was doing, after all, something that now came naturally to her. All those years of spilling blood had made her all too prepared to do it again and again and again. Even if she now only slew those who were a threat to herself or others who were not counted among her enemies... quite simply, it didn't matter. They were a threat. So, if she could, she would kill them.

And so, the moment Torako came in range, her blade flashed out again, so smooth and fast that it was barely visible to the naked eye, in an arc designed to sever limbs, or a head, or even cut apart the entire body in an instant.