Suzume vs. Damon

[Creator]

((So it's basically like what he did? xD))
Damon blinked, noticing that everything went dark. Then he grinned. "Ah. So it seems you know a similar technique. I must say, I'm impressed. That jutsu took me a long time to master, and yet here an eight-year-old girl can do the equivalent of an A-Rank genjutsu." He held out his hand, Soul Punisher forming from the air. "But unlike you, I have a way around it." The sword ignited in black flames and he swung, spraying shadows along the ground. Then the flames died and he sheathed the sword, waiting. He performed a few hand signs and grinned. "Let me show you one of my own creations, made possible by certain unique abilities of mine. It's not purely ninjutsu, but it's based on the Hiding Mist Jutsu. I call it the Spirit Mist Technique, and you'll find it rather annoying." As he spoke, a thick mist crawled into the battlefield, clouding the view (though it seemed rather pointess with both of them blinded already.) But throughout the mist was the essence of Damon, as if he was everywhere inside the fog all at once. His voice spoke from just beside Suzume, devilishly happy. "Can you track me down?"

[Señor Sunday Friday]

Suzume honestly didn't know what to do, everything smelled of Damon and there was no sounds to help her, there was something she could do, though. Flames erupted all around her and began building in intensity, she'd just have to burn up the entire feild in flames and see if she managed to hurt him at all. She didn't think of the possibilities of inflicting any serious damage to him since, well, she was never actually in a fight before and she figured that she was probably not very likely to harm anyone, besides, she didn't feel any heat from her flames, though that was because foxfire never hurt the kitsune who controlled it, though they were perfectly capable of burning anything else. At the same moment she flickered her illusion from a bright, blinding light in Damon's vision to utter darkness, hopefully to disorient him, for Suzume's first fight, she was doing exceedingly well, actually.

[Creator]

Damon hardly noticed the flash, as he was relying on a different sort of vision now. He leapt up into the air, sailing up with a combination of ninja agility and a wind boost to reach the ceiling. He promptly touched it, hanging there as if glued. After watching for a moment, he swung his legs up and connected his feet, hanging upside-down. He didn't want to resort to using that jutsu, especially not on a little girl, so he would just go through his entire repertoire until she gave in or tired out. Shouldn't be too hard, especially with the energy reserves he kept handy. Tilting his head back, he checked on the fire's progress.

[Señor Sunday Friday]

The flames grew hotter and hotter, rising up towards the ceiling, quite the impressive inferno, actually, and Suzume was in the center of it, she didn't even seem tired in any way, she could keep it up for quite some time. Her eyes stared off into space, since obviously she wasn't able to see anything, there was no use in looking around. "I want to see! Please!" she shouted, knowing Damon would atleast hear her, she was rather annoyed with being blind, it wasn't at all something she was used to or wanted, her tail lashed in an irritated manner as the turquoise flames grew higher and hotter around her, Suzume actually didn't know how much fire she was forming, she couldn't see it and she couldn't feel it's heat, so she was quickly getting ahead of herself, the flames continuing to grow and if Damon didn't give her sight back, it would grow to a more catastrophic level, especially as dark magic began to lace through the fire. The child truly was ignorant to her powers, wasn't she?

[Creator]

Damon scowled at the approaching flames. 'No way...' He released his hold on the ceiling, falling down into the flames, performing a series of hand signs as he did so. He quickly vanished into the fire, but still spoke, this time within Suzume's mind. "Give it a rest. You can't hurt me now. Don't waste your energy, you'll just end up boiling anyone on the first floor who happens to be taking a bath." He had almost made the fatal mistake of trying to protect himself with a dome of solid air. But adding or taking heat in large amounts would make it unbearably difficult to hold it in form, and eventually it would burst back into air. So instead, he had used his emergency maneuver.
'Where is she getting that much power? It's unreal. Guess she doesn't know what she's doing, really.'

[Señor Sunday Friday]

If anyone knew anything of kitsunes, they'd pick out one detail, that being she had only one tail, the most she could obtain would be nine, though somehow a few kitsunes were known to obtain ten, though such occurrences were rare. One could only appreciate how powerful she could become if let to mature and grow in her powers, considering that they were just at such as simple level. "Please! I want to see!" she called out, perhaps if she could see, she'd lower the strength of her flames, but it wasn't anything Damon was aware of that made her want to see so badly, it was that this way, she could so plainly see the spiritual plain, it could be considered almost cruel to let this happen. It was like that when she closed her eyes or was blinded, by darkness or other means. There were a few erratic bursts of flame out of the swirling mass of flames, no Suzume didn't lose controll, but she was attempting to protect herself, not so much from Damon, but from The Others. The spikes shot in various directions, harnessing immense heat and power in them, they seemed to resemble prominences for a few seconds, arching from the turquoise blue flame before bursting, actions seen commonly on the sun, events known as 'Solar Flares' only this was on a drastically smaller scale, though it still wasn't something one would exactly call a small scale. Each of these bursts was in response to a spirit or demon she saw, in no way affected by Damon's actions which would probably make it seem to him that Suzume had lost controll of her own powers when it was in fact she had full controll, she was just unable to see the scale she was using them on, she had no memory of really using her powers before, so she had nothing to gauge her effort on, to be honest, she believed she had formed quite a nice, placid pocket of flame, rather than the blazing inferno she was currently generating.

[Creator]

Amidst the raging inferno, Berstunic was soaring about, having a bit of trouble controlling his flight. He glanced down toward Suzume with unusual eyes, Tamashigan eyes. Yes, Damon's last resort was to retreat into Berstunic's useless, yet immortal, body. His eyes were similar to before, but now the blurry red pupils were slightly larger, and he had pushed it into the second stage. He could see the demons around Suzume, and for a moment wondered what was going on. Then he realized that she was most likely not too fond of them. Heaving a mental sigh, he released the jutsu that bound her sight.

Berstunic fired Damon's soul from his mouth, sending him into the body that snapped into visibility before him. He landed on the wall, staying in blatant defiance of gravity and allowing Berstunic to go on. His own eyes were now in the second stage as well, though he still wasn't using his normal method of seeing. He had an aura of mist around him still, just waiting in case the flames reached him. "Now calm the heck down," he said, his voice just beside her again. "It's pointless."

[Señor Sunday Friday]

When sight returned to Suzume, the fire quickly fell to a more manageable size, simply surrounding Suzume, she seemed suprised, her gaze moving up towards Damon, "Did you do that?" she asked, figuring that Damon must have done something to make the flames grow so much, but she wasn't sure, she didn't feel like she was being helped by anyone. She then brought herself upon a new idea, obviously more confident now that she could see and didn't worry so much about the spirits and demons about her, a large being seemed to form into existance before her, it's eyes sizzed with red fire and it seemed like some grotesque combination of a deer and a man, a few wolfish features were there as well and it's forearms were almost insectlike. The creature was a fabrication of Suzume's nightmares and it looked to Suzume. Suzume quickly began exploring her abilities like a hacker in front of a new computer, quickly picking into Damon's mind to attach her illusion to him, to allow it to inflict pain upon him and to let the creature be able to limit Damon's strengths and movements, the intention to make the beast real, if it were to swipe it's clawed hand at Damon, it should be able to push him away. Suzume was quickly finding what limitations bound her and what didn't, she was learning and adapting the methods of illusion casting that she was currently using, admittedly she gave up a portion of power in the illusion in order to make it easier for herself to handle, but it was still a huge undertaking, especially for a child of eight years. She was Ichisuzume Niikami Itou, grandaughter of Makashi and daughter of Jouta. If left to flourish in her powers through the use of them, someday perhaps she would break all her boundaries, indeed for the one tailed kitsune, it seemed like quite the possibility. This child showed much promise for the future.

[Creator]

Damon's mind wouldn't be broken into easily, with more than just his own forces blocking its manipulation now. Even so, he prepared himself to use the ninja technique for breaking free of an illusion's hold. Luckily for him, he know many tedious little tricks, while the overall finesse of his jutsu was lacking. At first, he didn't even realize she was trying to further invade his mind, though Berstunic sent him the usual signal, and he raised his own defenses in response. "No way," he hissed, "not me. You're not going to get to me so easily, Suzume." A particularly fierce bolt of electricity surged through him, causing his hair to stand on end. "I'm still not even trying!"

Taking a kunai out from his pouch, Damon grinned down to Suzume. It was his earth kunai, as indicated by the brown tape on the handle. He jabbed it into the wall, attempting to attack her in the same way he had been killed, but it was to no avail. An earth spike shot up, about ten yards away from him. 'So it has a distance limit. Now I know.' He pulled the kunai free (thus retracting the spike of earth) and put it away, contemplating his options. There were so many techniques to use, so little time! But many of them had a certain prerequisite, which he had to fulfill while he could. He began performing a string of hand signs that seemed to go on forever, watching Suzume all the while. His hand speed increased with the fluidity of countless hours of training, blurring faster and faster to the end. A plume of smoke shot up around him, but as it faded, nothing seemed to have changed. He then propelled himself forward and down from the wall, claws igniting in the air.

[Señor Sunday Friday]

Damon made it sound like Suzume was trying, what should be used to describe Suzume at the moment? Perhaps we should leave it as childsplay? Everything she did was in exploration of her powers, finding her boundaries and seeing perhaps what might be past those boundaries, but there was no true struggle in her using the magic, Suzume was having fun right now. She looked up at her illusion and at the same moment melted into her more human form, of all things, she seemed to run from Damon, though there was more than just that, she ran while facing Damon, she wouldn't turn her back on him. Dark magic sprouted from the ground, almost liquid in appearance as it rose up to protect her, forming a barrier stronger than steel and responding to Suzume's thoughts and emotions. This wasn't Ouwashi's doing, this was Suzume tapping into Ouwashi's powers on her own. A dangerous act.

The liquid darkness wrapped through the air, forming almost a bubble of sorts, seeming just about ready to engulf Damon, of course if he didn't stop his attack on Suzume, it most likely would.

[Creator]

Damon knew he couldn't stop himself, seeing as he was flying through the air too quickly. He flung his hand out, forming a bit of stone from the air nearby as he shot into the darkness. Then, in a puff of smoke, he and the stone traded places. He grinned, the occasional spark jolting through the air around him. A grin played across his face as his eyes wandered to the demons, looking each of them over a few times. "So that's it. You're afraid of them, aren't you." He frowned, feeling a bit let down. But then, perhaps that could be put to good use. He stared at one of them for a moment, taking in its features, then used the transformation jutsu to change into it. It was purely an illusion, but if she was so afraid of them, that was all he would need. He growled deeply, stepping toward her in the most menacing way he could. "Foolish little girl, you're alone here and you don't know what you're up against!"

Meanwhile, Berstunic watched from above. 'Yep, just as I thought. He's going to burn up all of his energy right off the bat just to learn all he can about her. But maybe the Nine Lives will help."[/b] This was, of course, Damon's usual style. He didn't really fight until later on in the battle. Until then, he used various strategies, weighing how everything worked while ensuring that he was relatively safe in doing so. The whole battle until that point would be devoted to the formulation of new strategies custom-made to combat that particular enemy, usually two or three highly complex yet effective plans. But until then, he had to see what made her tick. With each life she would take from the jutsu, he would gain valuable information on her style, not to mention the fact that he basically got to sit around and rest up until the other eight of him were disposed of. This would be a long battle, he could tell, but it would give him pages of some of the most valuable information he could get here at Twilight Moon, information on possibly the academy's most powerful creature.

[Señor Sunday Friday]

Suzume looked towards the illusion shrouded Damon, a newfound fear in her eyes, she seemed rooted to her place as her wide eyes looked towards Damon, the liquid darkness falling towards the ground and slipping out of existance. She stammered a few words, "I-I'm not al-lone..." her words weren't the most assuring, even for herself. It seemed though that a spark illuminated in her eyes and she closed them for a moment, then she opened them, closed, opened. She looked towards Damon with a sense of new understanding, "Noooo... you're doing it all wrong!" she protested now, "If you wanna be Mr. Scaryguy you have to be there when I close my eyes too, and your illusion has holes! It doesn't smell right, either!" She pointed to a few places, Damon's illusion was a simple illusion, but not enough to stand up to the scrutiny on a kitsune, illusions and foxfire were thier deal, nobody could deny that. And she wasn't saying there were literal holes in the illusion, she was stating that there were a few weak spots in it, "Seriously, what were you thinking?" she asked, shaking her head, it was a moment when someone might be compelled to fwap her over the head and tell her to take the fight seriously, though she was taking the fight seriously, it was this Damon guy who needed help. Suzume seemed mostly irritated with Damon's illusion, not really scared of it. A fact that was likely to irritate Damon, besides, you'd think that a kid who's been seeing demons and spirits her entire life would be able to tell a real from a fake, right? This illusion didn't smell just right, and it spoke... normally they don't talk, unless they're REALLY scary, and this one wasn't quite scary enough, and it would've smelled REALLY bad... but no... it was Damon who was hiding, she was pretty positive about that. She tapped her left foot on the ground in an irritated gesture, expression reading 'stop playing around and get rid of that bad illusion, it's hard to take you seriously when you're like that' yes, there were such long descriptions for the facial expressions of such a small child. Her tail swished back and forth, just waiting for Damon to go back to normal so she could fight him.

To be honest, this displayed her inexperience in fighting, because if she had used any kind of tactical thinking, she would have atleast pretended to be afraid of the illusion and let Damon burn up all his energy instead of being so bluntly honest about the futility of the ninja's strategy.

[Creator]

Damon paused for a moment, turning over what she said in his mind and tucking the information away for later, then grinned. With a puff of smoke he returned to normal, seeming very pleased with himself. "You just don't understand, do you?" Of course, if she didn't understand, he wasn't going to tell her. On a whim of curiosity, he pushed himself into a rapid spin and released a Black Spiral Jutsu, which was basically a poison mist jutsu while he was spinning. It plumed out in all directions and he stopped, obviously very tired. 'Not enough chakra left... I'm good for one more attack, and that's about it...' His eyes faded back to normal and his hair fell back down, the electrical energy leaving his body. Might as well make this interesting before his life was gone.

With a flying leap, Damon shot up over the smoke and came down toward Suzume with claws bared, wondering if she'd try to jump to avoid the toxic smoke. If so, she'd leap right into his blade, though the blow was obviously not intended to do any real damage. Like everything he had done so far, this was to examine her reaction in different situations.

[Señor Sunday Friday]

The smoke smelled bad, it smelled really bad and it was really irritating, so Suzume's eyes were tightly shut, avoiding the smoke and she pulled her shirt up over her nose and mouth, she could hear Damon's movements, the synapses firing in her mind, he was above, wasn't he? She ran to get out of his way, she could run really good, something she took pride in, there wasn't a single kid back home who could beat her in a footrace. She released some fire upwards for good measure, now knowing that foxfire wouldn't react too well with Damon's mist, catching light on it and quickly burning through the entire arena, luckily for Suzume, though- it was still foxfire, meaning it didn't harm her, at that, she couldn't even feel it's heat. She now sent wave after wave of fire towards where she had assumed Damon to be, due to his sound, he was a rather noisy person, wasnt Damon? The wind's harmonics faintly making thier way to Suzume's eardrums, she continued to shoot bursts of flame at him, her eyes still closed and her mouth and nose covered up, completely unaware that the fox fire had burned away the mist.

Within the confines of Suzume's mind, Ouwashi frowned, she was taking close watch over the battle as well, and she was fairly unimpressed with it, Damon was holding back, and Suzume was just messing around. She shouldn't have wasted so much energy, she could have stolen more power from her and used it as a sheild, the girl could even have used Tsubame's power over liquid, even though there never was a time that the child had fully tapped into that power. She still needed training in Tsubame's abilities, though she was quickly expanding her knowledge into Ouwashi's powers. It was only a matter of time when she could switch to Ouwashi and Tsubame's beast forms at will like she could with her kitsune form. It was only a matter of time.

[Creator]

As Suzume was paying attention to Damon, who was swatting away the blasts of fire as they came with his own flaming claws, which always seemed to come in handy. Finally deciding to just use one last attack, he thrust his arm forward. The entire arm burst into thick smoke, epanding and rippling forward. The rushing gas took the form of an amphiptere, which roared just as it neared Suzume. As its mouth opened, a bright ball of purple plasma formed, enough to deliver a significant bolt if it touched. He couldn't stay there for long, though, as her flames were still coming. He jerked back, pulling a solid arm from the smoke and dashing off to the side. The amphiptere kept going forward, intent on attacking her as Damon knelt down. The Nine Lives Jutsu took a lot out of him, but he still felt it was worth it. Dashing around in a wide arc, he made a circle toward her, changing direction now and then to make himself a difficult target to hit. Secretly, deep down inside, he hoped he'd have to use his plasma form. Having only been pushed to it twice, it was still mysterious to him, and thus very exciting. Above, Berstunic shook his head, knowing Damon's thoughts.
((Sorry it's short, but I gotta go. xD Movies!))