@Shogunate said:
@Barkins: The boy moved with an exponential degree of haste, his fingers striking the man in soft spots, tearing his make-shift armour off bit by bit, but attracting the powerful little insects that he had utilized in his defence as well. The Shogunate was moving too fast to make a sudden stop and was forced to slow his movements deliberately so that he could eject himself from the man's bodily space. It took a few seconds but finally he was able to swerve his form away from his foe, emitting a powerful flash blast of necromancer energy from each of his pores, devouring each of the eerie bugs in an instant. Putting his foot out and skidding across the air, he prepared to launch his invisible form at Barkins once more, but just before he could do so, the man was enveloped in a mighty cloud of fire and he shot down to the earth like a heavy stone, managing to retain his stance slightly, resting on one knee with his blade drawn at the ready.
"Curious."
The child watched the fallen man for a moment before popping out of the air and appearing a few feet ahead of him, twin ninjato in his bandages hands once more. His features were blank, and the drop of blood on his head had disappeared, leaving only the thin scratch behind on his forehead. His soulless eyes fell upon the lowered head of his opponent and he pondered his question a moment before striking.
"I am the Shogunate. One day, this realm will be mine, as it has always been destined to be."
His forearm extensors coiled and he readied himself to deliver the finishing blow, but at the last possible moment the boy froze, his eyes widening an infinitesimal amount. He stared at the damaged being, eyes boring into him. He sniffed the air. Paused. Sniffed again.
His eyes narrowed and burned with sudden emotion, extremely uncommon for the child. He spoke in a whisper, voice harsh.
"Where did your scent go?"
He paused again, nodding silently to himself.
"Ingenious."
He stopped completely, regarding the fallen man for a moment longer before turning away and walking a few steps, finally coming to a halt in the centre of the battered field, where he sheathed his ninjato and put his hands together calmly in front of his chest, eyes returning to their ever-present degree of emotionless apathy. They glowed pitch black for a moment before turning a complete shade of ebony, little cracks of darkness forming around the edges of his cheeks like veins from his eyeballs. He remained statuesque, then blinked.
Hundreds upon hundreds of snake-like tendrils of necromancer energy exploded from his being and shot into the sky and earth, zigzagging furiously across the air, searching relentlessly for the true position of the hidden Barkins. To anybody standing on the ground it would look as if the entire sky had turned black. It would look like night.
These tendrils of tangible darkness would not stop until they had located the Shogunate's enemy, each an extension of the child's awareness. Once they found him, they would all converge upon his figure like an army of spears, moving with insurmountable speed, to skewer every last inch of his body in a display of horrific brutality and might.
When the Shogunate destroyed the bugs all he did was reduce them to a slimy paste, it smelled sweet like the embalming of the great kings of Egypt while destroying them was a good idea the trap was still in place to a certain degree because even dead . It was part of the ritual associated with the insects as they were often smashed in with the body by using another layer of bandaging, they lived out their life-cycle in this way and would have eggs strewn through the webbing that were immune to anything but the pure power of holy light. The eggs bore the same quality to stick to anything as the webbing and often they would burrow into the body and create a symbiotic relationship with the undead unless they were a powerful sorcerer or psychic. When the spiders were not used in the enbalming of a body they were kept in great jars of electrical current, the Egyptian battery, where they lived out their lives feeding on the energy and laying eggs within minutes; needless to say there was never a lack of the necrotic spiders.
From his box of illusions he watched as the boy went to confront his illusion and then drew up short, for Christopher had not taken the time to give the object a scent as most people only relied on their sense of sight and hearing. For a shinobi the boy had done well in paying attention to his teachings, the deception would need to be much more intricately crafted if he was going to fool him with the thought of location again. When the younger ninja moved away and began his technique he let the illusion of himself die in a cloud of black smoke, focus was needed for the next set of movements and a friend would also be warranted. However, before the tendril show began the necromancer would draw all of the webbing and spiders off of his body to form into a balled up net in his hand using a mixture of suggestion and forceful dark movement.
It was then that the underworld decided to break loose, tendrils like the hands of the river Styx erupted from his opponent and invoked a memory of when he fought his way back across that river to reach the land of the living. However, Christopher had no plans to stay in the air at all, or above ground for that matter he had many pieces still in place on the field that would lead to the boy's eventual exile unless he proved much more interesting than the strategist had ever imagined. With the use of his Rook he executed a trick that they used to call 'grave digging' back home, most shinobi would need a distraction order to move fast enough but since Christopher was already concealed and his speed was far greater than the old days he simply went straight to it. An instant later he was under the ground with his head about six inches from the surface, in one hand the ball of netted webbing was held with the spiders on the inside and with his other he reached up to try and grab the boy's ankle and drag him down neck deep into the earth.
As soon as his hand emerged from the soil his illusions would start fresh, the vision of his tendrils being torn apart by the strategist's powerful sword as it tore the air and sound barrier asunder. However, the illusion was almost two stories above the ground so it only needed to be a convincing visual and sound base... the feeling of the wind and sonic movements were also simulated to the sense of feeling of his opponent but he would not tamper with any feeling that he would have when the trap was set into effect. For now the illusion overhead was meant to allow the boy to think he was struggling, which very well would be the case when he first tried to fight the hands of death and shadow; experience was a great teacher.
An old sealing ritual would have to be used to hold the boy in place if things kept going as planned but the true version took several minutes of preparation, he would have to use a rushed and weak version. All the while he could not help grinning even while under the black soil where his blood spears had rested such a short time ago; Christopher truly loved to play games.
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