[1v1] Stop Trying to Hit me and Hit me (Xiu/Shun) FIN

[Blade Kuroda]

It wasn't long since his encounter with Titus that Shun made his way over to the demon dorms to try and give the Baku a heads up. The nightmare demon had tried to get the information out of him, and no doubt if he knew of Xiu he'd probably try to pester her like he pestered just about everyone else.

Arriving to her door, he knocked lightly, to let her know he was arriving. He had given her a call a few moments ago to give a heads up he was on his way to speak with her.

There were a few things he had in mind for this, which was why he didn't just tell her straight up on the phone. Aside from knowledge, it was always good to be prepared. Or at least to try to be.  

[Kaiyumi]

If Shun had not called beforehand, Xiu would have stared at the door with some apprehension when the knock sounded. After that previous run-in with a certain nightmare demon, the baku was in a slightly more irritable mood than usual, which was surprising considering her usual disposition. However, she still had a bright smile for her big brother when she opened the door, lifting her other hand to flutter her fingers in greeting.

"Hi, aniki! Please come in." She moved aside to let him in, and then shut the door behind them. For a few seconds, she glanced between the reaper and her kitchen--should she bring out something to eat and drink?--before she finally settled on asking what Shun had wanted to talk to her about first.

"What can I do for you?" A pause, and then she tossed out a guess. "How have you been sleeping? Or...Mitsu?"  

[Blade Kuroda]

Nodding to Xiu as she let him in, Shun stepped into her room before looking over towards her to answer her question.

"Thank you Xiu. And yes. We've been sleeping well enough for the most part. However..." he trailed off a bit to take a more serious tone to his voice, "An old rival of mine has been enrolled to this school. I'm here for two reasons. The first being to warn you of him as he is a nightmare demon. And a lecturous a*****e at that. The second to hone my lucid dreaming skills. He came to me recently while I was asleep. I managed to fend him off, but barely so."

The dream had ended with him being bound in chains and Titus being stuck in a cage after all. A stalemate. Not the best nor the worse ending that could have been for the Reaper.

"I've little doubt he's visited me before. He had seemed surprised when I was able to fight back."  

[Kaiyumi]

Xiu listened curiously, her head cocked to the side as he explained what was wrong. An old rival, hmm? She wondered what kind of person this rival was--

Nightmare demon.

Lecherous a*****e.

...

The expression on Xiu's face immediately changed, her brows drawing together and a deep frown replacing the smile that had been there previously. "Titus?" Oh Jack, Shun was acquainted with that boil? She didn't seem at all pleased to hear that he had attacked her friend while he was sleeping, and the baku hummed thoughtfully as she crossed her arms. More lucid dreaming practice, huh?

"So...a lucid dreaming...battle?"  

[Blade Kuroda]

For a moment, Shun was silent.

"Oh. So you've already met him," he frowned, not sounding too pleased about this. So much for giving Xiu a forewarning. With a sigh, he nodded to her question.

"Yes. That. I want to make sure that the next time he decides to jump into my head, he is going to regret it," he said darkly, "Training against apparitions within my own mind won't be enough. I have to practice against someone who have some degree of control of dreams."

Pausing there, he looked over the Baku for the moment, with a hint of concern in both his expression and voice.

"He didn't hurt you did he?"  

[Kaiyumi]

"I'll do it." The answer was automatic, and the baku didn't seem to hesitate in the slightest when Shun brought up the necessity of practicing against someone experienced in the dream world. "I mean, I knew there was another dream eater demon at Amityville, but I didn't meet Titus until recently." After all, he was new, right? And unlike the former, Titus actually seemed intent on practicing his nightmare ways on the students.

Which...she didn't approve of, for obvious reasons. The fact he went after Shun--though they knew each other--was a testament to this.

A small smile quirked on the corners of her lips as she held up her hands, giving a quick shake of her head. "No, no, I'm fine. We had a run in while I was trying to devour someone's nightmare."  

[Blade Kuroda]

"Tits showed up around Christmastival Eve. You might have spotted him at the play. He was one of the troublemakers there before he left," Shun explained, not thinking as he dropped the nickname for the nightmare demon.

"He likes to start s**t, that guy. He kind of reminds me of Riyo in that sort of way. I would suggest to avoid him if possible, but if you ran into him in a dream then that may be harder than it sounds," he murmured. While he was a little curious of Xiu's dream eating ways, he didn't ask anything of that right now. There were other things to deal with.

"So then.. Would you be able to spar against me here? I imagine it would provide some valuable experience for you as well."  

[Kaiyumi]

Ah, so he was one of the troublemakers. Xiu could distinctly remember the chaos with which the play started out with--people in the audience yelling, flashes of light, Chuppi yelling...

...All in all, it had been terrible. It was a good thing things had evened out after that, though.

"I see. I could kind of tell he was a troublemaker--he was trying to plant nightmares in the head of the students, I think." The students. If they were humans, fine, that was their job, but his own peers? And-- "--wait, Riyo?" Xiu suddenly looked puzzled as the bakeneko was brought up. No no, Riyo and Titus were nothing alike--the former she considered a friend, and the latter was...

...Er. An...annoying acquaintance?

"Of course I'd be willing to spar with you! I'm...admittedly a little nervous," After all, this was Shun, "But I do need the practice. Let me make some tea." And off she went, swooshing into the kitchen to brew some of that drowsy tea. It would only take a couple of minutes before she was back, moving towards the couch and setting a steaming cup of tea down on the coffee table. She knew better than to have him drink it while he was still standing up.  

[Blade Kuroda]

"That sounds about right for him," Shun said while shaking his head. Making his way over towards the couch, he sat himself down and taking the cup.

"Alright.. Let's do this," he nodded before drinking. It did not take much time at all before he slumped back into his seat, falling asleep rather quickly. Xiu's tea was always rather effective on him.

After a few moments, his dream began to be built. Once fully formed, it revealed to be the inside of a dojo. Shun stood within, in traditional practice garb. It only seemed fitting to him, after all. While he was there, he waited for Xiu to show up so they could get started.

((Initiative))  

[Kaiyumi]

Xiu peered around with interest as she slipped into the reaper's dream, taking in their surroundings with a small smile. "Good thinking, aniki--this is a good place to train." She definitely approved of the progress he had made with lucid dreaming! The baku wasn't much of a teacher, but he had picked everything up quite well from the looks of things.

"Though...just to warn you, I won't hold back. My nightmare manipulation might not be as good as Titus', but I'm going to try to do whatever I can so that you can be prepared for next time." Which meant, yes, using whatever tricks and illusions that she had up her sleeve. While Xiu honestly did not want to do such a thing to her friend, she knew that some opponents would not be so kind.

She did a few stretches, and then got into position, knees bent and fists up. "Mmkay. Ready when you are!" The lighting flickered slightly, indicating that Xiu had begun to grasp at and (attempt to) manipulate whatever she could in this dream.  

[Blade Kuroda]

"I don't expect any less," Shun nodded before summoning his daggers and giving Xiu a bow. Crouching down to get into his usual stance, he waited for just a moment before making his first move. Rather than attacking head on, he tried to use the dream environment. Perhaps he could catch her off guard that way.

And so a large blade came swinging down from the ceiling at the Baku.


HP: 40
Damage: 0
Status:  

[Kaiyumi]

From the corner of her eye, Xiu made out the movement of something swing towards her. She instantly darted out of the way, the blade just grazing the end of her skirt as she managed to dodge the attack. "W-woah! That...that's pretty impressive, aniki!" And really, really scary. She took a deep breath, and then frowned.

"Tell me--what kind of things did it seem like Titus could do?" Perhaps she could mimic some of the nightmare demon's methods to make this as close of a battle as possible?

Until then, the baku focused her gaze on Shun, trying to push him down with an imaginary pressure by using the dream world around them.

HP: 40
Damage: 3
Status: --  

[Blade Kuroda]

His attack had missed but that didn't bother Shun. Stepping forth, he paused as he felt a heavy weight pushing down onto him. It kept him from advancing too much further, but it didn't stop him from spawning a couple spears shooting up from the ground below the Baku.

"A number of things. He'd mention some things and it would alter the course of my dream. Bringing up the issues with my father caused his voice to be heard, for example," he frowned. The light darkened in the room somewhat as he spoke, "Aside from that, he was able to spawn a number of chains to tie me down."

HP: 37
Damage: 2
Status:  

[Kaiyumi]

She let out a surprised yelp at the spears, jumping backwards as they shot up to graze her legs. She gave them

The chains she should be able to do--so far she had only really tried to get rid of and unlock things, not summon things--but as for the father bit..

"I...I'm not sure if I can do that..." It really wasn't a matter of her ability rather than her personal feelings. While it would be easy to bring up the topic of Shun's father and force the reaper to summon the man into his dream world, it wasn't something Xiu seemed comfortable doing. That being said, if it would help Shun get stronger and more resilient, then maybe--

Lips pressing into a thin line, the baku decided to do things the old fashioned way for a moment, darting forward and swinging her knee up and into the reaper's stomach. She seemed troubled as she drew back. "I...is there...any particular limit you want to set?"

HP: 38
Damage: 4
Status: --  

[Blade Kuroda]

Letting out a grunt as he took the knee to the stomach, Shun gripped onto his daggers more tightly before slashing out at Xiu with his right hand.

"None," he said firmly, "Whatever weaknesses you know of me... exploit them. Titus, nor any other enemy I may encounter would leave those untouched."

He was fairly aware of what he was asking here, but anything less wouldn't quite be the same.

"It'll be good for you too. You won't always be up against someone you care about."

HP: 33
Damage: 4
Status: