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The day had evolved into a rather sinister feeling night and with it the urge to sin was nearly overflowing in the vessel of many men and women. Ondori wasn't necessarily amongst these people, but unlike those who had an innocent existence and sought out shelter when night came, he stayed out and about. It was dangerous to rove about during the night, thugs, pirates, and bandits alike came out to make their day's earning. This is exactly why the Ronin was out. Being a bounty hunter at times Ondori had to go out of his way and look for trouble, so walking the streets at night was actually a bit comforting since he knew it'd lead to swollen pockets for the days to come should it be an active night.
For now Ondori was walking on a dirt trail towards a well lit town that was about two miles away glowing a warm yellow like a sanctuary. Bordering this trail was nothing but low cut grass, but a structure could be seen a small ways off the trail. While it was night so the sky was dark, this structure had a faint silhouette that could be discerned with a bit of focus. His interest peeked Ondori decided to stray off the path he had been walking for majority of the day. About twelve meters away from the alter the subtle clatter of a katana in a sheath halted the Ronin's advance and forced him into an even more concentrated state of observant. His eyes sharpened and his ears twitched once in a receptive manner. With a precisely cut half moon hanging overhead, as the katana clatter evolved to a drawn blade, Ondori's eye caught a faint glimmer of steel. The person was on top of the altar and as Ondori came to become fully aware of their presence his eyes seemed to hone in on them making their fram fully discernible.
"It must have drawn you here like those who previously came and fell to it." Ondori's eyes were trying to make out the body of the man, but the darkness wasn't necessarily on his side. He could see a bit of his being from the glint of light off the steel of his blade and his mind's eye did the rest to create an outline for him.
"Mind if I ask exactly what it is?" Ondori reached to his back to where his chain and scythe was located and gripped the weapon by the shaft before safely moving it to his right side in his right hand.
"Hmm, interesting weapon you got there, haven't fought someone who uses a scythe in years." Ondori began to twirl Tori with the fingers of his right hand, the rotation allowing the length oft he weapon to safely rotate off to his side angled ever so slightly towards his body, not to harm himself, but so that a bit of the weapon rotated out in front of him, but it was still off to his right side.
"You should really get out more then." Rooster planned on using the chain length, but figured he'd keep it as an element of surprise down the road.
His left hand grasped the end of the shaft opposite of where the double sided blade resided, stopping the rotation abruptly. Crouching down a bit, Tori now gripped in both his hands and positioned to allow him to swing in a horizontal motion out in front of him, Ondori jumped towards the man and once he got in range he unleashed the prepared horizontal swing. Cleaving the space out in front of him, a silver arc lashing out in front of him, the man had avoided the attack with a shallow jump upwards just high enough to place his feet above the swing. Not one to leave himself out of options, halfway through his scythe swing Ondori had taken his right hand off of Tori and onto the handle of his katana Taka that was on his left hip in a traditional manner. Seeing the samurai had used such a short hop Ondori knew he was smart to half ass his offense with preparation for a defense.
From his shallow leap the man drew his blade outward and slightly downward angled at Ondori's exposed neck. The enemies' weapon was coming from his own right side, so drawing his katana diagonal to his right side and upwards with a backhanded grip, Taka had blocked the incoming threat. The clash of the blades didn't last long as Ondori had begun to descend to the ground from his jump. Pushing off the pressure the samurai was exerting Ondori pushed himself back a bit and simultaneously slung his left arm forward in a hooking motion. As he did so the chain length of Tori slung out aiming to subdue the samurai at the torso as he descended down to the top of the altar he had jumped up from.
"Ain't this a surprise." The samurai was quick on his toes and also a quick thinker. Unlike most he just landed then jumped up once more but even higher to avoid the arc of the chain unlike most would do.
This meant the arc would lead the sickle head to come back to Ondori, so he sheathed his sword with his right hand and as the sickle head came back towards him on his right side making a "u" shape from his left hand to his right, he reached beyond the sickle head and grasped the chain length so he wouldn't cut himself.
"Looks like I should have kept that secret to myself just a bit longer . . . I got anxious." Twirling the chain length in his right hand off on his right side with the sickle cutting the air, Ondori eyed the man as he was descending trying to assess exactly how he should approach.
"It did catch me off guard, but yeah holding onto that a bit longer would have had a more bountiful reward." As the man touched down, he immediately jumped once more, but this time it was more of a light hop. Forward he went and onto the ground level with Ondori he stood.
"Do you know what called you over here?" As the samurai spoke he sheathed his sword and his hand began to move for another that was positioned on his hip.
"It was this, this sword can speak to people like us in a way others can't understand." Ondori watched as the man's hand clenched the handle of the weapon violently and flames began to emanate from the weapon. The Ronin's eyes widened in disbelief and he took a few cautionary steps back to create a distance of 10m between the two combatants.
"Don't fear it, it was calling to you. For some reason it feels you'd better wield it than I could and that's what I'm here to disprove." Ondori felt an odd chill go up his spine at the samurai's words and for the first time in a while he felt fear. Fear of death. All he could see was the flames of the sword engulfing the samurai in a greedy aura as he crept forward, closer and closer to Ondori. When he came back into the moment he had found his feet were carrying him backwards on their own and before he knew it a voice in his mind was shouting at him to flee.
"It looks like you're not as foolish as the other people who came here before you." "This doesn't feel right" He thought to himself before lobbing the still rotating sickle blade forward. It was a straight forward cut and came at the samurai head on, no curve or hooking motion, but it was a feint. Freeing his hand he retracted the sickle blade and chain back into the shaft not letting it sail further than 5m. As he did so, Ondori hauled ass away from the battle for the first time in years.
The samurai didn't bother to chase, he just laughed at Ondori as he ran, the Ronin's body felt almost frozen over as he did so, but he kept running. He ran all the way until he reached his ship and without a word to his men he went into his room. There he laid down trying to sleep, but he already knew no such thing would come. He felt as if there was a ghost in the corner of the room watching him as he laid there, still and fear struck. Soon fear turned into anger however, anger at himself for running from a fight, but deep down he knew why he ran. The man had an energy unlike anyone Ondori had ever met before, it stopped the little bounty hunter in his tracks and turned him into a fish out of water, it was a miracle he could even hope to run. But despite all the thoughts running through his head and all the memories of his travels leading up to this point, the Ronin fell into a slumber. In that period of sleep however his dreams tormented him with visions of that man and his sword and how the people they killed didn't simply die, but how their soul was eaten by the blade never to be reborn again, they were sent to oblivion and that was what scared Ondori the most.
