Ondori had heard tales about the island of Ohara. Not only of the large tree that grew and reached to the heaven's in the middle of the island's girth, but also of the intelligence the member's of the island's community harbored. While they were primarily all archaeologist and not scientist interested in progressing technology and the likes, Ondori was still interested in what knowledge these people could have to offer him. Perhaps they could lead him to some ancient ruins they stumbled upon and there he'd be inspired to create the next biggest thing that'd rake in millions and millions of Beli. It was far fetched thinking, but only those who dreamed big got to live big.

Walking the streets of Ohara, yet to make his way towards meeting any of the bookworms, Ondori had been talking to and tailing a rather alluring woman who was playing more than hard to get. A few meters behind the woman she stopped in front of what looked like a lounge, a place with an atmosphere a bit chiller than a club's. She turned and gave him a suggestive look and smile, before turning her focus back to the entrance of the smoke lounge and entering. It was more than enough to get the Ronin's feet moving and blood pumping.

Upon entering the bar he scanned the area and much to his disappointment and disbelief the woman was no where to be found. "Women are always playing games then complain when they can't find a guy for them, God damn." He sighed and decided to look around for her for a bit, before going to hit the books in one of Ohara's many libraries.

---

"Hey." A familiar voice called out and summon Ondori's attention. Looking to the source of this call, his eyes narrowed on someone whom he hadn't seen in years and he wasn't necessarily glad to see. "This can't be a coincidence, that woman was working for you?" His tone was rather authoritative and stern as he spoke and approached the one who had called out to him. The person was a character of his past, an old dojo associate whom he trained with back in Wano Country. Ondori remembered Ranmaru very clearly and the two always had a rather questionable rivalry going on between them. Not the one where they both want to pull the best out of the other, but more so shame the other by showcasing they themselves were superior.

Just seeing Ranmaru had Ondori getting irritated and he new soon enough the two of them would be fighting; there could be other reasons he was here, but in the end it would end in a fight.

"Yes and I'm guessing you know why I'm here correct?" Having made an attempt on their master's life unsuccessfully, Ondori was wanted in his dojo. It was something he hadn't really forgotten as much as it was something he refused to think about. He knew in time he'd be found and be hunted for and to see Ranmaru was the first to engage him let him know there were no intentions on taking him back to the dojo alive.

Taking a seat adjacent to the swordsman, Ondori nodded and leaned back in the semi circle shaped couch. "Old man Dojima is finally calling for my head huh?" Ranmaru nodded and chuckled. "It honestly took him long enough. If he chose to wait any longer he might not last long enough to see one of us bring it home." Ondori was a bit saddened to hear the man who raised him as a child to be near death, but it was unavoidable and knowing Dojima he can easily still be a threat to Ondori himself.

---

"So what are we stalling for? I'm pretty sure you're just as eager to try to kill me as I am you." Again Ranmaru laughed. It was a reserved condescending laugh, a trait about the boy Ondori always despised. He truly looked down on everyone and saw them as pawns for him to control. Ondori was almost quite similar, but he saw everyone as pawns and at times some were more manipulatable than others, no one was greater than the other, some were just more driven. "Not yet, I want to pick your mind for some insight before we go spilling blood. What the hell were you thinking to go and try to kill Dojima and how could you be dumb enough to try when you weren't surely able to kill him? You honestly just set yourself up for a life that's nothing but running from your past." Ondori hated to admit it, but Ranmaru was right, it was foolish of him to make an attempt on his sensei's life when he wasn't sure he possessed the skill to successfully kill him. But the rest of what Ranmaru perceived as a burden was only a matter of perspective. For Ondori he was glad that he'd have a constant stream of swordsman at his neck. It'd only make him have to do less work to prove he was the greatest, for many of his competitors would be coming to him. "I was young and stupid. Still am, but a bit stronger now. Now stop stalling, you know I'm not the deep type, I just do what comes to mind on impulse and hope it all works out."

Standing up from the couch he began to head for the door not caring to wait for what Ranmaru had to say. "I don't see our fight lasting long, it'll be a pretty one sided defeat or victory for one of us, so lets just get it out the way yeah?" Ranmaru sighed and began to follow Ondori, but as always he had something up his sleeve, a ploy.

 

Brushing the curtain that was an entrance to the side what he saw outside the smoke lounge honestly had surprised him. When he thought about who he was dealing with he cursed under his breath at not expecting such a tactic. Taking a few steps forward he eyed each of the twenty swordsman outside that bore the Yagyū dojo insignia. Some of the faces were vaguely familiar, they were just slightly more grown up. A hand placed on his shoulder did little to phase him for he knew it was just Ranmaru coming to gloat, feeling he had Ondori by the heart strings. "You should have seen this one coming Ondori. With resources at my finger tips of course I'd use them . . . besides . . . they're eager to wipe the stain off the dojo that you created." Ranmaru walked off to the side in a laughing fit, while Ondori sized up the school of swordsmen. "This is the junior class I'm assuming? Dojima really gave you children's lives to throw at me?" Ondori scoffed and shook his head in disapproval. Treachery was going crazy, practically screaming at him from the side of his hip making it slightly hard to focus on anything but it's greed. "Maybe he did . . . maybe he didn't. He surely wouldn't remember with how his mind's been fleeting lately. One thing is for sure and it's that these guy's came on their own accord." "Did you tell them they were coming to their own deaths?" A few of the swordsmen seemed to have their composure shaken from Ondori's words.

---

Seeing this he turned his attention back to them. "What? You thought I was above killing you all just because you're young? If you grab a sword and stand in front of me, I'll kill you. Besides you got my sword here going pretty crazy and it hasn't gotten to kill people in quite a while, shame they have to be pawns of one of Ranmaru's petty ploys." The Ronin gave a devious grin and he had Treachery to thank for not being susceptible to the serpent's mind games. Normally he'd be a bit hesitant on killing these juniors, but his cursed blade had him itching to get it over with already. "Fuck you! Kill him already!" Maybe it was mob mentality, but with Ranmaru's command when one charged, another charged, then another, then all of a sudden all signs of having a doubt about engaging Ondori faded and all the young teens, none older than fifteen were running towards the Ronin to their death's.

Anxious to kill due to the pressures of his cursed blade, Ondori clutched the damned weapon's handle and would attempt to sate its bloodlust with the lives of the twenty swordsmen. For his first attack he drew Treachery horizontally to cut down two of the students with his first stroke. The lacerations were deep across their chest from armpit to armpit severing the tendons that were in that area rendering them unable to wield their swords should they keep consciousness. Immediately after he leaped sideways about two inches off the ground in a low strafe three meters to his left.

---

Touching down, he immediately leaped forward toward the swordsman who had a bit of trouble keeping up with his speed. He could feel Treachery's excitement synching with his own or perhaps it was the other way around, it was like a mutual relationship between the parasite and host in this instance. The bloodlust of the blade drove Ondori to fight without holding back or considering the fact he was killing children as young as twelve.

His sword pulled over to his right side held a bit below parallel with the ground, both hands rested on the handle. "Come on, if you're a Junior class as accomplished as mine's was then twenty of you should be more than enough to take down someone like me!" As he closed in he lashed out diagonally towards his left shoulder meeting the blade of another swordsmen with more force than the swordsman was attacking with, thus disarming him instead of just slapping the weapon out of the way. Completely defenseless, it didn't matter, from his sword being positioned diagonally in line with his left shoulder, he brought the blade down in front of him towards his right hip, but the target had vanished. "Speedy little fuckers." Two other students had grabbed the boy's arms and taken him away, but Ondori didn't have time to think on it. Hearing the sound of shifting feet against the dirt road behind him, he attempted to turn to counter, but was a bit too slow.

---

The result was a fair cut down his chest, it was nothing too deep, for as he spun around he moved in the opposite direction of the opposition so the blade's distance from him was increased, thus some of the damage was negated. Not taking time to analyze the wound or give it much attention besides a wince and the bearing of teeth as he sucked in air, he rebounded off his backwards movement and jousted forward while lunging towards the vulnerable swordsman. With a quick shuffle of feet, the student avoided Ondori's stab at his torso by moving backwards, but he still found himself in death's clutches. With his stab Ondori had shot a small air based projectile forward, so even though the blade was avoided this air blade shot straight through the boy's chest.

With a serpentine grin on his face, with the foot his weight was most focused on, he twisted it inwards grinding the dirt beneath his sandal clad feet. As he did so his body also spun in a corresponding direction, due to the other foot pushing off the ground and being lifted so slightly off the ground. These actions produced a quick pivot to Ondori's right side where he would unleash a horizontal slash outwards to the incoming swordsmen. While they were still many meters away running at him, he utilized the flying slash again to produce a crescent shaped projectile that was a meter and a half long.

---

Like the fang's of a beast the projection of his blade dug into all their chest, but one who raised his blade in defense having noticed the distortion of the air. Killing the other four instantly with contact, this single swordsman who barely managed to block the air wave from cleaving his chest had blood gripping from both his shoulders. While he guarded his core the air wave still broke around the blade and continued to cut into flesh around the guarded area. Muscles vital to functioning and using one's weapon correctly severed, the swordsman's arms involuntarily dropped to his sides and his sword fell out his hands as he joined the blade in the dirt on his knees. The Ronin wouldn't seek out killing him since he could obviously no longer fight, so he directed his attention towards the last few who stood. There were ten left and though their composure looked compromised and it seemed some of them questioned if they wanted to fight Ondori, they stood their ground with their katanas in hand and that's all he needed.

Charging at them head on, the rush from his fresh wound driving him to fight harder and Treachery influencing him to seek out carnage, he swung his weapon once more into open space many meters away from the Junior students. This group of students had learned from their peer's mistakes however and all moved out the way to completely avoid the air wave. Some jumped up some went left and some went right, but none dared to  try to brave the thin blade of wind head on. "Looks like the dojo hasn't been slacking in the least bit since I left."

---

Still running towards the general location of the swordsmen, those who had split left and right immediately rebounded off their strafes out of harms way and came at Ondori diagonally from his sides. Stopping in his tracks he stabbed treachery into the dirt road on his right side, then slashed outwards into the air creating a veil of dust that sprayed out towards the eyes of the approaching swordsmen in a conical fashion. Effectively blinding them and slightly damaging the respiratory system of a few, as the dust settled Ondori ran in and made light work of them all. The only one's who remained now was the Junior with the cut shoulders and the two that had jumped upwards to avoid his air wave. Both narrowed their eyes on him and reaffirmed their grip on their katanas. Doing the same, he let them approach him. Once they closed in the distance, the two students attempted a synchronized attack that was composed of taking turns attacking to create a tempo that the opponent always had something to react to. This created a rhythm that didn't allow the target to respond offensively and if they made a single mistake in their evasive front, they could suffer mortal injuries.

Ondori was well versed with this tactic however and even crafted his personal style of swordsmanship around this very principle which was tempo. Not only using his eyes to observe the Juniors, but his ears to key in on when they exhaled to carry their strikes, he could precisely time when each of their attacks were coming.

---

In addition to the fact there was a small window of empty time in their assault since they were trying their best not to disturb the other's combination, Ondori was impressed, but didn't feel himself in harm's way. For a while he entertained the duo, dodging and parrying their attacks as they came. He found if he focused on solely dodging one and using Treachery to parry the other, it was very easy to deal with the teamwork, but he was wrong. Perhaps a bit too confident in his own abilities or underestimating his opponents, they had altered the tempo on him at the same time and they both concealed their breaths as they did so. A pincer attack coming from both his sides in unison as opposed to one after another and at different levels, one high at his neck and the other low at his calves and both well in his immediate vicinity making backing out an option, he wasn't able to dodge.

Tightening his grip on his cursed blade, it's malicious aura guided him to release a wave of killing intent to freeze the two in their place, just inches away from cutting into his flesh and making him a sitting duck for Ranmaru. An image of being impaled from behind would render their bodies motionless and while they were frozen in time, the Ronin would execute them both before the sensation of murder have left their body and they were no longer stunned. A single stroke with Treachery for them both and they fell to the ground dead with the rest of the Junior class.

---

Spoiler:

 

The small road was in a fritz with the street littered with bodies of young boys that had yet to live out the full span of their teen years. Citizens were running amuck and Marines were assembling one by one, their eyes fixated on the corpses. Back and forth their optics juggled between Ondori and the fallen swordsmen putting the pieces together. "Looks like you've really done it now Rooster. You killed all these kids and now the Marines are gonna do the same to you." Ondori's wound on his chest was beginning to really burn. Though the bleeding slowed down and he had begun clotting, so he was thankful for that much.

Looking around him he eyed the marines that had taken up arms against him. There were about twenty of them, some with rifles and some with sabers, he wouldn't last even though they didn't seem that strong. Actually, he could, but he'd still have Ranmaru to worry about after he had expended his energies doing so, something he couldn't afford to do. For now he just needed to buy time, while he thought of a plan. "Even though I was acting out of self-defense, I'm gonna be shot down here in cold blood? Seems pretty typical of the World Government, so I'm not really surprised." As he spoke his eyes danced around seemingly assessing the marines though he was really checking out possible escape routes. Ranmaru was right near the entrance to the smoke lounge, so that exit was out of the question and that was the only building he was closest to.

The boys in blue had him practically closed in, the building adjacent to the smoke lounge was too far, by the time he ran for it, he'd be shot full of holes then skewered.
[RIB +17]

---

The only exit he had was through the smoke lounge despite Ranmaru being posted right near the entrance. "You really think that's a good idea?" As he was speaking frames emerging from atop the rooftop of the smoke lounge caught his eyes and also drew the attention of the marines. They were animals, but nothing Ondori had ever seen before, they were monsters. They had beastial land mammal bodies, lions, wolves, tigers, bears, but had exotic additions to them. One had the horns of an Ox sewn to its head, another had a whole large snake sprouting out its backside like a tail, but the serpent was very much alive and hissing ready to bite. One had wings and another had a scorpion's tail. Each of them were truly magnificent in their own right to a scientist, but the faces the Marines made, they were seen as the taboo and unholy creations they really were. "I'm hoping you kept up with your studies and I'm not the only one who is a swordsman and a scientist. These are chimeras, fusions of different animals to make the ultimate predator. You'll find them a lot tougher to beat than these puny Junior Class swordsman." Ondori was shocked and in awe, but he didn't have time to get frozen in place now, his life was in danger. With the chimeras bathing in limelight, Ondori would try to use the lapse in the Marine's focus to his advantage.
[RIB +17]

---

Narrowing his eyes on the door to the smoke lounge, he began to charge the door and Ranmaru began to rise to oppose him. You think I'm going to let yo-" Swinging outwards with Treachery at the ground of the entrance to the smoke lounge, the cursed blade released an arc of blue flames with Ranmaru in the danger zone. Following behind these flames was Ondori with desperation carrying him and death nipping at the backs of his feet. Slowly the Marines reallocated their focus on Ondori, the Chimera's proving to be an ample distraction, and they raised their firearms and took aim. None of their swordsman ran after him so they wouldn't get in the way of the marksmen. Ranmaru who was about to rise up to prepare for Ondori's charge was caught off guard with the projection of the flames. Leaping away from the entrance, he wouldn't be able to attack Ondori now and the Ronin would only have to worry about the gunmen. Closing in on the door he jumped at it with his shoulder and left side leading the charge. His plan was to ram a hole through the wooden door, he didn't have time to turn the knob and all that bullshit. Albeit he possessed a small fram, the body had power and he successfully shot himself through the door sending splintery wooden bits showering on the floor. Not taking the time to address the pain, he rolled over to the side out of alignment with the door, for what followed was a spray of bullets.

---

Ondori honestly didn't think they'd shoot, but he was happy he took the precaution of rolling out of the doorway, better safe than sorry. Still not seething in pain from the splinters that dug into the front of his body, he picked himself up quickly and began to dash towards the back of the smoke lounge, more specifically the kitchen. He knew his flames at the door would buy him a bit of time until they figured out that the flames only burned what they first made contact with and couldn't latch onto other things or spread. As he made his way to the kitchen, he sheathed Treachery and pulled out his last Time Bomb of the prototype batch. "I'm about to blow this place up, so you might wanna haul ass outta here." As he said it the line cooks snapped their attention to him and eyed the peculiar device in his hand. Some shrugged, others immediately dashed off the line off to somewhere Ondori didn't care to wonder about. Walking over to their stove, he saw it was gas fueled and he let out a weak sarcastic sounding cheer. "Hopefully this kills 'em" He said to himself as he crouched down and set the bomb on the tank of natural gasses. Giving himself thirty seconds to get the fuck out of the smoke lounge, he hoped it'd be within the window his pursuers were still searching for him. Retreating further in the kitchen, he opened the back door, pretty sure he had heard the sound of growling and shuffling in the lounge area, the chimera's were searching for him.

---

Snatching the backdoor open and running out the smoke lounge, only having taken a few steps he was stopped, by three marines with rifles. They were already aiming down the sites of their weapons with their fingers on the trigger."Shit." Ondori grunted as he moved multiple meters forward and to his left off the small squadrons side and behind them. This was his Ghost Step technique and in his current state it left he slightly winded and the exertion had reopened the wound on his chest. Shots fired just as he used the lightning fast movement technique, his heart pounded sharply, he wasn't sure if he had moved fast enough or not due to how painful the pump of his heart was. As the pain slowly subsided, his body broke out in a cold sweat and adrenaline and anxiety began to wash over him. These things worked together to carry him to ignore the pain of the chest wound and allow him to run down the pathway the marines were trying to block with their presence. It was between two buildings, but it wasn't a long enough pathway to be called an alley really, nor did it have the miscellaneous filth lying around it that made it something one would call an alleyway. It was just a clear path of dirt between two buildings that one could cut through to get to the next road over. Pressing against his fresh wound with his bare hand trying to apply pressure to stop the bleeding he wasn't sure how much time he still had to cover more ground away from the soon to be demolished building. "He's over here! Out the lounge!"

---

Those three wouldn't be an issue anymore given they had fired off their shots and had to reload now, boy was Ondori happy the Marines hadn't figured out a sort of gun that allowed one to fire multiple rounds before needing to reload.

That wasn't important now though, he just needed to keep running. But to where? He looked around as he got from in between the two buildings, still running though and he spotted wilderness a bit further ahead. He'd need to pass one more of those "alleyways" to make it, hopefully once there he could lay low for a bit. As he ran across the road he swear he could feel the eyes of a sharpshooter hanging on him, he felt exposed and vulnerable. All he could think was that he was about to die at any moment, but that thought persuaded him to keep fighting through the pain and run faster. Nearly to the next "alleyway" the lounge detonated. The natural gases they used to power their stoves and whatever else was in there worked well to amplify the create a blast with much bigger yield than the Time Bomb could do alone. He didn't want to count his chickens before they hatched, but deep down he really wanted to believe the blast had killed Ranmaru and all his dastardly creations. That was too good to believe though, but hopefully now he had lost the Marines. They had a fire, wounded, terror control, and all that silly shit to worry about.

Spoiler:

 

In the cover of the wilderness' foliage, Ondori took the time to catch his breath. Doing so the shock from the wounds he had accumulated began to set in and soon enough his whole body was tingling with the sensation of being pricked with needles, the cut on his chest having a more discernible stand alone pain hurting more than the others. Breathing heavily, he began to notice the deluge of sweat dripping from his messy hair and face. He was really pushing himself and the battle wasn't even over yet. He knew Ranmaru was probably still good and well and Ondori wasn't even sure how many of the Chimeras his explosion had taken out if any. "Shit." He said to himself under his breath. He wasn't even looking to continue fighting at this point. It was too risky with the amount of damage his body had sustained compared to Ranmaru. There was also the fact that some Marines might turn up at any moment and be on his ass. He sucked it all up though. He needed to stop looking at all these things as negatives and just see them as things to prepare for and obstacles to over come. Getting down in a rut about ti would do nothing to save him. Affirmatively nodding to his new found resolve to overcome the odds that were stacked against him, he took one more greedy breath of air and exhaled it. Digging in his pocket he pulled out a small vial, it was his paralytic agent.
[RIB Stamina +17]

---

The vial in one hand, he used his other hand to partially unsheathe Treachery. Then baring his teeth into the cork that plugged the vial, he safely pulled the cork out without getting a drop of the liquid on him or outside the battle.

Placing his thumb on the top of the vials opening, he blocked the liquid from being able to pour out save for a small space so he could control how much of the agent he coated his weapon with. Placing the lip of the bottle against the edge of Treachery careful not to cut himself in the process, he tilted the vial back slightly letting the contents of the vial trail along the blade's edge all the way to the end of it.

Titling the vial back to the normal so it wouldn't pour anymore, he put Treachery back in its sheathe, then did the same with his normal katana, Taka. Both his weapons coated with this poison, should he simply scratch anyone with these blades now in due time the struck limb would be unusable. Ondori wasn't hoping he'd have to run into Ranmaru again, but he coated the weapons with him in mind knowing this would be the only way he could manage to beat him, due to his current state.

His sweaty back against the large base of a tree, he put the cork back on the vial tightly so the liquid wouldn't spill out and he stuff the vial back into his pocket.
[RIB +17 Stamina]

---

Standing up, his body felt achy and in a decent amount of pain, but he had still probably had some fighting to do, so he couldn't give into the fatigue. Thankfully the bleeding from the wound on his chest had clotted up and he hoped it'd stay that way. "I should head for a more open space." With that in mind he was about to head deeper in the forest until he heard the sound of footsteps coming from behind him. This caused him to halt his movement and ease his back, back up against the tree, his body beginning to react and cold sweat beginning to create an odd sensation.

Not looking around the body of the tree, but over his right shoulder as to hear the footsteps better he noticed a faint trail of blood was dribbled over the grass of the forest floor and of course it lead to where he was. Gripping the handle of Treachery he made a dash forward and would begin his race through the forest, weaving side to side to dodge trees, rocks, and whatever other obstructions that would be in his way as he moved away from whoever was on the other side of that tree. He was running, but that wasn't the only purpose of his sprint away, he was hoping to bait the opposition into chasing him and once they were close enough he could strike them and like a snake seep his venom into them to make it all the more easy to go in for the kill.

---

With his weapons being coated the thing is that he couldn't just go and cut the target anywhere, nor could he attack recklessly. Should he strike a tree, the ground, basically let the edge of his weapon dig into anything that wasn't the opponent's flesh, the dosage would go to waste. In addition to that, he couldn't cut them anywhere. While he was trained to go for immediately lethal and detrimental areas that'd lead to the wounded dying as fast as possible with a single stroke, he'd need to target a ket muscle group this time. With knowledge that Ranmaru was capable of dual wielding, Ondori knew the swordsman was ambidextrous, so even should he strike an arm and render it useless, unless he could administer another dosage on the other arm, he wouldn't be making much progress towards saving his ass. For that reason, Ondori was going to target his legs. Ranmaru was always pretty fast, so it'd be hard, but it'd pay off, even just cutting one leg would be enough to stop him from flying around and allow Ondori to clock his speed and go for a precise lethal finish.

"You think I'm just going to let you get away after killing my Chimeras Ondori?!" It was bittersweet, but here he was, it was Ranmaru. This would be the ending to the saga, either Ondori died or Ranmaru died. Despite probably having pissed off the island's Marines, Ranmaru was much more threatening to the Ronin at the moment, for Ondori knew he was a formidable fighter and probably even stronger than him by now.

---

"Killing me won't bring em back, why don't you just go and off yourself so you can burn in hell with em?" The sound of Ranmaru's footsteps were getting louder and once again it was like Ondori could feel the Grim Reaper himself was hot on his heels ready to claim his soul. It was now or never, for if he didn't act now, he'd surely be receiving a nasty stab wound in the back or something of the sort. He made his last step and pressed hard into the forest floor rebounding off of it to perform a clockwise pivot. His hand still on Treachery that was bound to his left hip in his sheathe, the rotation from the pivot would compliment the direction of the horizontal draw creating a powerful and fast quick draw directed at the swordsman who was previously behind him.

"I'm not dumb enough to run into something as obvious as that." Even though Ranmaru was practically right upon Ondori and the sword slash could have very much cut him, it missed due to Ranmaru jumping upwards over it. Up in the air the swordsman drew two blades, a katana from his hip and a wakizashi from the opposite hip. As he drew them he lashed outwards and an "x'' shaped distortion in the air was launched outwards towards Ondori. He was familiar with this technique of course, it being an attack he himself used, so his eyes clocked onto it fast and he responded quickly with a backwards hop that covered 3m of space.

---

As the airwaves hit the earth Ondori saw instead of finely slicing into the terrain, they more so crashed into it and violently shredded the ground while destroying layers of rock, it was like a blunt force attack with mechanical razors on the surface.

Done admiring the work of Ranmaru's attack, Ondori looked beyond the debris from the technique the swordsman employed and calculated where he thought Ranmaru would land. With this information he precisely aimed a wave of ice cold flames from Treachery hoping to catch Ranmaru by having him land in the flames and be subjected to the frost bite and eventually have a shell of ice form on his feet. "Nice try, but it won't work." Ranmaru's eye's reflected the icy blue flames that were just a few meters below him. Sheathing his wakizashi, he reached the same hand back to the large Nodachi that was on his back. Drawing the blade out in front of him all the way through till its point was aiming at the ground, he released it at this point. The result was the blade being shot towards the flames down below and lodging itself in the surface of the forest, but not all the way in, just about a foot deep. Precisely then the swordsman landed on the Nodachi, his feet somewhat cupped around the handle while the guard on the weapon worked to keep them in place on the handle. While the weapon did slide further into the ground from his weight, he quickly jumped off of the sword before it lowered far enough for him to be lead into the hell fire.

---

Where he launched himself was towards Ondori and with one hand free, he dug into the confines of his Gi and withdrew three throwing knives between his knuckles. With him coming head on towards Ondori with his adept level of speed he was already a dangerous threat, but after tossing his throwing knives forward at Ondori as well, now the Ronin had a two stage attack to respond to and both were moving immensely fast.

"I'll match speed with speed." He thought to himself as the kunai blades were about to be within 5m of him. Readying his blade in a singular swift motion, he swung Treachery from slightly above his head and a few inches off the right side with a single sturdy step forward as he did so. Bringing the blade out in front of him and downwards what looked like one strike was five in actuality and it precisely cut down each of the kunai that were tossed before they entered a range where they could actually hit him or before they were even within 1m of his sword. Not only did he utilize a successive attacking technique, but he also used the flying slash principles to project each of these lightning fast attacks 2m outwards. With the correct timing he not only batted each of the throwing knives out of the air and away from him, but he also put Ranmaru at risk of getting shredded.

Ranmaru wasn't your typical swordsman however. Accompanying the sound of the throwing knives being batted out of the air was the sound of steel colliding with steel, however there were only four collision noises meaning one of Ranmaru's parries had missed.

---

The odd part was it was one of the blade strikes in the middle of collective of slashes, for at the end of the combination of slashes the two ended up in a deadlock, both their weapons pressed against each other. As he pressed against Ranamaru's blade he began to feel the pain of a new wound opening up across his stomach. "I didn't get you as deep as I wanted since I had to block your other slashes, but that'll slow you down so I can take this nice looking sword of yours." Ondori smiled through the pain as he noticed he too landed a blow on Ranmaru across his thigh. Ondori's eyes flickered from the blood soaked stain that was growing on his leg up to Ranamaru himself. "Same goes for you, that cut isn't going to feel too good in a minute . . . nah not even a full minute since you're bloods probably moving all throughout your system from fighting." The swordsman's expression shifted to perplex, before the realization that Ondori was hinting at stuck him. "You fucking snake!" Pressing harder on his sword he pushed Ondori back and opened up his guard. Normally Ondori would be able to guard himself even after being pushed back how he was, but with the damage his body sustained he wasn't performing at his zenith.

Stepping forward to take a cut at the vulnerable Ronin, his leg wobbled then buckled causing Ranmaru's swing to not only fail, but causing him to stumble over himself having to use his free hand to catch himself. Seeing the opportunity Ondori dropped Treachery straight out his hand and moved the hand to the handle of Taka which was also coated with the paralysis agent.

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Stabbing at Ranmaru, the swordsman ducked lower to try to dodge the blade, but he was pierced gruesomely in his shoulder. Not only would the poison enter the blood stream of that arm, but from the wound the arm wouldn't be in use with or without the poison. The blade dug through the shoulder going into the area where the bicep and tricep was in line with the actual arm itself, shredding many vital muscles for movement. In response Ranmaru yelled out in pain and Ondori withdrew Taka and prepared to administer the killing blow, but he stopped when he heard something. "I heard something over here, we can still catch him!" "Fuck, Marines . . ." He didn't hesitate any and quickly sheathed Taka and grabbed Treachery also placing it in its sheathe. He was in no state to battle Marines and didn't need much time to figure that out. With a decent wound across his stomach and one slightly reopened on his chest, he knew it was time to retreat. "You'd kill a bunch of students, but you won't kill me?! You're weaker than I thought hahaha." "I know it'll haunt you more knowing I could have killed you, but I didn't. I think that's worse than death for you." With that Ondori ventured deeper into the forest to hide from the marines and left Ranmaru alive. He knew he'd more than likely regret it later, because he'd surely find Ondori again, but he'd cross that bridge when the time for it came.

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