A Blind Battle

Zhong traveled silently through the fog that filled the halls of the Fire Nation Palace. He was practically invisible to all around him, the fog hid his visual presence and using a unique form of air bending to neutralize the vibration of sound around him, he was muffled.

For the most part, Zhong was able to effectively avoid any other lifeforms in the palace. This was accomplished by listening for the heartbeat of people nearby. Of course, with the ongoing destruction outside and the mysterious fog inside the palace, many were freaked out and were on edge, evacuating to shelters or rushing out to no doubt meet Chui (Steam Bender) in battle.

Eerily enough, there was one heartbeat that Zhong heard that seemed to not be freaked out by the events unfolding in the Fire Nation Capital. The beating pace of the heart was normal, which was definitely not normal in a situation like this.

So Zhong approached the person to whom the calm beating heart belonged to, invisible from the fog and absence of sound around him. Zhong decided it would be best to kill this person, it was no doubt not a normal person and could potentially be a problem later if he left them alive.

He unsheathed a dagger from his belt and approached his current target. Upon closing in from behind, he could now indeed see that his target was strangely enough a woman.

Xuri Info: https://lastairbender.rpg-board.net/t1730-xuri-rising-sun

At the very last minute, Zhong stepped back back from Sanaki's attack, barely escaping with his life. He wasn't nearly fast enough to escape unharmed though, one of Sanaki's grazed his chest.

Zhong retreated back into the fog, a decent distance away from the strange woman who somehow knew of his presence. He heard rumors of the Fire Lady Sanaki's heat sense. Could this woman perhaps be Sanaki?

Zhong touched the wound on his chest and looked at the blood on his chest. It's been too long since he was last injured in a fight. He decided to test and see just how 'good' this woman's senses were. He lept to the right, and muffled his movements by the his unique air bending and threw a dagger towards the lady.

Judging from those movements, Zhong had decided the woman was most definetely Fire Lady Sanaki.

She isn't Tarek, Zhong thought to himself, But she is still very good prey. Perhaps she'll do for now.

When Sanaki began to run down one of the halls, Zhong followed her, muffling his any sound he made. He moved through the halls quickly and invisible to basically all but Sanaki. He was a ghost.

Sanaki was most likely leading him to a trap, but Zhong wasn't worried. As an elite assassin, trap evasion was a very primal skill to have.

Even so, Zhong wasn't going to let have Sanaki have a free-be in her run. Using a dagger, Zhong sent a silent, horizontal air slash at about neck level toward Sanaki.

Zhong followed the Fire Lady into what seemed to be an armory. Zhong was cautious though, as Sanaki would have the advantage of home terrain on her side. It was possible that there were booby traps in this room, so he was careful not to mess with anything.

"Nice collection." Zhong simply said.

Being an assassin of his caliber, Zhong believed in being the first one to strike. Truth was, on his phrase 'Nice collection', Zhong put a minor delay on the soundwaves and charged Sanaki. It would appear as though he were speaking from the other side even though he was actually right in front of her. To a normal enemy, this would catch them completely by surprise, but Zhong knew his enemy was Fire Lady Sanaki with her feared heat sense ability.

Zhong would find the full potential at her abilities and began his attack with a stab from his dagger.

Unlike Sanaki, Zhong wasn't completely blind and still required his sight to battle. Sure, he can listen in on the heartbeats of his 'prey', but such a thing takes concentration and is sometimes hard to do in the midst of battle. Zhong pushed away all of the Air around him, dispelling the sudden smoke. He didn't try to block Sanaki's attack as he decided it would be safer to dodge it.

Zhong lept back, but he wasn't fast enough as dispelling the smoke required some valuable time and one of Sanaki's blade just nipped Zhong cheek, lightly cutting it. Zhong couldn't help but smile to himself, it's been too long since he's hunted prey such as this.

Zhong threw two daggers towards Sanaki followed by a powerful gust of wind. The air bender assassin than drew two more daggers and charged the Fire Lady, with the intent of cutting her down.

Sanaki's lack did not bother Zhong as he did not think too much of it. As an elite assassin such as him, Zhong has learned to completely block out such distractions. In fact, Sanaki's lack of clothes was only better for Zhong, it would help prevent the use of weapons hidden under her robe.

In their exchange of close quarter combat, what Sanaki would notice was the complete absence of sound. Zhong continued to deaden the vibration of sound around him. The lack of sound itself wouldn't do any damage, but to the average person, sudden deafness was disorienting and would actually really hinder ones combat abilities.

Still within close range of Sanaki, Zhong slashed at Sanaki with his dagger. This slash was no ordinary one however, the Air Bender assassin had laced the blade with concentrated air bending. Such a technique was usually meant for long range attacks as at the extent of the swing, the concentrated air would could continue onward for some distance and cut whatever was in this path. At point blank range though, if blocked incorrectly, this attack could be very fatal.

The many weapon racks and such in Sanaki's personal armory provided a lot of cover, cover that at the moment, was in favor of Zhong.

Zhong jumped behind some weapon racks to his left and continued running behind the cover of the row of the weapon racks. The fire balls Sanaki sent toward Zhong were only impacting the walls, weapons themselves and the weapon racks. None were actually directly hitting Zhong.

To Zhong's surprise however, the fire balls didn't explode in destructive flames, but rather a bright fission of light. The lights of course didn't directly hit Zhong, but they were still debilitating to his vision, obstructing his view of Sanaki.

It was possible that Sanaki had move positions since the Air Bender assassin had began running behind the cover of weapon racks, but Zhong decided he would try his luck. As he passed by the next weapon rack, he forced a powerful gale of air onto the rack and all of the contents on it.

This sent swords, spears, and other blades flying toward Sanaki's previous position in what would literally appear to be an incoming storm of steel.

Sanaki's fire attacks had successfully connected with Zhong's back and sent him flying across the room. In reflex, Zhong sent a stong gale of wind behind him in order to stop any other incoming attacks coming from Sanaki.

Zhong hit the ground with a role and quickly made it back to his feet. He didn't have to inspect his painful injury on his back to know that the fire balls probably left some nasty burns. Zhong looked toward Sanaki and thought to himself that perhaps he was underestimating her abilities. That in spite of all the years since the days of when she was an assassin, she hasn't loss much skill in her trade.

Zhong had remembered when he was younger and still new to the trade of assassinations, the stories he had heard of The Blind Phoenix. Perhaps the elegance and beauty in the way she did her jobs was what intrigued Zhong as he began to follow the same path. Zhong wasn't a killer, but an artist, an artist that played with the greatest creation of all: life.

It irked him though, to think that Sanaki gave up such a joy for a 'normal' life style. When she dropped her Assassin life style, Zhong had lost much respect for the woman.

Zhong cut the air bending around him that was nullifying all sound around him and spoke to Sanaki, "I know who you are, Blind Phoenix. I also know that you, like I, once knew the beauty in taking a life. The joy in ending one's history, the rush in finishing one's story, the power in erasing the future; there isn't anything like it. Yet you gave it all up, you've put down your past and decided to find joy in other aspects of life."

Zhong paused for a moment then continued, "You are only lying to your true feelings, Phoenix."

Zhong sent a powerful wave of air bending to slow down the speed of the knife to where it was traveling at a speed where the Air Assassin was able to comfortably reach out and catch the knife by the handle.

"That's good," Zhong said in reply to Sanaki while twirling the knife he had just caught between his fingers, "We both have something in common then."

Zhong began to walk around the room, circling Sanaki as he continued speaking this time, grinning, "To me though, it seems that you have let go of your old nature. It seems to me that you've forgotten what we both truly are - Death Gods."

Zhong paused for a bit then continued, "In reality, we are no different then Death Gods, we hide in behind the scenes and choose who lives and who dies. Laughably, it seems you've forgotten this, deciding to start a family, you've began down a path of creating life, not taking it."

"Perhaps you're due for a review?..." Zhong's voice suddenly muted as he began to muffle all sound around once again.

Truth was, Zhong realized that Sanaki was probably one of the worst people he could have gotten paired up against in a fight. Because of her heat sense, Sanaki was probably amongst the very small number of people existing that could actually detect Zhong while he was turning himself 'invisible'. In order to win this fight, Zhong knew that he had to somehow counter Sanaki's heat sense.

Zhong was unsure of how to do that at the moment and decided to continue down his current path, despite the burns on his back, Zhong was relatively uninjured.

Using air bending to rapidly increase his velocity, Zhong launched himself at Sanaki with his dagger out.

(Note that even if they do clash blades, Zhong would continue muffling sound around him which result in no sound from a clash of blades.)

Zhong knew that from her movements, Sanaki was looking for an opening in which to catch Zhong by surprise. Zhong wouldn't give her one however and he sent of flurry of air slashes in whatever direction he believed Sanaki would move in. He didn't expect any of the air slashes to hit her as she zigzagged around the room, but he would at least limit what direction she would move in.

As she got closer, the likeliness she would attack from that direction also got higher. When she was within 20 feet, Zhong threw both of his daggers in his hand to the left and to the right of Sanaki so that if she were to attempt to move around Zhong, she would have to also deal with the daggers. Zhong then also lept forward however, drawing two more daggers, he went directly for her.

As Sanaki lept over Zhong, he knew that at that point that her intentions were to attack him from behind. Zhong also knew that he wouldn't have time to fully turn around, by the time he did, Sanaki would be on him with her blades. Zhong wasn't completely defenseless at this point however, he had one last thing he could do.

Zhong fell foward and caught himself with his two hands. As his hands hit the floor, Zhong raised his two back feet and kicked a powerful gust of Air at Sanaki. On top of that, the gust had enough power to propel Zhong's feet forward and let him flip his feet over his head. Twisting his body in mid-air, Zhong landed back onto his feet now facing Sanaki in a position ready for a counter attack.

This is just a test from Forumotion technicians.

Zhong was expecting a melee attack and as he began his charge, Sanaki had attacked with a medium range flaming whip type of attack.

As a result, Zhong had run directly into the flaming whip. Zhong had managed to successfully jump over the first whip, but the second one sent caught him by the leg. Zhong sent a air slash into the whip in order to avoid being grabbed by it.

Zhong still fell forward and lost his footing as he landed, tumbling toward Sanaki.

[OOC--forgot that I never replied to this. which is silly since this is the last post ><]

Sanaki Calameda Zelgius

Sanaki was able to dodge the air slash with considerable ease, given that this one was out of desperation rather than a concentrated attack. A small twist in the corner of her lip caused it to move upward, and the adrenaline rush of scoring what would soon be another kill all returned to the old assassin in this instant. "In truth..." she began, as her blades met Zhong's flesh, "the Blind Phoenix never retired... she simply disappeared into the shadows like every good assassin." She had purposely targetted spots that would mortally wound, but not kill, for the sole purpose of giving that little speech. However, she was not a sadist anymore, and so she finished it simply, by slitting his throat and standing up. She was luckily deft enough not to get blood smeared all over her (or was that because she was wearing red), but now she needed to rendezvous with her husband and children--and find herself a new robe so she wasn't strutting around half-naked. Her work here was done...

Mood: Content Condition: Half-Dressed

Link: Sanaki