The Sword of Ancients - Open - Intro

OOC: I was going to use my posting template, but I can't do that without having to get a new image code every time. Sorry for having to use the default settings, which is a lot less pretty looking...




Snow covered the city of Hargeon as the soft pattering of light feet was heard rapidly moving across the white powdery soil. Her hair, white as snow, flickered around behind her as she darted desperately while looking about, hoping she could find somewhere to set up a proper trap quickly. The pursuers were far too close for her to just shoot into an ally, they'd expect a trap in there which made the idea even worse. She could force her way into a home, but then there would be lives in danger other than her own... Behind the cat mask that was marked with red pain, Kaori's hazel eyes continued glancing about until over the horizon she spotted something; a large castle. 'That'll do.' she thought to herself, knowing that the castle would be much too large to run into anyone inside. It would have many halls and corridors, stairwells, and furniture she could use to her advantage. The only matter left was clearing the near kilometer run to get to it...


Her pursuers were close behind, one of them manifested a bow of ice and tried to hit Kaori with a frozen arrow. The masked ninja heard the spell being cast and spun around while manifesting a trio of shuriken. They weren't normal shuriken, the one in the middle was white and the other two were bright red. She threw them all just as the arrow was shot and the white one hit the arrow, stopping it in its' tracks. An explosion of white was followed by two fiery explosions shortly after as the other two shuriken hit the men chasing after her.


Having put some distance between her attackers, losing them in the smoke screen created by her white shuriken, Kaori continued running towards the castle in the distance. As she approached she saw it get larger and larger, reducing the odds of finding the over privileged family who commissioned its' creation and making Kaori slightly happier for that. Her happiness ended as she'd gotten halfway across the snow covered bridge to see someone standing in front the door in the distance. Kaori stopped quickly, looking back to see her pursuers catching up and closing in quickly.

A panic came over the masked ninja as she'd realized she'd ran into a trap. The man on the far end was the leader and he'd anticipated Kaori would run the the castle, the other two were high ranking members of his clan and the three of them were targets Kaori foolishly chased down to kill. Kaori took a fighting stance, grabbing the katana at her waist and gritting her teeth, not knowing who to target first. They were all more powerful than she was, and all were hard to predict.

Enemies on both sides began closing in, and Kaori had only two directions she could go to avoid dying at their hands. Her eyes became focused as she waited for her attackers, a plan to at least kill one of them fully devised. The three of them stopped a short distance from her, the leader crossing his arms over his chest in an arrogant manner. "Kaori Lareci, the sole survivor come to avenge her tribe-what a sweet tale. You've taken out quite a few of my own on your way here little girl, but it seems you've only got three options now and they all lead to your death." His words were true, and Kaori knew it...

One of the lackies from behind spoke up revealing that it was a very flat chested 'she' rather than a wimpy looking man. "Jump the bridge, get killed by one of us, or get killed by Lord Saia; what will you choose?" she said while making a large katana of ice. Kaori gave a smirk under her mask and spoke with an arrogant tone. "Anata wa opushon shi o wasuremashita... baka" she said in her native tongue. The leader's eyes grew wide as the female subordinate lost her temper, sick and tired of chasing the girl down and began charging at her with her sword in hand. Kaori ran to the ledge while the woman's bloodlust caused her to chase after her prey. The masked ninja jumped off the side of the bridge, falling to her death on the frozen waves below. (Translation: You forgot about option 4... dumbass.)

The woman leaned over the edge holding her ice sword with a scowl on her face, the leader looking as well to see the corpse in the cloud of snow. The third subordinate, the male however was clutching his chest as his own sword protruded from it, dripping with blood. He fell to his knees, alerting the other two to turn to see Kaori with her bow out, drawing an arrow behind him. His body hit the floor and the girl began moving to avoid the arrow, but was too late when she caught it with her skull.

Trying to draw a second arrow Kaori saw the leader vanish and instantly jumped back, his sword drawn and cutting her bow in half- which was preferable to her neck. The Saia spun on his heel and quickly kicked Kaori in the stomach, sending her back before vanishing and punching the masked woman in the back with an ice covered fist. Kaori flew forward, slamming on the snowy ground hard and sliding across for several yards. Saia manifested an ice lance and threw it in her direction, the ninja was used to this kind of pain by now and quickly recovered by spinning on her shoulder and angling her arm to force herself up. Mid spin she grabbed the lance and threw it back at her attacker who cut it in half with his sword. Breathing heavily, Kaori reached for her shuriken -the only weapon she had left- and saw the enemy charging in at deadly speed. She dropped low, raising a foot and kicking Saia in the gut hard but he wasn't phased much.

The leader of the clan that killed her own, Saia, was far more hardened than she. Having gotten close enough, the large ninja male grabbed Kaori's tiny leg and swung her over his head to slam her on the ground while still holding her tight. He threw the young woman the other direction, towards the door of the large castle that she hit loud enough to send a loud echo through it as she ricocheted off and tried to get to her feet.

Standing on a broken leg and gritting her teeth, her cat mask had been cracked so badly that the metal under the porcelain was showing. Saia had held an orb of pure magic in his right hand and pointed it at Kaori. Kaori grabbed her shuriken and began throwing it up, the magic inside being released just as Saia fired a blast of magic at her. A brilliant light was released as the two collided, but Kaori's magic hadn't progressed far enough to resist Saia's and the barrier she'd made broke after several seconds of her focusing her hardest to maintain it. A loud cry of pain was released as Kaori was hit with the attack and send back, slamming into the castles' door where she took the rest of the attack. Her body giving off a type of magical smoke, Kaori fell to her knees before falling face-first in the snow with blood leaking from her broken leg, the bone protruding through the flesh. She tried to get up, but could barely move. Saia had began walking towards the fallen Lareci warrior, dragging the tip of his sword against the snow covered ground while looking at her with cold, emotionless eyes and savoring every moment while clearing the 10 yard expanse.

From the moment the female mage had opened the door, Saia had already been gone. In his stead was a clone made of ice, controlled by Saia using his telepathy. He watched intently as the clone got thrashed in his place, meanwhile standing on the side of the castle over a hundred feet up. He watched Kaori be taken inside and knew that should he follow, he would be facing an entire building of mages single handedly. The task was possible, but he'd rather not risk his life over a single insect.

Within the walls of the castle, Kaori's savior spoke to the unconscious ninja but her words fell on deaf ears. While the wounds were healed, Kaori had been fighting for many months with very little rest. She had traversed deserts, the frozen north, entire fields of monsters all for the chance to kill that man and his clan. She'd killed hundreds of his clansmen, and hundreds more of their women to prevent their numbers from increasing. The children were brainwashed into thinking that killing was righteous, that it would grant them peace, glory, and riches beyond compare. Kaori had to close her eyes, shut out her emotions, remove her heart, and use telekinesis on herself to do what she did, but she knew that it was necessary for the world to be a better place. After all, a single one of those children had the potential to wipe out another civilization and Kaori would bear that burden if she didn't bear this one. All of that time, she'd slept maybe an hour or two a day and spent the rest of her time training, planning, surviving, and thinking about what she would do after she finished her quest. But she could only keep that up for so long... With that battle, Kaori had no energy left to defend herself from her savior should she have needed to. At the same time, because of this, Kaori would remain asleep for nearly a week.