Three days prior.
72 hours before the events going on in Ashina, deep into the night, a mission had gone drastically wrong. The wet ground squelched with each step the man took as he was seemingly running from something. A sword unsheathed in his left hand, sweat mixed with rain dripping from his face. A shadow following from behind, metal glinting in the light of the moon.
A few moments earlier.
"Do you see anything?" Reno, a trusted man in the special ranks of Ashi's survey team. Whenever something suspicious would happen, or more importantly, a clue as to where his son had gone off to would show up, their job was to investigate. The team consisted of five people including himself.
"No, not yet. It's all quiet on my end."
Reno held his finger up to an earpiece to communicate and answer the one who had asked the question.
"There are definitely traces of someone but..-"
Suddenly another talked on their channel.
"H-Hey! I see something! I think it's a person!"
"Do not engage, we're on our way." Reno replied quickly. "We can't take any risks."
"They aren't moving…wait…no. They're coming this-!"
Suddenly the channel cut off with static, the new guy completely stopped talking. "Hey! Respond! What's your status? Who is coming?" Reno ran over to the location of his teammate, he was face down on the ground. Reno crouched down and touched his earpiece again. "One of us is down. Stay alert. If you see someone, do not move toward them and make your presence unknown. Hello? Can anyone hear me?"
Nobody responded back on the channel.
"If someone can hear me, respond now-"
"Who are you talking too?"
The face of someone right next to his right shoulder spoke up, he could see it through his peripheral vision. Who..?
Back to the present moment.
Reno quickly turned around, sliding his feet on the wet ground to briefly clash his blade against the approaching metal. Sparks flying from their interaction, holding eachother in place.
Reno was already tired, the fight having gone on for some time now. He pushed the woman off of him to get a small breather.
The blade stuck itself into the ground to stop her knockback, no ordinary blade, it was too large, its handle too long. A scythe. The woman straightened her posture.
"That outfit, your teammates, your fighting style, I know now, you work for Ashi Zenin, dont you?"
He didn't speak, his eyes focused on the enemy in front.
"Its all over your face. But, its fine, what's more important is what you're doing here. Why were you following me?"
"I don't need to answer you."
"Right, you don't. I would've preferred if you did though."
She twirled the scythe in her hands before rushing to Reno. More and more sparks erupting from their exchange. She stepped further forward, extending her weapon to attack from the right.
Reno successfully blocked the attack, his face struggling. But before he knew it, the scythe was pulled toward her, its curved blade grabbing on to his sword, pulling it with him. He gripped his sword as hard as he could to not be defenseless, only to be met with a knee to his gut.
She used this chance to step back quickly, turning her scythe to the blade curved upward. Swinging it in the same way.
Reno recovered in time to deflect the attack directed right to the bottom of his jaw. Without a doubt in his mind, he pressed her this time, attacking with an overhead slash.
An attack she easily blocked with the long handle of her weapon.
While she blocked, mana started to pour out of Reno. The ground behind the woman suddenly rising in to the air, gaining life to attack her. An Exploitation type mana.
She quickly noted this, turning her head slightly to see the approaching attack. Kicking Reno back before swiftly turning in time, cutting the pieces of earth to pieces. Her eyes searched the area for Reno again, only to find him in the air.
He had jumped up while holding his hands together, his sword stuck under his armpit for now. More and more pieces of the earth floated into the air with him, directing them straight towards her.
She smirked. "Always relying on it." Before moving in his direction again, moving in between the pieces of earth being thrown at her, weaving them.
He suddenly opened his palm and crushed it. A sinkhole appearing right below the woman, having her fall in it. As she did, Reno gathered more mana to conjoin all the pieces of earth he could into a huge circle right above her. One that would start falling quickly.
She dug her scythe into the side of the hole, stopping her fall. She looked up to see the giant earth falling down on her. He wanted to trap her. She swung on the scythe back and forth quickly to start gaining momentum before unlodging it from the side, using the impulse to start running on the side of the hole.
"Tch!"
He looked down at her, almost worry in his eyes. Starting to quickly close the sinkhole manually as the small meteor was about to trap her.
Her feet were flying as she climbed in a spiral up the hole. Once she got close enough, the scythe started to vibrate with intensity, a small light coming out of it as she jumped straight up to the attack that was to trap her.
"Cuerno Violeta."
She slashed upward with the weapon, a small moment of quiet and inaction was quickly followed by a huge surge of energy.
A shocked expression covered his face. He sensed the amount of mana in her body before, there's no way she could generate that amount of output! He saw as his ability was completely split in half, the shock from the energy pushing him back as a purple light came from the hole. The pressure of the attack continued through the air before eventually dissipating.
The scythe shining in the night was spinning above her head in a flourish as she was falling right on top of Reno.
He quickly grabbed the hilt of his blade again to clash with the scythe, the blade still almost reaching his face. However his body was a little blurry.
Theres no way he damaged her eyesight, she's been careful and he's barely been able to defend. Her eyes widened as the realization hit, an illusion. His body changed right before his eyes into a mass of rock. When she realized, her scythe had been stuck in the ground the whole. She turned her head at the sound of footsteps gaining on her.
His sword started to glow a vibrant green as he attacked her face with a horizontal slash.
She let go of the scythe to be able to step back comfortably, the slash grazing the bridge of her nose, making a small cut. She was unarmed now.
Reno attacked her again to have her back away even more, going out of his way to grab her scythe from the ground. His hand reaching around the hilt before closing his palm firmly. But he felt a spike of aggressive energy go up his arm, it hurt. The scythe still had residue from the previous attack, it was extremely unstable! He left it where it was to turn to the woman again, only to find she had completely disappeared.
Using a blind spot, she suddenly appeared below Reno, a palm landing right on his chin. Spinning around quickly to kick him right in his liver while he was still recovering. Still spinning she quickly scooped the scythe from the ground and slashed at the air, a purple cut flying through the air right for Reno after he knocked away from her kick.
He held his sword with both hands, blocking the incoming attack and being forced to deflect it but in an instant the woman was already close to him again. He stomped on the ground to have a chunk of earth pop out in between them before piercing it with his sword. The ground latched on to the blade as he did so.
She moved her body to the side slightly to let the blade move past her.
He knew she was going to try that, the earth around the blade started to heat drastically until it became nothing but molten lava. He then sliced diagonally to her abdomen.
She noticed a little late and was cut with the lava blade but she still cut the chest of Reno before she winced in pain.
He flicked the lava off his sword to create small projectiles that would start heading her way. Her abdomen was burning, screaming in pain. Regardless, she spun the scythe in front of her with one hand, it had her own energy around it as it helped her defend against the small projectiles. Her other hand plunged into the burning cut, holding it there with the small amount of lava on it. Some of the projectiles still made it through, damaging her face before he rushed forward to engage with her.
She took her hand away, grabbed her weapon with both hands and started another clash with Reno. This one lasted longer, her eyes following the movement of his sword.
He did the same, never faltering in his focus on her weapons as the sound of metal against metal howled through the outskirts. But he got confused for a second. She was smiling a little, and her scythe looked slow now, why?
She caught him, the scythe looked like it was multiplying into two for a split second. It seemed like two afterimages before it suddenly flew upwards to knock Reno's sword out of his hands and into the air. The scythe was still just one, it was just a little trick on her part. She bunted him in the face to knock him down before stepping on his chest.
His blade spun in the air rapidly before smoothly sticking into the ground beside his head. His eyes widened as he saw her side, the place he had cut her before with the lava. It was…healed…! How?!
The surprises didn't end there as she let go of the scythe with her left hand. Holding her hand up to her face as the burns she had suffered from the projectiles started to disappear.
"Fwoo.."
She held her thumb on her nose before wiping it left to right as the cut on it healed in the blink of an eye, small smoke coming from her face after being recovered.
"Thank goodness you weren't any stronger, I maybe would've had a little more trouble.
"Just get it over with! More will be on their way after they realize none of us came back!"
She squinted her eyes at him, raising her scythe up in the air ready to fall down on his face. But something stopped her, she turned her head behind her, it looked like she felt someone's presence there. She turned back to him.
"None of your teammates are dead, and neither will you be."
A flash of the moonlight hit her face as Reno finally saw her clearly. She had blonde hair with two purple stripes near the front, her eyes matching with the same color. Her hair was not short but also not long. On her right index finger she wore a strange ring while housing black clothes. He couldn't tell much else in the small amount of light.
She stared into his soul, her eyes piercing even in the dark.
"Don't come after me again, if you do, I won't be so nice. Go back to Ashi and tell him that his 'search' is over."
"Who are you..?"
She hunched down to get closer to his face.
"I'm a Kosoku, the last one."
With that she straightened her posture before kicking him right across the face, knocking him out. Having his vision be encased in darkness.