Duel: Kanna v Shishi, Match 10 of the 2022 Titans of Winter Tournament

From HollowWiki
Duelists: Kanna vs Shishi 
Duel: Traditional 3 rounds with final defense, 20 minute posting limit.
Stakes: Standard, autohit delivered by winner with allowance for final reply.
Judges: Arlyeon, Leoxander, and Meri.

Hidden Mountaintop Colosseum

Branching out from the lovely scent of the night blossoms, a secondary exit to the mines is found. However, it is an exit, and just that. Cut off from the frozen slopes that everyone knew as Frostmaw, a grand- and recently built coliseum has been erected. Roughly a hundred meters in diameter, and several stories high, none from inside could mistake this grand colossus for the structure for what it really was. The entrance sloped up, and was one of twelve- each gated off from a tunnel that lead to an even deeper, more complex network of tunnels underground. Amidst the dead center in the ring of combat, an acutely-shaped slice of rock rose heavenwards. From the stair-shaped seats that rounded twenty foot walls, one could simply note that it was a massive sundial, the gates being the hand of time it represented at the current moment. At the twelve-o-clock gate, a small booth stood out above the seats, seven chairs of importance standing firm. Naturally, a light cover of snowfall masked the blood-spattered and weapon torn field of battle. In passing by, none would ever figured the steep rocks of the mountain to house such a feat of architecture.. Although the occasional cry of death, or clang of sword could suggest otherwise.


Meri :: For today’s battle, stands did not need to be built as the coliseum already afforded numerous places for the crowd to fill in. Frostmaw made sure that there were plenty of both food and drink vendors who made their way through the seating area to make sure the spectators had plenty of options to indulge in. Hungry? How about some leg-of-boar? Or some snow rabbit stew? Thirsty? There is of course the ever popular warming ale? Prefer something non-alcoholic? How about some hot chocolate? There should be a bit of something that almost everyone could enjoy, unless they were the pickiest of eaters. Within the booth at the twelve-o-clock gate, seated within one of those seven chairs, was Balgruuf. Once the contestants were within his sight the giant stood to make his customary announcements. “This is it. The final match of Titans of Winter. Will Shishi continue to be our reigning champion? Claiming the Title of Titans of Winter for the Fifth year? Or will the lovely bard Kanna be able to put an end to his winning streak and steal the title for herself?” This was the end to Balgruuf’s announcements, the giant found his way back into his seat, waiting for the onslaught to begin.


Kanna || Stepping into the light from the depths of the 9 o’clock gate, Kanna reveals herself before the reigning champion of winter. Her hair has been pulled into two ponytails, with half of each curled into a bun at the top. Rynvalian headpieces worn by the higher society adorn the buns, with colorful button mushrooms blooming to hold them in place. To match the elegant headwear, the bardess is wearing a kimono with golden trims, shortened to allow her legs to move freely. Layers of tulle make the skirt billow out like a peony’s blossom. “I don’t believe I have ever given a true introduction, have I?” After placing her staff on the ground, where it stays standing up straight, Kanna bows forward, lifting the edges of her skirt in a curtsey. “My name is Kanna Tsuji, and I am the last living member of the royal bloodline from the former Rynvale colony, Ikari. I am also the current Harbinger of Undeath as so decreed by the God of Undeath, Alithyk Caluss.” Much to my dismay, Kanna adds internally, but she does not say this. The Great Insectoid was always watching. “I look forward to fighting with you.” To those in the audience stands wearing the merchandise she was granted royalties for input on, her heart swells. Well, if she still had a beating heart, at least. In the shadows, Kanna spots insectoid tendrils inching out. The necrobotanist blinks twice, and the movement is gone, replaced with just an ordinary corner. Elsewhere in the audience stands, a man with robes emblazoning both the Xalious Mage’s Tower and the Larketian Academy of Magic watches intently. At her declaration of her title, the man’s knuckles go white from how hard they clench against his knees. It would seem that the stands are packed higher than they had been through all of her previous matches combined, eager to see the results of the interloper’s attempts at dethroning the Blue Demon.


Shishi is back here for the third year in a row to close out The Titans of Winter Tournament. He’s very familiar with the venue by now and has been very comfortable during his brief stay at The Champion’s Villa all the way up until his emergence onto the ring from the three o’clock gate. The jam packed colosseum rumbles as the crowd rises to their feet when their Titan steps into view in his signature dark pants and white shirt, his hands fiddling with the enchanted black necktie at his throat. In previous years he’s been well rested and fresh for the title fight, but this year, thanks to being brought into the fray a round early, he sports some wear and tear from his fight with Demeter. His right eye is held shut, but no longer scarred closed from the burns he suffered less than a week ago, thanks to the healing work performed by Kelay’s Penelope Halifax. The evidence of the nature of the injury is visible all around the eye socket in the form of the slick scar tissue of recovering burns. He looks across the way to Kanna, the obelisk at the center of the arena-wide sundial standing tall between them, and sends at the very least his visible left eye through its accursed color change from oceanic blue to a raging crimson. The stands shake as the largely Frostmawian crowd stamps their collective feet in rhythm in anticipation of and in sync with the eerie pulse that moves outward from The Blue Demon through every scrap of shadow in the colosseum, heralding the violence to come. Shishi’s only recurring weapon, The Wand of Mordant Flame, was suspiciously absent during his last fight with the avian, so many wild prop bets have sprung up today regarding how far into the fight, if at all, the audience might see the black wand and the mana burning shadow fires that accompany it. Kanna goes through her introduction and Blue knows he doesn’t need anything like that for himself, instead he merely gestures across the arena for the cheers for the challenger to continue before he starts trudging over the frozen ground to close the large distance between himself and the ghoul…

Round One:

Kanna wastes no time once the signal goes off. Kanna is not dexterous enough to evade Shishi’s preferred close combat style on her own, but she has her ways of avoiding him as long as possible. A whistle from her undead lips activates a bardic illusion spell that triples the amount of Kanna’s standing on the battlefield, then doubles it. Seven copies of the bard now litter the battlefield, six of which converge in on the original. The illusions move in a quick, tight circle to conceal where the corporeal copy of Kanna might be. Twirling as they disperse like golden flower petals across the battlefield, two copies make their way towards the twelve o’clock marker, two make their way towards the six o’clock marker, and three dance straight ahead, each no less than ten feet apart from the other. It seems the copies are mirrored versions of themselves if not in close enough range to the original, as they all move identically. Once in position, the mock-septuplets turn their head to the left, where the true version of Kanna looks at the obelisk. Withdrawn from the pockets of her sleeve are four glass bottles of seedlings, which are thrown as all copies close in on the obelisk, one in each direction as if to transform the dial into a compass. The roots take hold immediately once the bottles shatter, their woody tendrils slithering their way down into any crevice and crack available so that they may stay reinforced. Like Kanna’s spell, the saplings grow intermittently around the sundial, multiplying as the two (well, eight) continue their dance. As the beginning of her long-game is started, Kanna takes a deep breath. The illusory spell will only last so long to evade him, and the distance needs to be maintained. In a surprising contrast to her evasive nature, Kanna takes a step towards the Blue Demon and unleashes a banshee-like screech, sending sonic reverberations strong enough to crack the arena’s tiles directly at him, the range of the blast covering everything from twelve to six o’clock. Kanna and her clones converge and disperse again to their previous positions the moment the spell is complete in hopes that the blast will further hinder Shishi finding his true opponent. Kanna’s illusion is not perfect, however; the problem with mirrors is that only one pair of bright blue eyes will truly be trained on the Blue Demon.


Shishi slows his approach as Kanna splits herself into several copies and puffs out his cheeks in a quick pout. The seedlings are dispersed and the wild vines begin to spread just as Blue starts to run again. As he moves, the shadows from the people in the stands and from the sundial’s massive centerpiece begin to creep across the ground towards him. With each footfall of The Blue Demon there immediately comes a loud popping sound as the shade he casts underfoot compresses and explodes with concussive force, leaving little craters in the frozen ring floor and shoving Shishi forward with increasingly sinister velocity. The small explosions of darkness also allow for incredibly quick changes of direction from the assassin, enabling him to weave in and out swiftly away from the expanding plantlife that he’d like to avoid interacting with for as long as possible. The colosseum’s aggregation of shade chases the Titan of Winter down and lashes upwards in several dark strips that coil around each of his arms until they are completely surrounded in dark springlike spirals that cover from the bottom of his palms up to his elbows. Then the sonic blast comes for him. Just as the screech reaches him, two more bursts of shadow come from beneath his feet and he is left suspended in the air nearly a foot off the ground between the two significant forces of apparently equal strength. His ears are immediately ringing and bleeding. He can’t hear a thing now, except of course the dark voices of the shadows that accompany usage of his family’s unique chaotic curse. Feet touch back down on the arena floor and he’s moving quickly again, now towards the pair of Kanna at the 12 o’clock gate. He knows from past ToW fights that the ghoul doesn’t experience much in terms of physical pain, so his normal game plan of sheer brutality is replaced today by a more surgical dismantling of the bardess. The first step in that procedure is stopping the voice. When he’s about twenty feet away from the two he sends two vicious punches into the air, loosing the coiled shadows from his arms in the form of two dark serpents that come fangs first very specifically for the illusions’ throats. “Fakes.” They sail right through and splatter to wispy shadow on the ground behind the Kannas. “Where’s the real one?!” He growls out the question to the only thing he can still hear. The shadows answer correctly as only one of these necromancers are actually casting shade on the ground. He dashes towards the true ghoul, his spring snake arms reloading with more shadow as he throws two more punches from a distance, one snake unleashed like a bolt that seeks out Kanna’s mouth with its fangs while the other spreads out sideways to try and wrap itself around the bard’s neck and constrict. More darkness coalesces on Blue’s left hand and shapes into talons as he attempts to close the remainder of the distance and slash out very specifically as the girl’s lower jaw.


Round Two:

Kanna hesitates for just a hair of a second as the force of her opponent is unleashed so soon after her attack, and her copies are quickly dismantled. The untouched copies disintegrate as Shi takes notice of her true location. In her native tongue, Kanna murmurs a necromantic spell, calling upon the skeletons littering the battlefield to rise, aided in the speed of their resurrection by the roots of the still-growing trees. Thorns grow across the tree’s bark as they continue their rapid aging. As the shadowy tendrils and the Blue Demon close in, the rising skeletons dive in to intercept the blow from both sides. Even with the remnants of armor decorating their bodies, the spring snake arms tear through them like a grown dragon against a tree, though it does lessen the impact slightly. The bolt that aims for her mouth skews right, tearing across her cheekbone and right eye, and the side coil catches a skeletal neck in place of a fleshy one. Black rot drips from her wounds as Shishi continues his advance. The damaged skeletons dive in again to act as a buffer between Shishi’s talons and Kanna’s face. Like before, they deflect the attack, but not enough to leave her unscathed. The necrobotanist dips left, causing the talons to further destroy the right half of her face, though her jaw is still intact. With the two being less than a forearm’s length away from each other now due to his attack, a mischievous grin and tilt of the head is the only warning Shishi will receive that something is amiss while the talons are still in motion. Kanna dips forward once the damage is done, and a quick kiss from her painted lips is placed on his cheek. To make matters even worse, the taste of decay is present over the mask of wildflowers once in such close range. The deep red powder painting her lips is gone when she pulls back. Somewhere in the crowd, the sound of two teenagers related to the reigning champion losing their minds over how gross that was can be heard. She says nothing, but does attempt a one-eyed wink at her opponent as the faux make-up soon begins to sting at Shishi’s vampiric skin. Dried dragon blood mixed with mushroom spores begins its effect, fungal webs bubbling up with the Blue Demon’s flesh as nourishment. The bloody fungus spreads quickly, starting to encircle his head to blind him while the dragon blood component eats away at his flesh. The skeletal army from the far side of the sundial close in, converging to help Kanna duck out of grappling range and out of reach before he can close in again. As she pulls back, putting the skeletal buffers between them, she throws the mushrooms adorning her headpiece out across the field. The time would soon come to need their fungal might. If only there was some kind of time-telling device near the pair of combatants to say when that would be.


Shishi is down one eye and two ears now, the crowd is silenced for him, but those fans of bloodsport’s shouts are replaced by the cries for violence coming from the shadows themselves that only The Blue Demon can hear. “Rip her fingers off!!” He flinches at the command they give. “Tear her into bite sized pieces!!!” He huffs out an unnecessary breath and clenches his teeth, tolerating their noise now as it is his only choice as he rends flesh with his dark talon, but not enough for his liking. The glow from his left eye flickers brighter and the light from his injured right eye begins to shine through his closed eyelid as Kanna leans in for her kiss. Reflexively, without even conscious intervention from the Titan, shadowy, writhing tentacles composed of the darkness within his gut bloom out past his lips, the image of which evokes the ‘sin eating’ abilities he’s seen used by his daughter and her idol, The Queen of Shadows. Of course these tendrils of guttural darkness don’t possess any of the eldritch properties that the Sin Eaters’ do, but this is the image produced by The Blue Demon’s imagination when he imagines a ‘dangerous kiss.’ Those wicked tendrils of shadow lash out towards Kanna’s face as she pulls back from the brief interaction. Whether they found purchase or not, the black tentacles continue to spew out from The Blue Demon’s mouth, expanding tremendously from thin ribbons to thick limbs as their tips spread away from him. They grow so large and long that they flop onto the ground while still attached to him somewhere within, and begin to lift him off the increasingly thorny ring floor, replacing the function of his legs so that he becomes some rag doll vomiting shadows in the shape of eight massive tentacles. The six new appendages start pounding on the skeletons that rush him, scattering them across the field as shattered sprays of bone. He means to scream in agony as the dragon blood begins to eat away at his cheek and creep towards his injured eye, but his mouth is a bit full at the moment. With several of the skeletal guardians destroyed, the black tentacles start lifting the resurrected creatures off the ground entirely and hurling them across the sundial at their summoner. Blue delivers a kick or two from his suspended position, knocking the skull off of another skeleton while reaching out with his right hand towards thin air. When his fingers close over his palm, the Wand of Mordant Flame has appeared in his grasp and all the shadows he is currently controlling bursts into those infamous pitch black flames…


Round Three:

Kanna moves around and around the obelisk in an attempt to avoid the spray of bone shrapnel, only realizing by the third rotation that the shadowy tentacles have grown long enough to be able to pelt her from all directions. No matter, two could play the projectile game. With Shishi deafened and preoccupied, hopefully he would not take notice of the creaking of the trees around them as they grow to full maturity. The time had come. Bones jut out of Kanna’s rotting skin, some from the combatants, and in the case of a rib that has made a vertical rotation and torn such a beautiful kimono, her own. Kanna outstretches one arm, willing a mushroom to coalesce from the snowy ground and rise to her own height. The shadowy whips transform into flames at Shishi’s behest, their heat closing in on her as the mushroom cap starts to encapsulate her form. As the jelly-like cap covers her, the trees surrounding the arena release deafening cracks in rapid succession as the ripened fruits on bark and branches explode, sending thorny, poisonous seeds across the arena faster than baseballs can be thrown. The flames extinguish the bottom-most rung of projectiles, but most still zip through the flames in search of flesh or ground to make a new home in. The spectacle happens so quickly that by the time the cap is done encapsulating Kanna, there are already a few dozen poisonous thorns lodged in the mushroom cap. Wasting no time as the barrage of poisonous thorns continue, Kanna raises her Ya-Te-Veo staff from underneath her hiding place. Already, the fungal protection has begun to wither from the force of the flames. She glances back at the black obelisk, momentarily considering climbing it, but it was too dangerous for this now. Kanna clasps her hands together around the Ya-Te-Veo staff and shuts her good eye to concentrate. The other mushrooms scattered around the field begin to inflate until they too burst, the moisture of the melted snow and inlaid poisons dousing parts of the flames closest to Kanna’s mushroom umbrella, and hopefully Shishi as well.


Shishi finds himself in a forest now, only able to see so much of it given the closed right eye and the angle he needs to hold his head to continue spewing out his now burning additional appendages of shadow. He’s pelted by the thorny seed balls from all angles. In front of him, many of the projectiles meet an end in black flame, but his sides and back are open targets and he has few means of avoidance. The Blue Demon’s white shirt is stained red as new wounds bloom open with every fraction of a second, and there’s still the matter of the dragon blood… Just as the crawling fungus-infused dragon blood reaches it, the Titan’s burnt right eye snaps open. The red glow from his accursed irises is intense now and a crimson vapor begins to drift upward from them like two streams of misty tears, lighter than air and the former human falls backwards to the ground just as another volley of flying thorns bursts forth. The tentacles of dark fire fall over the top of him and converge into a blazing puddle that completely covers his form. Beneath the flames, Shishi’s skin begins to wrinkle and age as the fires eat away at even Elazul’s curse, negating the effects of his vampirism as they burn with the absolute absence of light. These fires just might have a similar effect on the ghoul and make it possible for The Blue Demon to inflict some actual pain on her. He stands, the Mordant Flame rising with him and cloaking him entirely. They cling to him tightly, giving him the appearance of a humanoid shaded flame, with only the two blazing red eyes visible to identify the man underneath. Without warning he rushes forward, feeling more pain as the vampiric immunity to the thorn’s poison wanes slightly, the magically grown trees that he passes by ignite and wither in the presence of the black flames while the next wave of projectiles from Kanna are incinerated, only managing to douse the dark fires that surround Shishi in patches for mere moments before they are replaced by more burning shadows. He rips through what is left of Kanna’s protective mushroom covering and just starts a wild, relentless, burning assault of fists, and claws, and fangs, fueled equally by his own agony as much as it is by his loss of control to those dark voices that are still the only things he can hear…

Final Defense:

Kanna unclasps her hands and reaches into her pockets, freezing with horror as she realizes that her other supplies have fallen out during the fight. This must be her punishment for choosing fashion over function. Is there no end to these championship travesties? The protective covering continues to burn away from the shadow flames, and the darkness descends through the gaps of her defense. True to Shishi’s theory, the curse-negating fire causes the skin on the bard’s fingers to slough off, muscle and black rot dripping onto the ground below as the most abused part of her undead form crumbles first. As her form deteriorates, the Blue Demon rises from the flames, his glowing eyes fixed on her one working eye with murderous intent. Gripping the Ya-Te-Veo staff with her bare phalanges, Kanna wills what has not been charred beyond her magic’s reach to come towards her, to use what little life is left in the green to protect its creator. As Shishi rips off what remains of the fungus covering her, Kanna falls back until her back is up against the obelisk. Converging at the center of the sundial arena, bark twists and bends around Kanna’s form between blows until a thick wooden cocoon covers both the bardic necrobotanist. As some form of further protection, deep wooden spikes just inches apart from one another jut out from the wall in hopes of deterring those who seek to gain passage to the undead contents inside of it. “Blight him, blight him, blight him!” Kanna gives into fear again, making the same prayer to her involuntary patron that she did before as rot seeps through the wooden cocoon from her injuries. Every swing of fists and claws weakens the barrier further, causing the splintering wood to sink into her sloughing skin. Sadly, this was preferential to what awaited her on the other side of this barrier. It would only be seconds before this protective barrier too was demolished, but would her prayer be answered in time?


Winner: Shishi


Auto Hit:

Shishi is very literally dying of old age and poisoning beneath the flames right now. The shadows begin to sense this and even they have a line they won’t cross in pursuit of blood when one of their hosts is in mortal danger. So the dark flames engulfing Shishi extinguish and the chaotic wand disappears back to the shadow plane, leaving The Blue Demon covered in just ordinary accursed, alive shadows now. He still looks somewhat decrepit, but time seems to be reverting on that front and his vampiric lack of glow is returning. He ignores the thorns that protect Kanna, or rather he doesn’t care that they pierce his newly revitalized skin as he tears them away to reach the delicious bard center of this organic treat. Crimson eyes, alight with fury, finally spy the ghoul’s breast and widen. With one monstrous thrust, Shishi plunges a dark, taloned left hand through Kanna’s chest and unceremoniously pulls out her undead heart. He stares down at the necrotic organ in his hand before turning and raising it to the crowd, which understandably erupts at this beautifully gruesome finally!


Kanna can only give a small cry of protest as the barrier is demolished and her undead heart is torn from her body, baring the inside of her ribcage for the world to see and applaud at her defeat. From the depths of the shadows beneath the colosseum, a deep green mist reeking of rotting meat ascends, converging on the two combatants. Kanna seems to recognize it immediately and gasps, moving what remains of her deteriorating body to try to get away from it. As the space between her and the Blue Demon increases, the mist and the shadows beneath it follow the shambling necromancer. From within the fog, a sickly membrane rises like the cocoon of a creature the denizens of Hollow were never meant to witness. An insectoid-shaped head with a lipless human mouth pushes its bald head through the hole's energetic veil, like an infant crowning through its mother. The creature has no eyes. Its flesh is covered thickly in black ooze. The head is the size of a cow. A slender proboscis unfurls from its toothless mouth and tongues the energy-veil to break it. Soon its head is clear through the slit. Next its clawed, inky hands start to tear through. A blackened skeletal limb reaches out from the barrier, impossibly long, and within the blink of an eye, its insect-like talons are around Kanna’s neck. The ghoul is only able to give a faint cry before her throat is squeezed closed. “Worthless woman. You have the eyes of Calliope, but you have a will just as weak as hers too.” With its other limb, a portal is torn open in the arena, and the God of Undeath steps through. “Come, Princess. It is time to finish what you started.” Kanna struggles against the force as she is dragged closer and closer, exhausting the last of her magical reserves to strike at the limbs with all the herbomancy imbued in her undead veins. It is to no avail, for in just a matter of agonizing seconds, Kanna is forced into the fate Alithyk Caluss has prepared for her, as if he knew she would disappoint him again, and the portal fades. The only remnant littered among the detritus of the battlefield proving Kanna had been there moments ago are the dull ochre leaves of the Xalious Tree.