Ryuu remained on the ground for a while longer. At the moment he was thinking that perhaps if he stayed down long enough, he would realize the good side in all of this, but the longer he thought, the harder it was for him to come up with that answer. There was no getting around this. He had to simply come to terms with the situation. Were it that easy. Ryuu contemplated knocking Marisa out right from the start, so he could be sure not to hear anything from her mouth, and she wouldn't try to go against him at all. But he dismissed the thought. He wanted her awake when he killed her. No, the only solution was getting those keys.
As Ryuu sat he watched the arena view. A corn field of some sort. Two other people were on the far side of the crop circle. As he looked to the left, another single person stood there as well. In the middle of them were what the others would be after. He could see that the one single person was a human. No wings of any sort. She needed a weapon, which is probably what made her seem so jittery. That, and displays Ryuu had done over the days here must have been witnessed by her. He was getting to her. The other pairing had at least one person with wings, as far as Ryuu could make out. However judging by how they were both eyeing the supplies, all three wanted them. Ryuu wanted to fight the strongest of them at their strongest possible, so the obvious match-up would be going after the two of them and leaving the human alone. But that wouldn't be right. Going after the other two would mean not getting a chance to take them at their best. He would have to risk going for the human first, and hope he still gets a chance to fight the others before they no doubt tried to run.
Ryuu acted casually, still sitting on the ground of the platform. He wanted to play it cool in the beginning. After all, doing so would get the others stressed, no knowing what exactly he would do. He instead elected them to make the first move. Even from this distance, Ryuu could see their nervous faces, whereas Ryuu was simply excited. He had almost forgotten about Marisa, in fact, because of this. It was as if she wasn't a factor with him anymore. He had not acknowledged or bothered to look at her at all after his initial outburst, pretending in a way that she wasn't there. Ryuu eyed the three, switching between the one human and the two others, waiting for them to make a move. He occasionally tapped his foot to the ground, again as casually as possible. If any were to look at this scene, it would be doubtful that they would be able to conclude that the five of them were about to engage in a struggle to the death.
And then one of them made the first move. The human Jin took a casual step forward. Whether he was under the impression that they were simply going to ignore each other and go after keys, or fight, Ryuu didn't know what the human was thinking, but that was all he needed to set him off. Ryuu looked over to Marisa for the first time since he saw her, and smiled. A malicious, 'you're in for it now' type of smile. Getting up in an instant, Ryuu hopped off the metal platform and began to dash forward. The others noticed this and immediately ran with panic towards the supplies. Ryuu pushed himself forward, testing his body's limits as he ran at his top speed. By this rate, he would have reached the supply rack before them. The weight of Marisa behind him was either hardly felt at all by Ryuu, or simply went unnoticed. That was advantageous, as she was probably fairly light to begin with. As Ryuu ran, he concentrated on his footsteps below, trying to keep his pace as well as focus on the earth. He tensed his muscles, trying to focus on a particular spot on the earth a few paces in front of him. Exerting a scream from his mouth as his body tensed, a rock about the size of his fist plopped out of the ground and Ryuu managed to catch it while on the run. Taking aim, Ryuu focused on Jin, who was closer to the supplies, and tossed the rock, combining his own physical strength with the added attributes of his Earth Magic, sending the rock hurling at an alarmingly fast rate, almost at the rate of a bullet. The rock nailed Jin directly in the stomach, knocking her over. Ryuu used this opportunity to close the rest of the distance between himself, the supplies, and the human. The others quickly got whatever they needed and were on their way. Ryuu didn't care. He'd catch up eventually. The human got up, clutching the spot where the rock hit earlier.
Ryuu looked back at Marisa. Surprisingly, she did little to get in his way thus far. If this continued, he would have no problems. He hoped it continued, as he looked back at the human. Nervous, uneasy, scared. A few words to describe her. She was sweating bullets, of course if he were her, he would be too. Neither Ryuu nor his opponent moved for a while. She was most likely trying to figure out what to do next. He was simply taking in the moment, and trying to find the best way to make this as uncomfortable for Marisa, and painful for his opponent.
Then he thought of something. He moved his neck side to side to get that crack he wanted, and then, without hesitation, charged at the human, trying to make the sudden move so that he would drag along Marisa painfully with him. Jin back up, trying to move out of the way. She was successful, and managed to dodge Ryuu's charge, sending Ryuu hurling toward the ground because of the momentum. Ryuu continued to smile and get up, then charged again at him. Jin hurriedly maneuvered around again, barely avoiding while sending Ryuu crashing into the earth once more. This was repeated a few times, Ryuu continuing to smile the entire time. The reason being that he was almost missing on purpose. This part of the fight was a two-way plan. One: he was play with his opponent, having him barely miss her, thereby heightening her dread while keeping her on her toes, not knowing which next charge would hit. Two: he was hurling himself and Marisa into the ground at top speeds. Ryuu, having a bigger and sturdier body, would be able to take the hits. Marisa, being smaller and more fragile, not as much. He honestly hoped she was getting as injured as possible.
After the last hurl sent Ryuu to the ground again, he realized that Jin had been slowly edging her way to the supplies, grabbing a few knives off of it. Clever. She had been using his missed tackles to roll to where she wanted to. Now that she had weapons, though, Ryuu had to get serious.
Ryuu took the first step, focusing his leg muscles and dashing forward, trying to close the distance so she couldn't throw the knives and have an advantage at distance. She began backing up as Ryuu came forward, though he was advancing faster than she was withdrawing. She then began releasing knives at him. They were surprisingly quick, traveling through the air like rain falling from the sky. Ryuu concentrated and screamed, exerting both physical and mental energy to get his earth magic going. At his command, the earth below rose up and intercepted the knives flung through the air. Ryuu did not stop his run, breaking right through the earth wall he had set up, crashing through as debris of rock and dust erupted in front of him. He actually loosened the earth a bit before smashing through, so that he could pass through much more easily. But his opponent didn't know that. To her, he merely broke through the solid rock like an unstoppable juggernaut. He wondered what she thought would happened if he ran at her. Well apparently, she didn't want to find out as she broke into a run and took off, tossing back knives as he went. Ryuu kept up his pace, slowly enclosing distance, while trying to make the knives pass as close to him as he could so that they had a chance of hitting Marisa who still dragged on behind him.
However, one of the knives went too close, not noticing it as he pursued, and the knife ran through his shoulder, piercing deep in. At the speed he was going, and the toss she made, it was as if an oversized bullet just hit him. Ryuu grunted in pain, clutching his shoulder for a moment, but not slowing down the slightest. In fact, he started trying to speed up, determined as a hunter trying to take down their prey. He was closing in on the distance between them, Jin trying to take one of the paths from the crop circle, but as Ryuu closed the distance, he jumped forward, covering any remaining distance and pouncing right onto her.
They both rolled for a moment, Ryuu could feel the chain of Marisa getting caught and dragging her behind, before Ryuu stopped on top of her, holding her down. He gave her a malicious smile, before looking for to the knife still stuck in his shoulder.
"So, you like knives, huh?" Ryuu asked her, reaching for it. He grabbed hold of the handle, and pulled it out of his shoulder, grunted in pain and gritting his teeth as he did. Blood flowed from the wound, but if it caused him pain, he didn't show it to her. Jin lay there on the ground, frightened, as Ryuu raised the blade over his head. She struggled, trying to get free, but the weight and strength of the demon kept her down. He brought the knife down, right onto her hand, the blade going through and connecting to the ground below. She screamed loudly in pain, blood beginning to ooze from the wound. Ryuu had driven the knife deep, preventing her from escaping now even if he did get off of her, as he did right after. Jin immediately tried to go for the knife, attempting to take it out of her hand, but realizing the strength he had put in to drive it in was too much, and too deep. He just stood there for a moment, watching her struggle. He was delighted by the sight. She was trying to escape something inevitable now. They all were, even if they didn't realize it yet. Still grinning, Ryuu looked at Marisa. He said not a word to her, but merely gave her a look. A look that could have said what words might not have. He would guess she would know what he was implying. When he got those keys, she would be next.
Backing up a few more steps, Ryuu turned back to the struggling Jin. She was at the point of tears, trying desperately to get the knife out of her hand. She began dragging her hand away, trying instead of taking it out to break it off, but that was slow going as well. Seeing enough, Ryuu backed a good two meters back again, not caring whether Marisa back up with him or was dragged back, and then took a running start forward towards Jin. When he was close enough, he jumped into the air, relying on his demonic strength to push himself as far as he could go up, which was quite a few meters. He could feel Marisa's weight take off with him. Then he focused on a single point as he tumbled down, where Jin lay, struggling still to get out, now at the point of begging and screaming. Ryuu ignored it, and came crashing down, combining his strength with the other technique he was taught in his earth magic lesson: Aftershock, the use of stomping and dropping power and an earthquake to ripple the effects of a slam like this one to catastrophic proportions. He had used it his first time on the demon he fought in the city, which proved to be a knockout. He wondered what affect it would do to a human, who did not have the same body strength and endurance.
The crash came, though it turned out to be more of a burst, as if one second everything was calm and sturdy and tranquil, and the next the earth just decided to blow up around. Rocks, dust, and corn debris flew everywhere. No sound came below from his opponent, who as far as he was concerned no longer existed. Gods, demons, and vampires would have had trouble surviving that. A lesser being like a human? He would be surprised if anything would be left of the body.
But as he looked down, there 'she' lay, mangled and broken, the knife-hand now loose and detached around broken rocks and soil. The rest of her body so bruised and battered, it was unrecognizable. Ryuu stood up off of the corpse, and looked around, taking in the sight of the battleground. He looked at his wound on his shoulder. The knife cut slightly deep, but his superior demon genes had clotted most of the deeper wound and it wasn't bleeding out as much. He wouldn't let it hold him back. This was merely the beginning. There was so much more to hunt and kill.
