Ready, set...and go.

Kiogi wasn't in a good mood. He had got detention for something he didn't do and he got grounded by his mom, which meant he would have to wait awhile before he could play "The World" again. He arrived home on sat on his couch. It was hot, so he turned on the fan and let the wind blow around the room. "That feels good. I might never move from my spot," he said. Just then he heard his door open and he saw it was his mom. "Dang. She's not supposed to be home this early," he said.

"Kiogi, we need to talk about some stuff before we do anything else. First, you got to get rid of your attitude young man. You're 14 and you act like your mature enough to live in this world by yourself. Secondly, you need to stop doing stuff you know what you aren't supposed to do. Lastly, Your cousin Tera is going to spend the summer with us and is going to be sleeping in your room. You may go now as long as you remember what I just said. End of discussion," she said.

His mom had left him dumbstruck. The only good thing he had heard was that Tera was spending the summer with him, which meant hours of fun. She liked to do some stuff that Kiogi liked. There is only one day left until summer and he wanted to finish business in "The World" first because he wanted to spend half of his summer with Tera. He thought about what he needed to do. "Let's see. I can't remember.... Oh yeah! I have to duel someone. Better get that done.

Kiogi hurried to his room and booted up his computer. While it was booting up Kiogi turned on his fan and let the air circulate through his room. When he turned around, his computer was ready. He clicked on "The World" icon on his desktop and the login screen came up.

Username: Sanzukio
Password: *********

Please wait... User Identified! Welcome to "The World" Sanzukio. Please put on your helmet and wait.

Kiogi put his helmet on and waited. After a minute or two, it said that he was in Mac Anu. When he arrived, he felt the cool air on his body. "This is the type of weather I like. Why can't it be like this in Kyoto?" He stood for awhile and then realized he didn't know what his opponent looked like. He went to the BBS and put:

"That kinda sucks, but it is going to have to do for now," he said. He rarely posted anything on the BBS. He went to the bridge and looked at the water. It flowed slowly and had a sense of tranquility to it. Sanzukio started to drift into a sleep, when someone awaked him. "You must be my opponent," Sanzukio said half-asleep.


SP: 20/20

Edit: had to fix quote and amount of SP.

Today had not been the best of days for DeOndre. Not only had he had been repeatedly embarrassed by his professor in Creative Writing, but one of his long time friends had started acting like a pompous ass, just to show-off for some other kids.

'And people wonder why I act the way I do...'

He chucked his bookbag into the corner and collapsed onto his bed in a gigantic heap, his eyes barely able to peer over his pillow. His eyes locked onto his computer and he felt himself grin as he remembered the duel that he had set up.

A few keystrokes and few button mashing later and Ashura felt solid ground hit his feet as Mac Anu came into view. Glancing into the distance, he saw multiple people run across the bridge, but only one was standing still, asleep by the looks of it. Ashura walked over and tapped the player on the shoulder, awakening him.

"You must be my opponent," Sanzukio said, still half-asleep. "That is correct. My name is Ashura. Are you ready to go to the field?"

With those words, Ashura walked back over to the gate and warped to their desired field, where he waited for Sanzukio to follow.

SP: 20/20

When Sanzukio saw Ashura say the keywords, he followed him. Ashura had arrived at the site before Sanzukio. When he landed, he stood in one spot frozen because of the icy cold winds. "Why of all places must we fight here?" Sanzukio looked around for Ashura and saw him waiting. Sanzukio managed to pull out his blade. "This should be interesting and now look. The wind is starting to pick up. We'll be fighting in a snowstorm sooner or later.

The two fighters faced each other with the determination to win in both of their eyes. With blizzard like conditions, Sanzukio could hardly make out anything, not even his own hands. "O.K. Ashura," he said, “let’s make this a good clean fight. Go!" Sanzukio could see the outline of something of what appeared to be Ashura. "I got you now," he said as he swung his sword. "Thunk!" Sanzukio wondered what that noise was and turned around. He had swung at the outline of a tree. "Ashura must think I'm stupid right now if he can see me," he said tugging his sword out of the tree.

Sanzukio looked around more for Ashura. After looking awhile, he saw another outline. This time it was Ashura, he could feel it. He ran towards the figure swung his sword, wondering if his feeling was right.

SP: 20/20

The world was blinding white, and Ashura step back, his eyes shielding his eyes from the frozen winds. He felt his back hit a large object, and with his sword drawn instantly, he swung down with all of his might, feeling the blade bury deep into the object. Within moments, he realized the folly of his mistakes.

He had attacked an innocent tree.

Snarling, he pulled the sword from the bark and spun around. The damn storm was limiting his field of vision with each passing second, and the passing shadow foretold that the blizzard was almost upon them. He squinted his eyes hard to pierce the winds, looking for any sign of Sanzukio.

His eyes flew wide and he brought his blade up moments before the sharp clang of metal-on-metal told of the Heavy Blade's attack. The sword grew heavy from the weight of the huge weapon and Ashura strained underneath the pressure.

SP: 20/20

"CLANG!" This is the sound that was made as the blades met each other. Since his blade did not strike Ashura, Sanzukio backed off. Sanzukio did not hear his opponent make a move, but then again, the howling winds blocked you from hearing anything. Sanzukio was starting to freeze, and if he froze, he would lose. That wouldn't be a cool way to lose.

"I did learn that new spell. Maybe I should try it out on him," he said. Sanzukio walked with his blade in the air, but the blade was starting to freeze. "I better finish this fast," he said. Right at that moment, he saw Ashura, but he didn't know if he saw him. Sanzukio said into the distance,"Ashura, try and dodge this. GAN ZOT!" The started shaking and it moved toward Ashura. The wind picked and he couldn't see if it hit or not.

SP: 0/20

"Ugh!" The earth attack struck in full force against Ashura's left arm, the damn howling wind and low light hiding the oncoming attack from Ashura. The stone columns bit and held onto Ashura as if it was a rapid german shepard. The force of the attacks drove deep gashes in Ashura's arm, revealing muscles that should never see the light of day. By the time the spell died, the arm was ravaged, looking like a mangled chew toy.

"Repth!" Ashura cried out through his teeth, his face covered in snow crystals. The weather had just turned ugly, and was getting nastier by the second. The curing spell repaired Ashura's arm quickly and efficiently, leaving behind nothing except for soreness. Ashura scowled and flung out his newly fixed arm, crying out "Juk Rom!" at the same time. The tree branches appeared from thin air and hurtled off in search of their foe, the darkness concealing the attack.

SP: 0/20

A floating tree branch hit Sanzukio. "What the hell are floating tree branches doing? Let alone, how are they floating?" Sanzukio thought about and remembered that the spell Juk Rom could summon them. "They must have been sent by Ashura. How low do you have to go? Sending tree branches to attack me," he said.

The many tree branches were rushing towards Sanzukio, but most of them were just going past him. Then, without warning, he got stuck in the stomach by one. The blood started gushing out of his stomach. "Dammit! I should have been paying more attention. I need to heal myself," he said. He reached into his pocket and took out a health drink. He chugged the whole thing and felt his body regenerating itself. "I may not be at full strength, but it's enough to beat Ashura," he said with confidence.

Sanzukio trudged in the snow looking for his opponent. Just then, he saw Ashura searching for him. Without thinking, Sanzukio started spinning around with his blade held out. He threw the blade in the direction of where Ashura was, not knowing if he hit him or not. It was a bit of a gamble to throw it at all. Sanzukio ran to where he threw the blade to make sure he could retrieve quickly.

SP: 2/20

"Where the hell did that spell go?" Ashura growled as he scanned the frozen plains for any trace of the Heavy Blade user. The blizzard had weakened in its intensity, but it was still quite annoying with the amount of snow it kept dumping out. A patch of sunlight streamed down from the break in the clouds, allowing Ashura to see slightly better.

Ironic, though, since it highlighted an oncoming blade.

"Holy...!" cried Ashura as he lept to the side to a moment before it reached where he was at. He mashed his teeth together in pain as the sharp steel at once dug a long gash the length of his arm across his back, inches away from his spine. He hit a snow bank hard and rolled, crimson streaks following him in his descent.

'Alright, this is enough!'

As he rolled, Ashura dug his sword into the ground and used it as a anchor to stop his momentum. His eyes narrowed as he eyed the misplaced sword standing akwardly in the snow, blood running down its sides.

His blood

'Where are you, Sanzukio?'

SP: 2/20

Sanzukio was kneeling down when he heard Ashura say, "Where are you Sanzukio?" He could see that Ashura was on the ground and was an easy target. He wanted to end the battle quickly, so he could rest.

"The only way I'll be able to hit him is to grab my sword and strike him accurately and swiftly. I have to act fast or he could retaliate and my plan would backfire," he said. Sanzukio got into position and ran towards his blade as fast until everything went wrong. He was almost to his sword when he tripped over a rock. This would ruin everything for Sanzukio. He got up as quickly as he could, but he knew Ashura would be ready for him since he could see him. "I'm going to hit him with my full power," he said.

He could feel his courage surging through his body. "You’re going down Ashura!" Sanzukio charged Ashura and jumped into the air and came falling down with his blade stuck out, ready to strike Ashura or his blade.

SP: 4/20

(o.o.c: All of the words in italics are my thoughts, bushidomaster, not dialogue.)

When Sanzukio tripped over the rock, Ashura new it was time to strike. Leaping off of the ground, ignoring the flare of pain from his wound, Ashura brousht his sword up in a diagonal slash, his eyes ablaze with fury. As his sword was coming up, he saw Sanzukio leap into the air, bringing his sword for the blow. The two swords met with a solid screech of metal-on-metal.

As the two squared off, Ashura lashed out with a hard kick to the midsection of the Heavy Blader. This fight had gotten serious, and Ashura was determined to win.

SP: 4/20

When Sanzukio got kicked in the middle part of the body, Sanzukio never knew what happened. Sanzukio fell to the ground and into the snow. The snow was starting to pile up on top of him. Soon, he could no longer be seen.

In his head, he was thinking, "Is this how it ends? All that hard work, for nothing? I know I can do better than this. I will win," he said to himself. With the fiery temptation to win, Sanzukio was back on his feet. Sanzukio picked up his sword and slowly walked towards Ashura.

"Both of us want to win. I know that by just looking at you, but it's not possible. I'll end this as quickly as possible," Sanzukio said pulling out his sword. Sanzukio rushed towards Ashura with his sword held out. "This is where it ends!"

SP: 6/20

"I agree!"

Ashura reverse verted his blade and stooped low to the ground, the blade curving over his back. He grasped the hilt with his other free hand and prepared himself.

'This is the end...'

Sanzukio was nearing, and Ashura rose as he began his charge, both hands clasping the hilt of Rondo.

'...And I WILL WIN!'

"DIE!"

SP: 6/20

Ashura was charging just as Sanzukio was and it looked like both of them were going to hit each other. Sanzukio had a plan to finish this once and for all. Ashura was still charging at him when Sanzukio moved at the last minute. Even though he moved, Ashura's blade still stuck him in his arm. Luckily for him though, it wasn't his sword arm.

"Nice try, but that won't work on me," Sanzukio said walking towards Ashura. Sanzukio placed his sword in front of him and aimed at Ashura's sword arm without him knowing and said, "Pretentious fool! Die!"

SP: 8/20

"Pretentious fool! Die!"

Ashura whipped around in time to see Sanzukio rush at him, sword aimed directly for his arm.

'I-I can't get away!'

Shfft

Ashura froze as the cold steel of the blade entered and exited his arm. He looked down and saw the tip peeking through the otherside of his forarm, inches away from his side. Ashura's sword feel from his unresponding hand and clatered to the ground, snow immediately piling on top of the discarded tool.

"Argh!" Ripping the sword from his arm, Ashura feel to his knees, his opposing arm gripping his wounded one. Ironic, though, since it was his true sword arm that had escaped from being skewered.

"I...conceive..." Ashura gasped out. The combinination of the wounds on both hands and the forgotten wound on his back, with the effects of the cold climate, was too much for him. "I..." Ashura staggered to his feet and held out a bloodied hand, wobbling on his feet from the loss of blood. "...I...would like to...fight you...again...someday..."

Sanzukio watched as the defeated Ashura fell to the ground, beaten. "It's finally over," Sanzukio said, "Now both of us can rest," he said falling onto the ground. Sanzukio went over to Ashura and put him on his back. Then, he logged them out of the area and just in time. Right when they left, the real blizzard started. "Thank God we got of there just in time," he said as they reached Mac Anu.

Sanzukio logged out of "The World" so that he could rest. "Finally, I thought it was never going to end," Kiogi said. Kiogi's eyelids were starting to fall just a little bit. "For right now though, I just want to sleep," he said. Kiogi plopped into his bed and fell asleep awaiting other challenges in his future.

SP:10/20

Bushidomaster

Tactics: 4

Fairness: 10

SP Regulation: 9.5

Quality: 4

Technicality: 10

Overall: 7.5 - 1 = 6.5

Ashura

Tactics: 4

Fairness: 9

SP Regulation: 9.5

Quality: 4

Technicality: 10

Overall: 7.3

Ashura wins the duel.