PURCHASING/REDEEMING

welcome to the poké mart!

1X PARADOX POKEMON - GREAT TUSK - PROTOSYNTHESIS - HEADLONG RUSH / HEAD SMASH / CLOSE COMBAT / GIGA IMPACT / RAPID SPIN / SUNNY DAY (Redeemed from RT)
1X CUSTOM POKEMON TICKET - BASCULEGION - MOLD BREAKER - WAVE CRASH / HEAD SMASH / DOUBLE-EDGE / FLAIL / AQUA JET / LAST RESPECTS (Redeemed from RT)
1X ABILITY CAPSULE ON CHARCADET - FLAME BODY (Redeemed from RT)
1X ABILITY CAPSULE ON VELUZA - SHARPNESS (Redeemed from RT)
1X EGG TUTOR ON ARCANINE-H - HEAD SMASH (Redeemed from RT)
1X EGG TUTOR ON ARCANINE-H - MORNING SUN (Redeemed from RT)
1X TM ON KOMMO-O - AURA SPHERE (Redeemed from RT)
1X MOVE TUTOR ON KOMMO-O - SCALE SHOT (75 PD)

TOTAL

do come again!

75 PD have a nice day <3

The body of the Steelix lurches beneath her, but even on unsteady ground she maintains her dignity.

The future burns away at the past, consumes it as fuel. Inherent in that desire to reach toward progress the world is set ablaze. Change in its most potent form, the air combusts. None can stop the forward march of time.

Kazumi raises her blade as they rush toward the rift, an opening called upon by unconscious desire.

I wish to leave the past as it were. I wish to change the present. I wish to grasp the future and make it my own.

"Onimaru... prepare thyself!"

The black blade reflects in it the hope for tomorrow, carried upon the metallic wings of the moth. The menace comes to reap what the past has sown, and Onimaru takes it unto itself.

"Tettei-kōsen!!"

A single strike raised over her head, and the Steel Beam cuts its way toward that future. The artificial sun reflected in the blade carries a cursed hope, for it may only kill -- nevertheless, the blade slices the paradox in twain, granting them the dawn of tomorrow they strive toward.

The beam is absolute for all but a moment, tearing open a hole in the mist. The Honedge expends everything it has til it faints, Kazumi with it.

... And then, they are adrift amid the sea, as if nothing ever happened.

The past collides with the future. A robotic fiend tears open the skies.

The two cannot coexist. One is necessarily a threat to the other. They would tear each other apart.

It is a shame for the children still marveling at them from below that they should learn so soon what the end of peace looks like.

"Yes. It is really possible, Hitoshi. I would have you aid me in that dream as well if you are so inclined.

"But first..."

Kazumi glances over the landscape one last time. This was the land of her ancestors, the world they built before it was tainted by outside influence. She sears it into her memory, as an aspiration she may yet reach.

"Onimaru, it's time!"

She draws her blackened honedge, and the sword draws greedily upon her blood.

The children look so much smaller from above. Their cries of fear and wonder wash over her. She has never commanded anything but scorn for upholding the old ways back in Hoenn, but somehow this rings hollow. It feels unearned.

Kazumi bows her head to the children as she passes all the same. Their innocence is pure, unadulterated. That innocence is the soil that will nurture the future. They will one day know of war and hardship, but for now, this moment is one of peace. They must enjoy that.

She plays along.

"No, Hitoshi. Dreams change like the seasons, and I could not be content knowing that my work might be undone."

A dream will satisfy one for a short time, but it will not sate you. The wolf longs for real blood.

This dream is real enough for now, but how long could it last?

"Besides. You already owe loyalty to another, don't you?"

The woman known as Yumi.

The way he speaks of her makes Kazumi wonder, just what kind of woman commands such respect in his amber eyes?

"This era is one the rest of the world has left behind. Like us. We look to the past and honor it, while the rest of the world laughs. But staying here, when our allegiance lies elsewhere... it is the easy way out.

"I aim to change the world in my image, to build this kind of world in our present. I cannot turn my back on that."

Whether this dream shows them the paradise they long for or not, it is illusory. It is not real. Everything here is like cupping water in one's hands. It will slip through their fingers eventually.

"I've never seen it with my own eyes."

Eyes as the sea marvel at the mountains for a moment, before she falters and clutches her head.

Her thoughts swim. She resents that. A honed mind is a more useful weapon than any sword, and her thoughts are a mess. Nothing makes sense here. A thousand questions race through her mind, questions never considered with Onimaru in hand. She grasps her head in frustration.

Breathe.

Bend as a blade of grass in the wind.

See the world as it is, not what you wish it to be. No matter if this is a world of paradoxes, the mark of a strategist is to adapt.

She moves to the top of the Steelix's head alongside the dog, rising above the treeline to survey things from a bird's eye view.

"You act as though you've experienced one of these dreams before."

Spent of all her blood, Kazumi flits through dreamless fits of sleep. Occasionally there is the odd moment of consciousness. The sound of folding paper, the feeling of something strange and medicinal running down her throat. Finally, the fever breaks, and she opens her lucid eyes for the first time in what seems like ages.

"Hitoshi..."

The wolf looks up at him. Normally so strange, an antiquated notion of a samurai displaced in time, he looks right at home here surrounded by Johto's fall colors and a distant shrine. More than he ever had in Hoenn or Orre.

It's her first cue that something is wrong.

"... I am awake."

A lie. But she blinks, dragging herself to her feet all the same. She does not say things that she cannot make truth. Her legs still tremble from blood loss, but she uses Onimaru's scabbard to stabilize herself and keep her grounded. In more ways than one, that sword was the only thing that kept her on two feet.

"Are we... in Johto?"

Kazumi had only seen pictures of the land of her ancestors. She was an heir to their legacy as Johto samurai, something so fiercely protected that they maintained that identity even after generations in another region, and yet she had never been. Aside from the fact that she first spilled blood only a short time ago, it was her greatest shame.

MP EARNED

THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS!

[break]

MP EARNED:

00 MP FROM SEA w/ x
00 MP FROM SEA w/ x
00 MP FROM SEA w/ x

00 MP FROM SKY w/ x
00 MP FROM SKY w/ x
00 MP FROM SKY w/ x

00 MP FROM SHORE w/ x
00 MP FROM SHORE w/ x
00 MP FROM SHORE w/ x

610 MP FROM SMOG w/ HITOSHI (FINISHED)
530 MP FROM SMOG w/ HITOSHI (FINISHED)

00 MP FROM SECRET w/ x
00 MP FROM SECRET w/ x

00 MP FROM SUPPLY w/ x
00 MP FROM SUPPLY w/ x

00 MP FROM SURVEY w/ x

00 MP FROM BATTLE w/ x

Thread Totals Current as of Nov 30, 2023

EXCHANGING:

- 500 MP FOR 1 PARADOX POKEMON
- 50 MP FOR 1 TYPE 1 EVO
- 300 MP FOR 1 CUSTOM POKEMON TICKET
- 100 MP FOR 2 ABILITY CAPSULES
- 100 MP FOR 2 EGG TUTORS
- 50 MP FOR 1 TM

CURRENT TOTAL MP: 1100 / 1140

"Yumi...?"

A beautiful evening, or a savior.

Who was this woman, and why did this dog speak of her so fondly? His owner, perhaps? Was she a person at all, or did the dog have some tendency toward the poetic? Did he find the night so beautiful he must express it?

Impossible to say.

"... That's right. Don't die before the light of the rising sun."

She said it, though it was only for her own satisfaction, an order delivered to herself. It was not aimed at this man. A wolf does not deliver orders that a dog would understand.

The smell of battle, slick with blood, was more intoxicating than she realized. Lost in the heat of it all, spurred onward by Onimaru's brilliant black sheen, she continues to cut.

Slice.

Stab.

Sever.

She moves until her body no longer moves on its own, until the lust builds and takes over. The sword moves of her accord when her body no longer will, fueled by her blood. It carries more of it than her body now. She is becoming it, and she is as much the sword as it is her. A soul intertwined with steel, she is finally alive in this battle unto dreams.

She is lost in the intoxicating pleasure, wetting herself on the blood of her foes, fighting til she can feel nothing but the bend of the grass and the waves of the sea.

She moves in sync with the dog, and when he staggers, she is there to defend him, severing an Iron Bundle's head.

Sparks fly, and she grins.

It is not til she falls to one knee that she even realizes that her body is still there.

Her soul is her blade. For one glorious moment, she forgot she was anything but.

"... Ah..."

A wolf smells blood and she hungers for more. Eyes watch the chaos unfold. Monsters live amidst this dream, and they must become them now. In this hunting grounds, it is hunt of be hunted.

"The only way out is through."

Kuro draws her blade again as her shadow grows long in the light of the setting sun. A prehistoric moth breathes the last of the dying sunlight, descending upon the dog to take its final meal of the day. Shadow congeals, and Kazumi rises from the ground to deliver an airborne aerial ace that severs its wings.

She lands a short distance away, the Slither Wing desperately crawling along the earth as it loses blood.

"When do dreams end, Hitoshi?"

She flicks blood from her sword, staring down the hateful glare of the paradoxes past and future that have noticed they are there.

"When morning comes."

But the night has just begun.

The battlefield smelled of blood. In some sense it was foreign for she had never been here before. Yet in another, it was like returning home. This was the place she inhabited in her dreams. The place she had longed to be all her life. Now she was finally here. How could she not savor the intensity?

"Bloodshed suits me fine."

They had only met a short time ago, and yet this wild killer, this dog, was the only one she had met who she envied. The way he did not even seem to see the line between life and death, the way he killed so effortlessly. She envied his ferocity, the way that he killed so casually to not even think of it.

"They are records of past and future. Their violence is an echo of their origin."

She watches in the distance, Iron Jugulis and Iron Moth clashing over the vista of the sun setting behind a mountain. Their respective attacks light up the sky, carve violence into the heavens.

"No matter where they are from, their fighting spirit is the only thing that is real, Hitoshi."

The sword is all that keeps her from short and swift death. A conclusion she had come to long ago, but it is all the more clear here, in the midst of a dungeon that will kill her instantly without it.

The fight to get here has been long. All her party has fallen to allow her to reach this floor. And when it opens up to a pile of corpses, upon which Corviknight feed, she recognizes exactly where she is.

A swipe through an interface that pops up in front of her, and all the cards are selected at once.

Bushido Bitch - Kuroha Kazumi
Spell Tag / Black Belt / Metal Coat

USE ALL ITEMS?

[YES]

A black blade flies in her direction almost instantly. She dodges left, the wicked blade only just nicking her cheek. Blood runs freely, and the wolf faces down her own Samurott. Musashi's eyes are narrow. He aims to kill.

The she-wolf wouldn't have it any other way.

"Musashi... do you betray your master?"

A sacred sword is thrust his direction, not waiting for an answer. Of course he does. He senses weakness in her. She can do nothing but show him the errors of his ways.

The Samurott's keen eye detects the oncoming attack, and they clash, sending sparks flying. A glimpse of hollow eyes, and the she-wolf recognizes instantly, the ferocity of her treasured pokemon missing entirely.

She pushes him forward, relying on her Honedge's strength. The sword drinks of her blood happily between each strike, and readies itself for the next.

Shadows melt, and she becomes one with them. Musashi is covered in water, and he shoots towards her. They clash, black and blue exploding off of their frames as shadow sneak and aqua jet meet.

"I can see it in your eyes. This program has stolen your fighting spirit."

She mutters under her breath, breaking contact with Musashi's blades. He stares at her, vacant eyes staring back. His strength is a marvel to behold, but that is not where his strengths lie. It isn't raw power, but his unbridled fighting spirit, his wild demeanor that makes him a terror on the battlefield.

She knows him well enough to know that this is not her Musashi, but a pale imitation.

He steps into a familiar stance, and Kazumi grins.

"To assume I could not read your intentions..."

Onimaru glints a wicked black as he gorges himself on her blood. Rich, thick, more than he could ever sate himself upon, he drinks of her and she lends him the strength to bring out his potential. A dark aura licks from her blade like flames, and she rushes toward Musashi. He responds in kind, a thousand waves aimed toward his master as she approaches.

Blades clash.

A thousand cuts versus one decisive strike.

Kazumi and Musashi sheathe their blades. And then, Musashi drops to the ground, defeated.

"A good fight. Should it have really been you, Musashi, I would surely have perished."

She coughs, and blood pools from her lips.

Nevertheless, she remains standing.

A chest lies neglected at the end of the dungeon. The only reward necessary for her battle was the fight itself.

Droplets of blood fall like spring rain. She paints the earth with it, calligraphy to suit the madness of battle. All around, dreams come to life, jeering at them, watching from the shadows as they slay their fellows. They all want their turn, and they shall get it whenever the dog and the wolf deign to.

"Awataguchi Sakon-no-Shougen Kunitsuna. Onimaru, the demon blade."

She introduces her sword, but the blade's reputation alone doesn't matter.

The origin of the sword only matters to a point. Any duelist would happily recount the tale of Musashi winning a duel with a carved oar. It was skill that brought out a blade's potential, and no matter the pedigree, one who did not live and breathe swordplay could not muster enough from the finest crafted sword to out-do the greatest swordsman who ever lived.

The reputation of the one who wields the blade is far more important.

"You need not warn me. I know the danger. My elder brother, my father, my uncle, my grandfather and his brother... all of them perished within a day of drawing him for the very first time."

But she is different.

Her blood is thicker, more pure than those weak men. Onimaru need sate itself on her prowess alone just once, a single time, and it was hers.

How could it resist?

"It seems we have entered the dream, Hitoshi. What now?"