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Stella     Very few battles remain! And the finalists are going to be decided soon. That means HYPE is at its peak, and the crowd is wild before anything is even happening. Hotdogs are sold out, leading salesmen to improvise and sell what they dub hotcats.

    Verdict is out on whether the meat in a hotcat is any healthier or cleaner than in a hotdog.

    The shielded dome around the arena is already up, and today's projected field is an endless pit, over which hang massive chains in lieu of platforms. Dozens of these chains go up, down and side-to-side, dangling slightly but mostly being immovable due to their weight and size.

    There is no ground below, and to fall would mean automatic disqualification (unless you can fly!). So don't fall!

    Hanging onto one of those chains is Stella, the white-haired gem knight, who is as monotone and emotionless as ever. From her feet, crystal cracks, like a broken mirror, spread along the chain, crystalizing it as they travel.

    She had only met Touta briefly, and had at the time paid entirely more attention to the Servants in play than the boy. To say she knows what to expect today is a gross overstatement.
Touta Konoe      As the crowds cheer, a young man walks out onto one of the bridge like chain structures that extended throughout the arena. The spikey-haired vampire rests his blade on his shoulder as he waves to the crowds before staring down Stella.

     "Man, talk about a turnout. I never really thought we'd have such a huge crowd watching us fight. But uh, I guess I never really expected to make it this far in either, hehe."

     Unlike Stella, Touta seemed filled with expression. Some of surprise, embarassment, eagerness, and possibly a bit of nervousness.

     As Touta brought his eyes away from Stella to look down into the pits he can't help but sweat a little bit. "Yeah, that's a nasty fall...If that's the case..." And without another word he just starts pulling off his shoes, and then his socks till he's only bare-foot on the chains. Once he finished he just ended up smiling back at Stella, lowering his posture as he got into his stance. "Alright, I'm ready when you are."

     A partial truth. He's met her once before but just like her, he had been focused on other things involving Servants. So to say he was going in blind into this fight wouldn't be incorrect at all. Though, it wouldn't be the first time he had done as such and definitely wouldn't be the last.
Stella     Did he just take off his shoes? That's not something people usually do before fights. Or much at all, she's noticed, unless cleaning or sleep are concerned. How curious. It must be strategic, at any rate, or else he wouldn't do it.

    With both fighters ready, though Stella remains silent, it's a matter of the match being declared on. Red lights, dull until then, flash to a bright yellow suddenly, counting down until horns fill the arena and the lights turn green.

    Stella's left arm suddenly erupts with crystal, forming a blade that she wastes no time chucking directly at Touta. It doesn't seem aimed to pierce him exactly, more nick his arm and then plant itself into the chain he's standing on.

    "You are Ruler's ally, yes?"

    It's important. Not quite for herself, though.
Touta Konoe      The lights alternate from red, yellow, and finally green. Within that moment Stella takes the initiative to start the fight with a ranged attack. Touta sees the path the crystal takes but with the very limited room on these chains it's kinda hard to dodge as it is. So it does end up nicking his arm if only a bit. Though Stella will likely see that the wound she's afflicted was already starting to close up.

     Though it seems more than the attack her words end up bringing a look of discontent on his face. "Ahhhhh...I guess the Concord really has been taking an interest in that Grail War. Yeah, Ruler's my great grandpa but if you're asking if we're in kahoots you've got the wrong idea. Can't even get that old man to talk to me properly... But is this really the time to talk about that geezer when you should be worrying about me?!"

     Without another word Touta charges down the chain at Stella, unfortunately he doesn't have any cool long range gimmicks like she did so he had to get up and personal with his opponents. He brings his blade as though he's about slam it over her head, but just as it's about to swipe down, his stance changes as he kicks out one of his legs to try and swipe Stella's feet from under her.

     Was he just trying to get the DQ?
Stella     "You are irrelevant," Stella explains, and then clarifies with: "This battle will gain me nothing, whether I win or lose. Fame is fleeting. Whether you defeat me or beat me, nothing will change for me. I am not participating in this event with a clear goal, and there is no greater objective fulfilled by my victory. Therefore..."

    Touta charges in. He sweeps Stella off her feet, and she tumbles off the chain, but seems to disintegrate into fine, crystaline dust instead of anything else. Next to Touta, she reforms, surging out of the crystalized ground like a sudden, explosive growth of prismatic, shiny crystal.

    "Obtaining information is more beneficial to me than victory. Such would benefit the Concord, rather than merely myself."

    The path of greater gains.
    This doesn't stop her from taking a swing, though. As she reformed, she did so with her right arm fully formed into a blade, thrusting upward for Touta's chin as if she were jumping out of the ground.
Touta Konoe      'You are irrelevant.' That's probably the first time he's been told something like that during this tournament. His attack lands but as she falls, "What the -?!"

% Stella climbs her way back up onto the chain, or rather she reassembles herself from dust! Without missing a beat when she reforms her arm already looks like it's heading for Touta's jugular. Except instead of reforming back into that arm to reform into a blade made this all the more lethal. There's still little room to maneuver so Touta tries to manipulate his ki without his hoop in hoops that he can stop the blade before it pierces the skin.

     The result isn't exactly what Touta desired. The blade finds resistance that prevents him from getting an arm full of sword but he's probably just experienced the worst shave of his life. his lower jaw looks exposed with blood, and the force of the strike still sends him reeling but thankfully it's no where near the edge of the chains.

     "Tch, that hurts...The words, not the blade to the jaw. Sorry, but if you're looking for info about him, I got nothing to tell ya. And even if I did, I wouldn't tell you. I'm not a fan of people who would join a tournament for shits and giggles when others are really putting in the effort to win!"

     It seemed like tricks weren't going to cut it with his opponent so if that was the case it was time to try really stacking on the damage. He brings his blade up once more with similar movements to how he had prior. If Stella had gotten accustomed to his movements than it'd probably be easy for her to dodge whether he ended up slamming the blade down for real this time, or tried for another feint.

     "Two-Thousand Fold!"

     With those words, the rhythm alters though, his blade accelerates out of nowhere, his blade trying to slash from her shoulder down to her hip.
Stella     "You misunderstand."

    Touta's blade comes crashing down. It slams into Stella's shoulder, chipping and cracking her body around it. But it doesn't cut through - it remains stuck, an inch deep into her body, revealing neither blood nor any internal organs to speak of. Or anything, really. It's just hard crystal all the way down. And the wound, quickly, starts closing as crystal grows over it, trying to trap the blade inside her body.

    "I do not need to try. To fight is so ingrained into my being that allowing emotions like a desire for victory to cloud my judgment would reduce my capabilities, not increase them."

    It's analytical. Emotions are bad.

    "There will be no degradation of my fighting ability as a result of talking with you. With that said, if you are not his ally, yet he is your grandfather, what is the relationship between you two? I am not entirely familiar with how you humans live yet, but my limited chances to observe suggest family is very important."

    Since they're in close quarters, there's no need for elaborate attacks. Stella tries to use the fact Touta's blade is either stuck, or had to be quickly freed, to launch a quick attack: her torso suddenly erupts, as half a dozen crystal blades just grow out of her, trying to skewer Touta up close.
Touta Konoe      Kurobo is caught in Stella's crystaline body and no amount of force Touta uses to shirk the blade out proves useful. In this position there really is no position for elaborate attacks, her torso erupts and the blades propel out into Touta hitting their mark. Some reach all the way through the boy. She can feel them slide through his body puncturing organs, rending flesh, it was definitely not something a person wanted to have happen to them.

     Touta coughs up blood, his expression comes off a bit more serious than when they had begun.

     "First, he's my great gramps. Not my grandfather. Second, before the Grail War started I only knew that he was my grandpa's dad so asking me about him's gonna get you jack. Third, if you want to know if the guy thinks we're family..." Suddenly Stella would feel something's wrong, like it was getting harder and harder to stand. Touta's blade was beginning to get heavier and heavier, and he was trying to use more of that extra weight to force the blade to slash through Stella's body. In this situation it was the only thing he could think of to get his blade out, and even if it didn't it'd at least add a burden to Stella's frame.

     "...You should just ask him!"
Stella     "I see. It sounds complicated," she admits, not an ounce of hostility in her voice. She can't perceive her own emotions that well, don't expect her to read Touta's obvious anger. She can tell he's not nominal, and clearly getting carried away, but not... why, exactly. She needs to work on that.

    As the blade becomes heavier, it pins Stella in place. Not that she's especially strong or fast to begin with - durability is her gig, after all. Her body cracks and moans under the pressure, until finally Touta's blade cuts all the way through and cleaves her clean in half.

    As her halves hit the chain they're standing on, the metal underfoot starts crystalizing immediatly, as if her body was rooting itself in place. And indeed, crystal is working fast and hard to reassemble the two pieces of her body together, as if nothing had happened - though her human-like appearance always fails around injuries, going from regular colors to the crystaline prismacolor inside her body.

    "Then I take it you will not oppose further efforts to remove him?"

    In an attempt to buy her time to fully reform, another wall of blades erupts, this time between the two of them, though several still make an effort to catch Touta regardless, including an especially large, buster sword-like spike of crystal.
Touta Konoe      "...Remove...Him?"

     The blade breaks free and in doing so unleashes a wall of crystals to distance the two of them. Though they don't last that long the moment slams his overweight blade into the crystalline structure, removing the obstacle in it's entirety.

     "You're damn right I do!" Several more shards come his way including the one buster sword-esque one and for the most part he shatters most of them to crystal dust with but a single one that snags his cheek.

     "Priscilla gave her word the Concord was gonna hold off on messing with him till we figured out what all those distortions that Grail was causing! And he's the only one who knows what the Hell's going on!"

     If his tone wasn't enough to express his discontent at the moment, the miasma that was beginning to accrue around his arms probably was. The strange magic slowly giving them a more blackened, demonic like exterior. The accrued wounds from being impaled the moment before begin healing at a more rapid pace.

     "So you guys need..."

     Touta makes it a point to bring the offensive to Stella this time around. As she starts rooting herself into the chain he tries to oblige her by trying jamming his sword into the irregular colored opening that was trying to repair itself. Not because he's it's a weakpoint or anything of the sort, it's just different from the rest of her body and that's enough for him to work with. He figures if she wants to stay in place, he'll use Kurobo to help keep her in place.

     "...To back off!!!"

     Whether the blade holds her down he'd immediately follow up with one of those demonic looking arms to try and slam Stella right in the jaw. Maybe he's fed up listening to her?
Stella     Touta's blade slams into the wall of blades - finding them sturdy. As sturdy as she is. Despite his immense strength, it'd be very difficult to cut through, much less shatter and turn to dust, any of her crystals - or her body. He experienced that earlier. So as he cuts through to reach her, the result is a broken field of jagged blades and cracked crystals that linger there.

    But they don't stop him.

    The blade digs into her, not all the way through but enough to cause further unjuries. And his demonic arm slams into her jab, breaking a chunk of it off outright. It doesn't seem to stop her from talking, though her voice comes out distorted.

    "Sir Almasy intends to kill him. As he is a knight, I must respect his wish and assist however I can. Therefore, if you intend to get in the way, I will show you right now the resilience you will face. You will not get past me, and you will break yourself on my body if you attempt it."

    She dissolves again, like crystal dust scattered in the wind. She emerges amidst the broken crystals and blades, again as if literally growing out of the crystals explosively, wielding two of the jagged half-swords, surging for Touta without warning to deliver an X-Slash.
Touta Konoe      He won't say anything but there's definitely a smile on his face, at least for the brief instance until Stella starts talking even without her jaw. Though it's not just her jaw that breaks off, she vanishes from sight as her body dissolves again. She reappears in his blind spot and her X-Slash proves Fatal as they cleave through the boy's body.

     Blood begins to spill out from his chest in puddles and he slowly staggers back towards the edge of the chains before he...Falls.

     If Stella even bothered to look over the edge she wouldn't be able to find him in the darkness of the abyss. If she had even bothered to look down in the first place.

     "Like I'm suppose to respect a petty wish like that?!" His voice echoes from below. Though...If touta had actually fallen, then there shouldn't be a pit. The match should just be over. "I don't care if Seifer wants to kick Nagi's ass. Half the time since I met the guy I wanted to kick Nagi's ass! But ya know what?!"

     It probably takes for the second time for him to speak up to realize where he was. He was on the chains...The bottom of them. In a vampire like fashion, Touta was hanging from the bottom of the chains using his feet to cling onto the damned thing. He's got some seriously strong feet!

     "So if Pris is gonna break her promise...If Seifer's gonna go after Nagi without a damn...If you're gonna help make such a stupid wish come true..."

     Touta swings himself by his feet right back up to the top side of the chains, using the momentum from it to slam his fist right into her center of mass using significantly much more force this time not necessarily to break her but to send her flying off the chains again.

     "Then you're gonna need every last member of the Concord to keep me down!"
Stella     Touta strikes at Stella with all his might.

    Her body cracks and almost shatters, as she's sent flying away from the ANGERY TEEN in multiple broken pieces of crystal.

    Amidst them, one that isn't from her body.

    A large blade that appears out of thin air and flies straight for another chain, lodging itself halfway into it through raw cutting power.

    Stella bursts out of it, half-whole; she's missing an arm, and looks more like a skeleton than a person at the moment, the thinned, broken construct taking a bit longer than usual to regain her mass. Seems reforming isn't an instant fix-up, once she's battered enough.

    "Your emotions are getting the better of you. Do you see now why I do not let them dictate my actions? Your attachment to a man you barely know and whom you seem hostile towards is driving you into a frenzy. That is not reasonable."

    She raises her hand and clenches her fist.

    The chain Touta is on rattles. The crystalized ground suddenly detonates, sending countless shards of crystal in every direction - but more importantly, breaking the chain apart, the two halves now hurtling towards the sides of the pit the chains are latched on, to no doubt thunderous impact once they reach them. It'll shake the entire arena for sure.
Touta Konoe      "So what if I am?! Isn't Priscilla acting on hers to protect her gramps?! Isn't Seifer acting on his cause he's pissed at Nagi?! So what if I'm acting on feelings, isn't that-" Stella gets sent flying leading to quite the makeover, but it puts her in a good position to zone out Touta with her attack. No it's more than just zoning him out. She's completely altering the terrain of this fight now with the crystals flying in every damn direction. It's like a crystal hail storm or something, and Touta's torn up by crystals that are flying off like shrapnel. His footing begins to stagger as the chains he stands upon tremble and ultimately snap when confronted by these crystals cutting off his last few words.

     As the chain breaks Touta tries his best to reach another chain, he pushes off the chain with such force that it looks less like he's jumping and more like he just launched himself out of a canon!

     It looks like he's going to make the jump easily until he gets shot at by another grouping of crystals that ruins his momentum and instead of shooting forward he begins plummeting.

     "Grasp the Earth...Grasp the air..."

     Touta is incapable of flight. He's a bad vampire like that. But what he does have is super crazy martial arts moves that let him do fun things like double jumping! So from a free fall, he jettisons himself back from below and uses that momentum uses it to bring his curled back fist into Stella jaw as a 'flying uppercut'!

     "Air Shundo!!!"
Stella     "I do not know. I do not pretend to understand others' emotions, and it is not my place to question the motives of the First or of Sir Almasy. I am a knight. Knights serve, they do not question."

    She makes no effort to move when Touta, enraged, charges in. No effort to dodge or stand aside. She anchors herself firmly in place, crystals bursting out of her feet and hooking into the metallic chain underneath them.

    Touta slams into her. His fist breaks half of her head off, leaving a broken half-sphere around his fist.

    Stella rattles. Her missing arm regrows in an instant, her body rapidly regaining most of its mass, as if the crystal were organic. It even tries reforming around Touta's fist.

    "You exhaust yourself against an opponent you know cannot die from mere strikes. Your emotions are in your way," she says - headless, given the state of it trying to trap Touta's fist, so her voice is echo-y and reverbating from her entire body.

    Her right arm reforms into a long, slender blade, which she immediatly tries to jam into Touta's gut before detonating it into a LOT of painful, internal shrapnel.

    "Are you certain you can outlast me?"
Touta Konoe      'Are you certain you can outlast me?'

     One arm becomes encased in crystals. Incapable of escaping her grasp, he's left in a position where he's vulnerable, if not completely exposed. His other arm grips at Stella's arm-blade trying to hold it off as best he can before it reaches his gut and for the most he proves successfully keeping it from only just puncturing into his flesh rather than completely impaling him. What he successfully keep from happening is it detonating. The shrapnels shoots out from his gut leaving several holes through stomach. The arm that had held the blade gets completely obliterated, being blown into chunks. It made sense considering he was holding onto the grenade equivalent of a sword. A stub is left where his arm should be, blood gushing and bits and pieces of the demonic hand return into that of normal human looking appendages. Yet, even as he's been blasted through, even as his limbs get blown off of him, his expression makes one more change. It's not a look of bewilderment like before, or a look of excitement like at the beginning of this fight. "Hehehe...Exhaust myself? Yeah, I guess that sounds about right. But I guess that was the idea...After all..." The boy's stomach wounds heal over just as fast as Stella's. The blown off bits of his arm slowly coagulate back together into the missing limb, and a devious smile comes across his face. "Aren't immortals like us the best kind of punching bags?"

     Touta slams his newly reformed fist back into Stella's freshly forged head. It's not covered in the demonic black like before and upon contact with Stella, his hand's probably gonna shatter more than it has before, but he'd keep punching. He'd punch Stella, shatter both her and his fist, and then they'd reconstruct.

     Punch. Destroy. Create. Punch. Destroy. Create.

     This would be the cycle he'd continue until...Until...
Stella     "I am not a bag or for punching," Stella replies flatly, taking Touta's claim very literally. Not even as an insult. She's just not heard the expression yet, and that's how she tends to take things she hears.

    Not that words help her any when Touta goes PUNCH, PUNCH, PUNCH, and starts shattering her body faster than it can regenerate. Chunks of crystal fly in every direction - an arm reforms to block Touta's fist, but shatters in its attempt. Her other arm comes in the way with her wrist, and shatters in response.

    Her now headless torso trembles, forging thicker and thicker plates to take the unending volley of punches as long as possible.

    "If you could think clearly, you would see..."

    Crystals spread like cracks along the chain. Touta keeps beating into her regenerating torso, while crystal grows behind him.

    And then surges up as a single, massive blade, a claymore several meters long just suddenly thrust out of the ground and towards Touta's head. It's not very knightly, but she hasn't been told attacking from behind was a no-no yet. Serving and winning for the person you serve, that's what matters.

    "... that I am right about emotions."
Touta Konoe      It's rough, Touta's dealt with plenty of immortals back in his world. Some friend, some foe, but if Touta was ever asked the question, 'Do you think you could take down another immortal?' The sincere answer would be no. He could name you a list of the types of immortality and how they worked, but when it came to an innate way for him to beat them. To defeat an enemy that always came back no matter how hard you hit them. He honestly didn't have anything of the sort. That's why all he could hope to do was just keep recklessly punching her. To keep her from reforming. To make this person so unmotivation in this competition to think that trying to continue might be pointless and have them forfeit. Basically, to make Stella think this was over her head to continue. But the only one thing that was over anyone's head was the blade that comes down on Touta splitting him down the middle.

     His head distorted, thoughts gone foggy, both pieces of him fall into the pit below and with it...The match concludes.

     A buzzer goes off signaling that a winner has been decided and the stadium reverses casuality to restore Touta whole before he even has a chance to. When everything is said and done the kid's on his ass reaching for his head as if trying to ponder what had just happened to him. Though as he looks up at the crowd, hears the announcer speak, and looks back at Stella, he knows what has happened.

     The boy picks up his blade as he walks over to her. He looks her up and down one more time. He looks disgruntled for a moment as he looks at her but takes a deep breath before appearing somewhat more calm.

     "Yeaaaaaaaah.....Naw. Even when I'm thinking clearly I can't agree with ya. It's true that emotions can get the better of you and even make you act out...But things like anger, frustration, even all those emotions that come from a bad place can be turned into something meaningful. That's what I've seen at least. Anyway, just cause you won doesn't change what I said. Even if I got friends in the Concord, until Nagi tells me what the hell's going on with this war, I'm not letting Seifer or any of the get'em."

     He doesn't or do anything else from that point, all he does is simply wait for Stella.
Stella     When Touta stops hitting her, the regeneration resumes. By the time the arena is "off", reset to that stylish, elegant default that's certainly easier to be in but far less showy for the crowd, Stella's mostly regained a human shape, and by the time the Shrine's effects kick in, she's back to her pristine, if slightly shimmery for a 'human', appearance. She still shows no trace of much of anything. No satisfaction, no great pride in winning.

    "Perhaps. But from what I have seen, they cloud judgment and get in the way. I do not need emotions to fight, so I do not see why I should desire this to change." Oh, poor Stella, but you don't have a -choice-. Just wait for it.

    "We will likely do battle again if that is the case. It is good for you that your ability to not die is comparable to mine. Maybe that is why you do not care about your flaws. Mistakes mean far less when you know you cannot die from them."

    She pauses, and then adds: "But that does not change my opinion. You do those you wish to protect no favors by becoming a mindless beast. Such things are a detriment for a knight."