Round Two: Protégé vs. Rith Matou

[Tzadkiel]

Protégé is first.

[Protégé]

Protégé was back at the field he had fought at before. Back to the arena where he had won, to face another opponent. If he won, he would have to face another opponent. If he won again, he would have to face another opponent. If he won that, he would have to face another opponent. It would go on until he was the last one standing. Why? There was really no reason for it, his mind told him. Prestige did not matter to him, honor he had enough of, and he did not know what was to gain through winning. It was a question that he would be stuck without an answer for for a long time.

Standing in the arena, Protégé adopted a pose of relaxed tension. He wasn't posed for any specific action, but his buckler was held in front of him, his left leg was foward with toe pointing to the opposite side of the arena. His right hand held his spear, which was not pointed or held up but still gripped with an iron hand. His right heel was in line with his left heel, but his right toe was pointing in a line perpendicular from toe to heel to his left toe to heel line. His body was that way so there was minimal target. However, Protégé still was wearing his toughened boots to protect his feet, long pants to disguise any tensing of the leg muscles, and a short sleeved shirt overtop of a leather jerkin to deflect any glancing blows. His cloak was tied loosely, to break if pulled on, but still was a sufficient shield from any weak blow. His head was the only thing uncovered, but he could move his neck quick enough to block most blows. In this pose of relaxed tension, the answer to his question came to him, but he knew he would forget it the moment he left. Protégé was a restless man, and a fight could calm a restless soul.

[Rith Matou]

"Sigh, here we go again..."Rith thought to himself disdainfully as he marched his way into the arena. Why did he have to win the last round? He trotted into an off-center portion of the field, idely crunching the snow beneath his dark brown travelling boots. Rith glanced over to his opponent, one of the main focuses for his craft was empathy which at this point gave him a sixth sense for this sort of thing, and he could feel Protege's tension and anxiety like the heat from a flame. With a yawn Rith stated " You really should try and relax more. If you spend your whole life on guard, you might end up defending yourself from all life has to offer." in the token "Confuscious say..." manner complete with the raised finger of confirmation.

With that he retrieved one of his signature Puffers from his Bag of Tricks, cupped it between his hands as he did in his previous "battle" and proceeded leave himself in a meditative-like state in his standing position, merely because he didn't want to sit in the snow and get his baggy tannish-khaki pants wet, his cloak of a similar color was partially engulfing his chest arms except for part of his forearms and hands, protruding outwards from his hand-position.

[Protégé]

A shadow of a smile crossed Protégé's face as he listened to Rith speak, but he did not relax or drop his guard. "Amazing. You see me for what, a minute? and you believe that I spend my entire life on guard. For all you konw, I could be the most foolish and gullible man outside of a fight. But that does not concern us now. We can debate the aspects of my outside life later, when we do not have to worry about an assault from magic or a spear thrust to the head. For now, let us fight." Obviously his opponent was a mage, so any tricke he pulled would require that Protégé quickly observed the attack and the attacker, to figure out a way to defend while avioding any follow up the attacker might plan or to go after an opening by the opponent. Judging the distance between him and his opponent, Protégé could tell he could not just thrust at his opponent. Therefore, his first few attacks would probably have to be geared towards getting inrange.

[Crimson]

After 3 days of inactivity by his opponent, I declare Protege the victor!