Editing Tactics For Hosts and Guests (section)

==On Foreign Ground, Strike Deep==
Though [[Choshu Ishi]] wanted, more than anything, to end the fight with a single, swift blow, he had learned the value of patience where [[Mayhiros Xenon]] was concerned; he would wait to see the secret of these "new tricks" before he struck.  He flooded his anima with more Essence and the mica there took on the Radiance of a Glowing Coal, even as a phantom colossus rose up around him.

Ishi didn't have to wait long for Xenon's trick.  The horselord threw his lance, Pine Needle, high into the air and put an arrow to his bow as he rode his black [[The Marukan Alliance|Marukani]] battler in a hard circle around the Ivory Dragon.  Xenon cried out "The Rose Has Many Thorns" as he drew back the bowstring and green-glowing thorny vines seemed to grow beneath him as he let the arrow fly.

The Ivory Dragon spun his white jade daiklave, [[Hidden Riches]], and cut the arrow from the air.

But there were three arrows in all, fired as the horselord rode circuit around Ishi and, to the Ivory Dragon's horror, none were slowed by his Glowing Coal Radiance.  The second and third arrows found their mark.  

The wooden shafts punched through Ishi's gunzosha armor, but the worst of their damage was turned aside by his elementally-hardened skin.  Ishi raised his blade and charged the undefended horselord, backed by the force of the Mountain Toppling Method.  

The cutting edge bit hard, but Xenon pulled a trick Ishi himself had used in their first encounter, reinforcing his skin with Five-Dragon Fortitude, and sword bounced harmlessly away from skin.  Hidden Riches shook in Ishi's hand, almost seemed to ''laugh'', and the floor quaked beneath the Ivory Dragon's feet, throwing him to his back.

That was when Pine Needle fell from the sky, backed by the power of the Five-Dragon Force Blow.  Ishi tried to roll out of the missile's path, but so fast it fell that he couldn't avoid it.  The spear punched through his chest.  Xenon rode past, grabbing Pine Needle and ripping it free again.  

Ishi rolled to his feet in an instant and pressed his hand over the vicious wound.  Though it burned, he forced air into his lungs and drew the glowing mica of his anima banner along with it.  The mica suffused his flesh, plugging the bleeding hole with stone.  Ishi raised his sword behind him and centered his stance.  As Xenon readied his spear and rode in for the charge, Ishi hit the horselord with the wide flat of the blade, a thunderclap impact driving hard into his ribs and knocking him to the ground.

The horselord was fast, on his feet in and spear raised to defend in an instant, but swift as a landslide, Ishi placed himself between Xenon and his horse.  Xenon flicked his eyes towards the battler, and Ishi smiled to know he had denied him the advantage of its height.  

The Ivory Dragon pulled Hidden Riches back for a chambered strike.  "This ends, villain!  Submit to the Stone's Judgement!"  Ishi charged forward, digging Hidden Riches' tip through the flagstones below and where he passed the rubble took the shape of scales.  Sword extended, trailing an avalanche of stone behind, Ishi hammered into Xenon.  

The horselord flew back, crashing into the manse's wall and breaking it to splinters.  Already, white and yellow Essence flowed from the broken geomancy, licking around everything it could.  Xenon struggled to rise as Ishi considered the honor of a killing stroke.

Before he could decide, the Marukani rushed through the open gate.  Ishi saw them and he smiled; they must have been drawn by the fight.  "You're free," he told them.  "Mayhiros Xenon will oppress you no more."

The people ran not to Ishi, though, but to his rival.  "Elder," they called him, and "lord."  They cradled him in their arms, lifted him on their backs; a pair even took up Pine Needle.  

"But..."  Ishi dropped his sword and shook his head.  He drew near Xenon and the crowd of mortals.  "I don't understand."

Visibly calling up all of his will, Mayhiros Xenon lifted his head and gazed long at Choshu Ishi.  "I am a horselord of the Marukan," he said in a voice weak but full of pride, "and that means many things.  Here, it means ''I'' am the hero."

Then the people carried Xenon away, and Ishi was left to return to [[Eye of Hiparkes|Hiparkes' Eye]] alone.


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[[Heaven's Mandate]]