Colosseum - Round 2 - Strazio Rockwell vs Kakashi Hatake

[Strazio Rockwell]

Dazed, reeling, and confused Strazio tumbled into the darkened shack. His world shattered into fractals as his mind tried to scrape together reality. Even anger couldn’t find purchase in his scattered thoughts. Strazio pressed his back against the flimsy corrugated metal, trying to use the shed as a stabilizer for his spinning world. Blood and pain filled his mouth in equal measures. The shinobi’s club had done more than just scramble the Defender's brain, it also cracked several of his teeth from their fleshy sockets. Kakashi stalked towards his opponent, ready to end the battle before it even began. The taste of blood and the throbbing pain was all Strazio needed to regain some sense of lucidity.

Strazio did the only thing he could do, he spat.

He spat a mixture of blood, phlegm, and shattered teeth at the ninja. The disgusting bloody clam splattered against Kakashi’s chest. For a moment the two stood in an awkward, pregnant silence. The blood in Strazio’s spit began to erupt violently. Sparks danced around the bloody wad, finally exploding after a moment of trepidation. The shed and twisted shards of metal went soaring through the arena. A torrential downpour of cheering busted forth from the crowd. The concussive force of the explosion slammed into Strazio's chest, ripping the breath from his lungs.

He almost wished that he was dead.

Almost.

No, what he truly wished was that he hadn’t eaten a cudgel to the side of his face. Hell, he even wished that he still had all his teeth. The explosion had ignited his cloak and sent him skidding to the edge of the platform. He fell low to the ground and gasped for air, swallowing as much precious oxygen as his lungs could hold. The Avatar fumed at the thought of getting outsmarted. The Scarecrow’s ruse had stoked a fire inside the roiling furnace of anger that was Strazio. With his first clean breath the Avatar of Anger yelled. Chunks of blood spattered onto the ground as Strazio roared in a display of frustration and pain.
His body struggled against him, but Strazio forced the damn thing to move. Slow deliberate movements punctuated the Avatar’s being. Strazio unclasped his smoldering cloak and threw it into the poisoned abyss. Another blob of bloody mucous was spat onto the scaffolding as Strazio called out to his opponent. Sloppy words fell from his swollen mouth, but the intent was clear.

“You gonna hide fo-evah? I’ll blow up thith whole fugging arena if I ‘ave to!”

A fusillade of metal stars answered his threat. Strazio’s instincts kicked in a moment too late and the shurikens bit deep into his back. A furious scream followed the shinobi’s assault. The Avatar whipped around in the direction of the attack, but found nothing except a jeering crowd. In frustration Strazio fired a bolt of raw magick across the battlefield.He hoped that a display of power would draw the ninja out of hiding.

“Over here” Kakashi taunted the pissed off mage.

Strazio glanced over his shoulder to see the ninja relaxing as if he wasn’t currently in a battle of life or death. A simple chuckle escaped Strazio’s lips as he raised his hand towards the foolish shinobi.

“I don’t know how fathst you think you are, but you can’t dodge thiths.”

Brilliant white sparks tore across Strazio’s palm, and with a grin he asked, “any lathst wordths?”

“Behind you”once again the laid-back ninja mocked.

The energy charged forth from the avatar’s palm and crashed into his target, dispersing it in a cloud of smoke. Strazio's eyes went wide and he gasped as the realization hit him. Kakashi had managed to fool the rage-fueled avatar not once, but twice. Lightning and steel sparked behind him. Panic pumped through Strazio’s veins as he scrambled for an escape. Electric sparks tore away his flesh, breaking it apart into so many tiny lightning bugs. The shinobi's blade cut through the cloud of lightning, but found no flesh. The cloud of energetic particles swallowed Kakashi as it surged past him. Every firefly took a bite of his flesh as they cascaded over him. The storm of sparks reformed into a grinning Strazio on a nearby platform.