Who Is More Clever

    Vafrum is and always will be a buisness man first, while he is aware of how to fight and defend his 'territory', he rather not get his hands dirty if he can avoid it.

Yet sometimes the tasks call for hands getting dirty, but for now the day is going fairly mundance. The were fang hiding as a man is doing a normal check over the fields. Given the earlier undead invaders and now these Palace moronors, crop production has been staggering behind.

There were mouths to feed! Troops to keep strong! Wars to wage! Yatta yatta and so on. In this, Vafrum gives a careful inspection over a crop, before tossing it back into the barrel. He then snaps his fingers, motioning for the landers to go ahead and load it up onto the wagon for transport.

It was for much the same reason, but on the opposite end of the spectrum, that a shadowy figure had come lurking around the farmlands.

It was no secret that, while each nation certainly had it's farms, Ninetails was the largest source of produce and other agricultural goods to the rest of Yamato. Being the shrewd traders and merchants that the nation was. And while the Palace Land invasion had yet to make a formidable push towards the Dominion, they were still feeling the sting with demands of supplies that were hard to keep up with, and the limited numbers of hands to do the logistics.

The field growths gave a reasonable amount of cover, though. She could use her own mastery of water elements to keep her steps from sloshing loudly in the paddies. Her allies may not have taken much interest yet, but sabotage and denial were the hallmarks of Daiyu's preference in tactics. Keep food and medicinal production low, and the enemy's ability to resist will wane. The less outright fighting there was, the better.

Daiyu keeps her profile low, tails splayed parallel to the ground so they don't peak over the tops of the rice stalks.... But what's this? A familiar figure amongst the workers....

    Vafrum is not aware of the presence in the fields, the well dressed man, with his tall riding boots is to busy making sure the inventory gets loaded in a timely fashion, which is obvious when he barks out, "Keep it moving people! We need to get this cargo on the ship before the sun starts to set to the horizon!"

This follows a soft tsk from the entrepreneur as he watches the landers work. One hand coming to rest on his side as he uses the papers in his hand like a fan to cool himself off. "What I would do to give these people a damn forklift and a proper van... This is so lumbering slow."

Putting the entrepreneur out of business for a while would do more than any subtle sabotage could. Not to mention suade some of the bitterness Daiyu had towards 'big business' operations for reasons she never really elaborated on. Now that she had a priority objective the hulijin moved with stealthy precision to get closer. Rather than her trademark tensen one hand deftly pulls a dagger from under her arm covering without a sound. Closer... closer....

It's not until the foxwoman leaps from the paddy is she noticed, and at that the laborers just shout in surprise and scramble away from the wagon. Daiyu herself doesn't make a sound even as she lands behind Vafrum and thrusts the dagger for his back. The alchemical coating on the blade the kind to cause intense shearing pain, as if one's flesh had been set on fire.

She knows what is really under that manily visage, she is not taking second guess chances this time.

    Vafrum heards the sounds, his sesnse tingled and then his body stiffened with the only thought racing through his head---

            Danger!

The man suddenly moved quickly, moving his open hand around to knock aside Daiyu's knife strike, with a magical field coming up to reflect the main attack back at them. Though the speed was not quick enough as some of the burning sensation takes hold on his hand.

Vafrum lets out a small sneer on his lips from the pain, before he spins around igniting the papers on dark flames as his fist glows dark, before moving in to strike her with a quick snap of the side of his fist. "Trying to assassinate me, are you? Was not our last little confrontration not enough to teach you a lesson, little pup?!"

Which just proves while Daiyu went for that tactic rather than one of her direct assault techniques. Even with the blade detained and some of the force turned back on her, a few drops of the alchemical coat is enough to cause some exceptional discomfort.

The knife is knocked from her hand, and just as quickly the warfan is flicked open in the other, which she uses to deflect his own shadowy punch. "You are a provider of resources and funding to the enemy. That makes you a priority target regardless of any concerns towards previous encounters."

The second fan is likewise opened, and with blinding speed Daiyu makes a triad of slashs, each from a different angle, before going into one of her spinning moves that sends the streams of fire and frost spiraling around her to farther drive her opponent back.

    Vafrum smirks faintly, but it wasn't that nice smirk. Oh no, it as that predatory smirk, along with his eyes taking on a strange glowing hue under the shade of his hair. "I guess I should be honored then." He says with a low tone in his voice with a vicious smile that follows.

As Daiyu strikes out with her fans, he blocks one strike, before flipping away from another. Goes to block another, but it cuts across his chest cutting the vest and his shirt underneath. This causes his eyes to narrow, before there is a glow around his form.

Daiyu strikes once more and another slash across his outfit, along with his skin as the red data marks appear. One for her next strike to go missing as he back flips away, the vest, the shirt all being removed as he flips. Only to land on the ground, sliding backwards in that seven foot ferocious jurrassic form.

His claws dig into the ground, before he charges forward directly at her. One of her fans strikes again, but he moves with the strike, to spin his tail around to slam into her body with it like a hammer to her body.

The tail swings for her fiercely, only for Daiyu to leap over it, tucking her arms and tails in as she rolls through the air. As soon as one paw hits the ground she uncurls, tails fanning to re-establish her balance as the other leg shifts back to steady her stance, one fan low before her and the other arm wound back. "The longer the war goes on, the more harm it will do to both regions. Your side will not surrender... Mine cannot."

Daiyu kicks off the ground and spins, hurtling one of the fans slicing through the air at him like a boomerang. Lands on the opposite paw and twists again, sidearming the second fan after it, then catching the first on it's return flight, and turning so she can catch the second when it follows. One of the first enchantments she put on her primary tessen was a return effect.

"The only other option is to shorten the time resistance can be made. Denial of resources. Limitation of labror." Eyes narrow partially behind her glasses. "More ways to fight a war, than with fighting."

    Once more the fans tend to be trouble for Vafrum, they spin, cut, and return to the hands of the troubling Vixen. The raptor doesn't even have words for her this time. War, after all, was not his thing.

He just did simply what had to be done to survive and if surviving meant being the one on top of whatever it had to be, then that is what Vafrum was going to do. Yet, this time, fate was not being so kind.

Vafrum let out a roar in defiance, moving to dodge another strike as it came, and this time moving himself to charge directly into her and try to slam her hard into the ground with all his force he could muster. His teeth snarling at her and his raptor predatory eyes looking her down. He then at last speaks, "Fuck your war." He says firmly. "It is simply getting in /my/ way! My future empire!"

Daiyu catchs the warfan, holding it up across her front, even as she mutters under her breath. A different enchantment causes it to become extremely reflective, to the point that the right angle directs a bright flash directly in the Were Raptor's eyes! Of course, that's not going to stop his charge, but it will by her a few seconds all the same.

Vafrum might feel an impact more than he sees it, and feel the bump against his shoulders as the vixen flips herself over his back. His snarling protests are only made to a clump of half trampled plants left in her wake.

And a barrage of kunai shaped icicles launched at him from behind. There is nothing else to say at the moment, Daiyu has already successfully gotten him fuming at her.

    Vafrum snaps down in their blind state thanks to the sudden reflection from the fan, only to chomp down on grass as Daiyu pushes off them. They hiss and inhale deep the air, as their mouth slightly open.

They can hear the kunai, more than see it and quickly goes to duck under one, use their claw hands to knock another aside, before several more pierce their scaley hide. Vafrum staggers back a bit, before letting out a sharp 'bark' like sound, before growling.

Then with another screech they jump up on the wagon, before leaping off and using their senses more than sight, goes to twirl in the air, before bringing their large toe claw down in a hard downward kick in hopes to catch Daiyu with it.

Somewhere in the exchange of ice blades and roars, Daiyu has hidden away her tessen fans, and as Vafrum is leaping at her she pulls the parasol from her back. Which, braced with a hand at each end, she uses to intercept the strike. Or so was the idea. Vafrum is bigger than she is, and in a slight misadjustment his talons scrape down it's length and cause her to snarl through her teeth as they catch down her arm. "Your empire, pah!", the hulijin snarls back. "People like you foster the greed and finacial irresponsibility that nearly tore Kallamore's economy apart from the foundations..." Her eyes flicker, her voice taking a more ominous tone. "I sacrificed much my own to put those fools back in order. I will not suffer such a blight a second time."

Then the vixen is abruptly gone. A mix of bending shadows and moving too fast to be seen, up until she lunges at Vafrum from behind. Having now drawn the jian sword from within the parasol shaft, the blade gleaming with darkness as she strikes.

"Not when I can incise it at the source!"

    Vafrum starts to get his sight back, just as she vanishes into the shadows. He listens to her words as he inhales the air. She was still near, but where?

His tail flicks gently as he goes to stand still, waiting for any movement to catch his attention. "I don't really care what tore your little world apart." Vafrum says coldly. "Or what you may have sacrificed for this fake world."

The raptor thinks he catches movement and goes to toss up dirt from the ground to create a dust cloud to move in. Only to see nothing coming from it. "What I do care about is seeing my own ambitions coming to fruitition and turning this world from its caveman society, into a proper metropolis!"

    To prove...
    To myself...

However that is when he caught her, and when he did it was all to late. The sword cut deep across his side and upward along his chest. Vafrum roared out in pain as Daiyu's blade did the damage that she seeked.

The Were fang staggering back, moving to crouch down. "I yield..." He says lowly. "You... you are right." His hand gripping the ground. "We are nothing but greedy monsters... only caring for ourselves and never the whole. Only desiring for our own needs over the greater. It would seem-- your empire... your people... have the right of it..."

Vafrum doens't look up, not right away. He waits before he says lowly. "... But... we both live in a world...," There was that only warning, that dangerous gleam in the eye, "Where monsters are born... and we have to become monsters ourselves to survive it." Then comes that jurassic smile. "And I will prove that I am worthy of my bloodline no matter how much of a monster I have to be!!"

Then Vafrum throws the earth at Daiyu's face, before racing in with his claws shrounded in darkness and moving in to strike with a piercing blow. "You can't be a monster and that is why you and yours will /always/ lose! /THAT/ is why you will always and foreve /FAIL/!"

The jian is held at the ready. But Daiyu's head tilts a bit, ears twitching forwards as Vafrum goes on his triad. Well, at least he's making it to someone that might actually listen, even if it isn't going to do much than change opinions. There's a soft growl though, bristled tails twitching.

Something in what he says digs deep into the back of her mind, back where she keeps the 'real world' things that she doesn't want to trifle with in this world. That all consuming business culture, sacrifice everything else for your success and worth, always straining for that top percentile most will never make.

And it stirs up even more feelings of anger, even if she can't entirely remember -why- it makes her angry. Like their kitsune cousins the hulijin can be honorable and astute.... but they are also -extremly- spiteful and malicious when pushed the wrong way.

Yet other than a snarl Daiyu makes no vocal response. She plants her forward foot, turning her head away partially as the dirt is thrown in her face. Annoying, but it doesn't matter when she's already set her action in course. She pivots, twisting on that foot to spin around, and as she completes the cirle to bring her sword to meet his attack it erupts in both flame and frost, leaving an elemental rage in its wake that's normally divided between the two warfans.

    When Daiyu snarls, Vafrum can't help but smile and says softly for the first time. "There you are..." Instead of trying to then defend against the attack, the Were Fang Raptor continues to push on the aggressive front.

The elemental rage washes over Vafrum. They screech in pain, but they strike with a kick, before following up with a shadow flamed palm strike.

Those glowing eyes staying on the fiesty vixen, before Vafrum says lowly with a chuckle. "See! We are both monsters! We /both/ want something! We /both/ will sacrifice those around us to get what we want!"

Then leaps forward with seveal more claws strikes, before spinning around with his foot claw for a round house kick. Then continues to speak. "I am just willing to admit I /am/ a monster! For generations my family have been /monsters/! I had to grow up in it. Learn to /live/ it. No no no-- I tried to deny it. I tried to be a thorn even, fighting against the raging waters of fate."

Vafrum's voice goes low with a rumbling growl. "Yet-- its in my blood and even when the world /hated/ what I obtained... I still faught for my place... what makes you now, in this digital world-- think you can possibly change the direction of people like me? You can't beat monsters... Unless you are willing to be a monster yourself."

The elemental energies bleed away from the sword, but the blackness remains. It seems to almost ripple along it's length like water rolling down a smooth incline, like somehow absorbing the light itself.

A claw catchs across her shoulder with the kick, leaving one of those gleaming red lines in its wake, though the damage wasn't done in a direct manner.

"A lifestyle for success... but destroys oneself for a price. Monsters prey on the weak.."

The ebony black blade is swept up to block his follow up attack though, and again, and the darkness gleaming from the blade is making it hard to keep track of the fox's movements. Combined with her speed, it looks almost like she's flashing from place to place, first defensively against his attacks, then to unleash a set of her own furious blackedged slashes.

"Until the prey become monsters themselves."

    "But see-- you are having to be a monster, to beat a monster and so-- proving my point!" Vafrum says with laughter. The attack comes swifty and the raptor attempts to avoid, but the darkness sweeps over them.

In defiance of the darkness, to the pain, and even as their HP starts to go critical levels, they let out a roar and go to punch with everything they have at the source of where the darkness lingers from. In hopes to hit Daiyu directly.

"You want to hurt Yamato, but you don't even begin to understand the hearts of the people. You wish to break their spirits and bring them to yield... But you don't even have the gall."

Vafrum chuckles softly, their breathe tired, but those predatory eyes never leave them. "I-- never understood why this game chose this form for me... But I am starting to see why now."

The raptor were fang then hisses the next part, "So, little fox. What will do you? Be the monster... or continue to be a child?"

The darkness is obscuring, but only really concealing up to the point Daiyu makes her strike. At that point it's easy to, literally in this case, punch through the darkness and send her skidding backwards. Enough that she has to briefly drag the sword in the marshy patty ground to arrest her movement. Eyes narrow to the point that they're almost glowing slits.

"Fine," is spat through clenched fangs. "You want a monster..."

The jian is pulled from the ground, and in the split-seconds she does so, it's blade turns from pitch black to a glowing golden hue. Almost painfully brightly so, as she flicks the weapon to lob a burst of divine energy at the raptor-man.

"Witness what you have foolishly unleashed."

And then leaps into the air, doing the sort of vertical spin that wouldn't look out of place in a wuxai action flick, the sword once again igniting in flames and frigid cold at the same time as it spins around her, creating a vicious circular slash that seems to explode in it's wake due to the combination of conflicting energies.

    Vafrum did ask for it and boy did he get it! The explosion sends him back after the cuts, slamming him hard into the wagon. He does try to get up, but instead he flops back down into the ground with his body resting against the wagon.

The Were Fang reverts back into the man and he just smiles. "...a battle won... but this silly war of yours far from over. You beaten a non-combatant, you know. I," He chuckles before he coughs. "I used this world to make deals and contracts with other companies... and then... to compete, to keep a legacy alive... I got everyone trapped here, unknown to any of us, that we would be."

The man then tries to stand, even if he wise, he should stay down, but it seems Vafrum just continues to prove their stubborness. "In that world... I had to fight to get approval because society was against me... in this world," They just smile viciously once more. "I still fight to make something because Were Fangs... are just as equally disliked cause of their monster engineering."

"War... corporation take overs... people's hatred... it is all the same." He takes one staggering step foreward, eyes seeming to still glow. "Deep inside-- we are all monsters. Being corrupted. Sinful, disgusting, monsters." He then places out his arms, the red marks glowing. "So, beast of the crowned. Servant of your masters-- do their bidding... because in the end... we all answer to someone and we are all slaves to the shackles we chain ourselves to... even in blood."

"But I do wonder--" Vafrum adds with a minor head tilt, "... if your masters make a fundamental mistake in this war... cause I can see that mistake in the cage. The flaw..." He then chuckles. "... not that it matters... so, go on. /Do/ it."

"You are prehaps more right than you will ever fully realize." While at the same time she marvels as he staggers to his feet, and still manages to lumber about. The sword is held out, still gleaming, deadly sharp.

"There is no such thing as innocents in war..." Then it is turned away, reverse gripped in her hand to slide back into it's parasol scabbard. "But no. While your... occupation makes you a worthy target... this is a war, not a slaughter." Tails flick as the vixen turns. "You are, as you say, a non-combatant. If I struck down every opposition... it would mean nothing when someone of importance falls to my blade? People do not fear monsters that wantonly kill and ruin. It is only anger and retaliation such sow."

A dismissive wave is given over her shoulder as she walks away. "Besides, you would respawn in a sun's cycle, mildly inconveniced. Whereas now you have to recover, expend resources on doing so. Try to recoup what has been lost in this fracas, the time and manpower kept from working." A faint chuckle as she walks away, smirking. "I know enough about business to know ways to hurt it more than mere death would."

    "Yes, but what if that buisness has nothing to gain or lose? Your... war is trying to cut down people who refuse to give in." Vafrum says as she walks away. "Maybe... Your leadership should understand the competition, instead of wasting their own resources. Maybe... In truely understanding what the poeple of Yamato want-- you can win this war without such opposistion."

He then watches her still. "After all, you can attract more things with honey... Than with vineger... Now can't you?" He then continues to watch, but never making a move to stop her.

The twitch of a long ear is the only sign that what he said was heard. There's no other response from the hulijin as she slips from sight. She's going to have to wait for the PvP aggressor flags to clear before she can close enough to a port to get back to Shibuya.