Assassin Ranma was practicing a kata in the garden, his senses wide open, soaking in the health and vitality about him, when he felt a sudden darkness, a presence encroaching on the edge of his range, and heading with disturbing directness towards his position. He released the kata, and gathered the Juushin Jisei, ready to either change his position instantaneously, catch and hold any thrown projectiles, or immobilize an opponent. Thus prepared, he extended his senses, ignoring the noise the approaching being made, focusing on the sixth and seventh senses, to give him a better idea of what he faced. As the being approached, Ranma identified it as a human male, under the influence of spells that Ranma easily identified as Lord Ereth's style, though he could not be absolutely certain of the caster. He was wielding a sword with little skill, holding it as if it were a club with which he intended to beat something. Ranma allowed him to approach within visual range. When the man, upon seeing him, began a rushing charge, brandishing the sword, Ranma summoned the Dragon Fang and Dragon Armor, delighted at the opportunity to practice. He released the seventh sense, and the Juushin Jisei, intending to learn what he could. Meeting the man's charge, he was staggered by the man's adrenaline and drug enhanced strength, and embraced the Neko-ken to give him enough strength to throw off the attacker, and break the dead-lock of their swords. He released the Neko-ken immediately, not wanting to be so far out of his opponents league, and instead focused ki into his limbs to enhance his own strength. He motioned for the man to attack again. "Come on, let's see what you've got." He quickly grew frustrated, as the darkly dressed black-haired man was attacking without subtlety or finesse. Deciding that it was not necessary to coddle this attacker's self-esteem, Ranma turned the Dragon Fang into a bokuto. Piercing easily through the defenses, a bit of ki focused into the tip exploded outward as the bokuto contacted the man's chest, sending him hurtling backwards some thirty feet, to crash into the ground. Ranma grimaced in sympathy, then sighed when the man got back to his feet and charged again. "Oh, come on, can't you at least fight with some skill?" Ranma slapped the sword with the Dragon Fang, setting it to ringing, to loosen the man's grip, then executed a simple, and easily avoided, disarm. The man didn't even seem to notice the move, much less defend against it, and so lost his weapon. He growled, and punched out at Ranma, who clipped him on the skull with the bokuto. "What's wrong with you?" He demanded. "How stupid can you be, attacking me without a weapon?" The man said nothing, but launched a kick. Ranma almost avoided it, but at the last moment, chose to take it, focusing ki at the point of impact, to demonstrate the futility of fighting him in that manner. The kick impacted with no visible effect. When the man simply punched again, Ranma sighed. "Alright, fine, we'll fight without weapons then." He dismissed the Dragon Armor and the Dragon Fang, and caught the next punch, spinning the attacker past him, and kneeing him in the gut as he passed by. He slammed an elbow into the man's back as a follow-up, driving him into the ground. The man rolled over, stood, and attacked again, with a high kick, uttering a low growl. Ranma punched at the leg, but used more strength than was needed, misjudging by the way the man seemed unaffected by the bokuto strikes, and the man's leg snapped. "Ah, damn, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to do that," apologized Ranma, then he gaped, as the man's leg visibly straightened with a faint crackling sound, and the man put his weight on it to send a kick from the other leg hard into Ranma's side. Ranma was so surprised by the man's failure to react to his leg being broken, that he did not get up a defense in time, and was sent sprawling. He leapt back to his feet, meeting the incoming charge, and flipped the man over his back, spinning to face him, and catching his assailant with a hard kick to the back as he stood again. Ranma glanced about, noting that several guards had approached, but per his orders, given some months back, were not interfering in the fight in progress. Ranma eyed the man's leg, noting that it showed no signs of being broken now. Wanting to verify this peculiar behavior, Ranma steeled himself against his own objections, and with a sharp kick, snapped the man's leg again. Since he did it this time while the other leg was in the air, the man collapsed to the ground. Ranma watched in sick fascination, as the bent leg straightened, and crackled, then the man stood again. "Magic, got to be magic," Ranma said, looking for any reaction on the face of the man. Seeing none, he blocked the next kick, and reached out with his ki. He continued to block the man's attacks almost absently, as he considered the weave of magic about the man, and then tapped the weak points, released the magic bonds. He noted that more effort had been put into strengthening the magic against dispelling, but it was of a type he had seen before, designed long ago, a pattern that strengthened a spell against traditional dispelling magics. Unfortunately for the caster, it did little to hinder Ranma's unique method of disrupting the threads of magic. The man shook his head lightly, then grinned an evil grin. "Die, Fey!" He leapt forward, and Ranma smiled. His opponent was at least attacking a little less blindly now. Then he sighed, as he assessed his assailant's skill level, and noted that he was still no threat. Ranma was considerably surprised, when he placed a sharp blow to the man's shoulder, striking hard, spinning the man, and the man showed no signs of pain. There was no more magic... so why wasn't he feeling the pain. "I will defeat you, Fey, and my reward awaits in paradise," he hissed, laughing as he attacked again. Ranma grimaced at him, striking his arms, sending the punches wide and opening him up for a hard palm strike to the chest, that sent him nearly ten feet back. "Isn't it obvious yet that you can't defeat me. I would think that you would have noticed that you are consistently being beaten?" "Hah! I don't even feel your punches, you cannot defeat me!" The man laughed in triumph, which seemed definitely premature to Ranma, who hit the man's skull with a hard spin-kick, sending him flying to the side. "There, did ya feel that?" Ranma was a bit perturbed when the man denied it, and attacked again. Getting tired of the apparent futility of the fight, Ranma considered breaking a few limbs, now that the magic was gone, and asking if he felt that... but he wasn't really that cruel. Instead, he focused the Juushin Jisei again, and gripped the man, lifting him from the ground, and immobilizing his limbs. Reaching out with his sixth sense, Ranma focused on the man, trying to see why he felt no pain. It took a while, but finally Ranma was able to focus his senses in such a way that he was able to feel the presence of foreign contaminants, toxins in the man's system. Ranma sighed, and drew up the weaves of magic to make the man's paralysis permanent, until the weaves should be released, and turned him over to the guards. "Take him to a doctor," he ordered, "find out what drugs have been used on him, and see what you can find out from him once they're purged." As they left, Ranma returned to his kata. --- When Krall learned of the Lord Fey's new Dojo, and the training that he was offering not only to his own troops, but to outsiders from the Five Kingdoms, Krall perceived it as an excellent chance to infiltrate some spies and assassins into the castle. He was disturbed when his men, secreted amongst crowds of other potentials, were uniformly turned away. As soon as he saw the first reports indicating that every single plant, not just most of them, had been turned away, he called off the plans. There were only two possibilities he could see that would explain this. One, somehow the boy had strong enough magic to detect the intentions of the men, and was only training those who were properly loyal to their leaders. The second, more likely, and far more frightening possibility, was that the Lord Fey, or more likely, the Lady Alana, had spies amongst his own ranks, that had leaked the identities of his men. The purge that followed took Krall's forces several years to recover from, for it was led by Friss, and he had, unbeknownst to Krall, his own ulterior motives, and pressed his suspicions harshly, using the purge as a tool to eviscerate Krall's forces.