Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Journeys We Make

The Face Of Retribution

"You can't just give in to this guy, Mana," Damisan turned to his friend as she hesitated to attack or straighten her back and leave her fighting stance.

"We won't let her either way. Once a Star, always a Star!" Shige-H clenched her fists.

"I don't plan on getting killed," Mana shook her head. "The Five Pillars Seal is an artifact from archaic times. It means that it follows the most archaic laws as well. If we beat this man and take it from him by force–he won't command the Seal anymore."

"Somewhere deep down I was hoping you'd say that," the armored killer admitted with a slight nod of his head. His Sword of the Thunder God hummed and crackled with stray sparks while the two parties prepared to clash surrounded by wounded Allied Ninja with a massive titan obliterating the rest of the Allied Ninja forces in the background.

"Let's go, the sooner we beat this man senseless, the more lives we can still save," Mana looked up straight through the lower two glass orbs which the armored killer viewed the world through. While she was addressing the Stars, requesting their aid to save as many lives as possible, she was also addressing this man in a way too–letting him know she was going to take this as seriously as she's ever taken a matter because of what this man put at stake.

Mana's hands moved in closer to one another aiming to form a clone technique hand seal. The man was like a bolt of lightning himself, diving in a straightforward charge, ignoring all threats around him, and rushing directly toward Mana. Something flashed inside of his helmet. It was a bright light that shined through the spaces in between sheets of armor, but rather a more ethereal glow. It was chakra being set-off and only Mana, as a sensor, could feel it.

It wasn't the sword that the man attacked Mana with. In that way, it was not an attack that she had anticipated. Mana moved her crossed arms to block the sword's swing, but it was just a feint. The killer's true attack came as sharp and swift double-finger pinches that stung like heated nails pushed through the skin. The man didn't intend on letting go either; he flung his crackling lightning sword into the air while using his freed hand to grab hold of Mana's collar and pull her in while his thrusting hand continued to pinch and strike at her.

Lightning bolts of silver and emerald shades blitzed in from the left and from the right as Shige-H and Damisan both dashed in to attack the man from both sides. The grizzled assassin grabbed hold of his falling Sword of the Thunder God while letting go of Mana's collar and striking her in the chest with an open palm, only to swing his sword around him and form a donut-shaped ring of light that sent Damisan and Shige-H staggering back in fear of being cut down.

Vision doubled. A sharp pain resonated through her nerves, rising from the heart, and something vexed her chest and forced Mana to cough up. Two drools of crimson extended down her lips and touched the grass underneath her feet as the magician slipped her jacket off and tossed it aside to look at her arms and her upper chest. Her eyes fixed on a myriad of nasty, red dots that suggested subtle internal bleeding localized in very specific areas.

"Tenketsu?" Mana muttered to herself. Almost at the same time as she's put her finger on the manner of the man's taijutsu style, she felt a grave weakness in her joints. Shige and Damisan weaved around wild swings of the Sword of the Thunder God but all of those were feints too, having trained in martial arts in the Sun Disc arena, Mana recalled what skilled feints looked like and this man was placing the two right where he wanted them, positioning them for a finishing blow he had already planned for ahead of time.

"Shadow Prison Jutsu!" Skaven's voice rung from behind the man, but he flipped his sword over his head and allowed it to imbed into the ground and expel a wild discharge of electricity that dispelled Skaven's shadow technique at once. Blades fashioned after bear's claws burst out from the killer's gauntlets as he thrust them toward Damisan's neck.