Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Journeys We Make

Fights Best Avoided

"Damn it! Stand still and fight!" the braided archer seated atop a semi-headless giant unleashed a hail of arrows in a vain attempt to land a hit on a light-footed man who was sharply dressed for a pirate. Pirate Lord Green Hideo l'Ollonais moved without sound. Each movement was just a flawless transition from one stance of swordsmanship into the next. While the elegant Pirate Lord clasped a long blade with a round, golden, dome-shaped guard, he never once had to use it and merely danced around the attempts to hit him with unmatched fluidity in his poetic motion.

"Why would I do that, girl? Just stand in place and get skewered with arrows, I mean..." the Pirate Lord wondered with a stern expression. L'Ollonais was a thin man, medium size, rather pale, wrinkly skin for a pirate that spent most of his days on a deck of a ship and weathered the conditions of the adventurous oceans. Dressed sharply in a black jacket with golden buttons and decorations over a neat white frilly dress shirt and a flashy eggplant-colored gemstone framed in gold for a broach, holding his frilly tie and collar together.

"I guess precision won't cut it!" the archer mercenary stomped the drooling and loose tongue of her semi-headless giant platform and braced for when her walking fortress would get rowdy. Releasing a bubbly and rather pathetic wail that soon turned to a wet spat from the frothing shower of spit shooting wildly in all directions from the severed glands, the colossal mercenary under Fennec's employ began thrashing about with mad stomps and swings of a colossal sword that would've wiped any lesser arena clean at once.

Instead, the sword halted in place, catching something firm yet subtle. The endless stream of dust and rubble blinded the archer from being able of seeing much of what was happening below the giant's knee level but once the dust settled, the shocking sight of Pirate Lord Green having thrust his blade into the balance center of the giant's own mountain-splitting scimitar and stopping it in place without as much as bending the rapier-like toothpick made the archer nearly lose her footing atop of her mountainous pet friend.

"That's impossible!" she grunted. "Are you planning on doing something?" the braided archer turned to her less than useful fellow black-haired female mercenary who had been resting after her own grueling battles.

"Not against that guy. You need to pick better fights, kid," the sassy mercenary clapped her exposed rear with the flat side of her polearm blade as a mocking gesture.

"Your walking goliath is an impressive specimen, though he isn't much of a swordsman I'd wager," Hideo l'Ollonais pulled the tip of his sword and released the morbidly obese giant from the clash that his insect-like opponent didn't seem to put any effort at all into.

"I wouldn't say that, he's never lost a fight!" the archer sent a couple of chakra-infused arrows buzzing and punching through the arena's tiles while l'Ollonais shuffled his feet, letting the buzzards miss him just narrowly though that was merely an estimate of distance for the Pirate Lord's stoic face suggested he wasn't sweating one iota in avoiding the archer's punishment.

"Is that so? If he hadn't learned the lesson of swordsmanship being all about balance and the firmness of one's sword being all about the sharpness of their will, his opponents must not have been particularly impressive..." Hideo l'Ollonais saluted the archer with his sword before pulling the blade away from his face and to the side. The arrow-slinging mercenary was getting increasingly frustrated by how her opponent wouldn't move a muscle in attacking her or her walking fort. He merely defended himself and was exceedingly successful in that venture.

"What kind of pirate are you?" the archer rolled over the wall of chompers she's been walling herself off behind until that moment. She's decided that standing up high and moving around, shifting the angles and elevation of her arrows would give her a chance at better success though she continued to miss as l'Ollonais leaned his head and allowed the arrows to brush past his shoulder-long, slick black hair even though once again, while the arrows cut close, they barely disturbed or alarmed the Pirate Lord which suggested that was exactly how he wanted them.