Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

I'll Have it Three-Way

Like in a dimension straight out of a seashell the foaming and turning waves continuously rinsed the rocky beach of the Land of the Waves. A large crowd had gathered to witness the arrival of Yamanaka Inomame – a famous and powerful persona even in the farthest away reaches of the great ocean. It would've been rare for any one man who spent most of their lives shrouded and hidden in secrecy to be so well known past not only Kirigakure but the entire Archipelago.

The crowd was layered, almost like filtered and lined in the row of their importance as various criminal minds gathered themselves and their crews as far in front as their influence allowed them for they truly ran this island. The poor and the ruined stood at the end even if their despair demanded entertainment and cheerfulness of a high class wedding the most. The more the crowd went on the more influential, rich and powerful the people were and one did not get luxury and influence in the Land of Waves without stepping over someone's corpse.

At the end of it all, leading the celebratory fray stood the Imarizu four. The three that carried injuries still stood there with their black as night bodysuits torn and damaged, their masks half broken revealing the dark skin underneath. While people of such dark shades of skin were very common in the warmest circles of the northern part of the continent all the way in Kumogakure, here they were standing out and quite exotic. The darkness in their skin, while not surpassing that in their hearts, was a full spectrum darker even than Mana's, who already looked quite exotic amongst her native peers.

The foreigners standing at the end of the line stood out greatly. Even as their torn bodysuits showed off the athletic perfection to which their bodies were brought and peak shape they upheld at any given time, there were those who got riled up. A tall and bulky man, one whose body was built for managing sails and fishnets or hurling boulders, not combat approached the four.

"You four look mighty shad..." the man opened his mouth before his eyes shot wide open in painful surprise. Blood began spouting from deep in his throat and as the man wandered back through the crowd the caved in cavity made anyone the giant staggered to step back in fear of being covered in the man's grisly and overly showy demise.

"Do not assume you have the right to speak to us, pale-skin..." the Imarizu wearing a sheathed Audra blade on his back spoke having crushed the man's throat faster than anyone in the audience could see it happen. The speed at which the giant's fate was sealed could've transpired hundreds of thousands of times slower and still would've been completely unseen by any given islander.

After a good pair of minutes of coughing and drowning in his own blood the giant collapsed, likely choking from inability to draw breath than bleeding out. Strangely enough the grisly sight of murder did not affect the wedding's cheer in any way for the islanders up to the most snotty-nosed and dirty-faced orphan were used to such sights.

After casually killing a man for daring to speak to them while wearing the wrong colored skin, one they were not accustomed to in the faraway corners of Kumogakure the Imarizu continued to stand calmly. Standing by them was a blond haired girl wearing just a flimsy and torn brown dress that reminded more of rags that a child from a war-torn country would wear. Despite their distaste for pale skinned people the girl was not touched and had not a single sign of beating or injury on her body – she was an important part of the Imarizu's plan so their strict and historical dislike of pale skinned people had to be swallowed most bitterly.

At long last a glorious ship appeared in the horizon, the brightest and most angelic, smooth as a marshmallow cloud wood encrusted with only the finest gold worked in the mines of Iwagakure long ago. Such a ship could've only belonged to a man powerful enough to buy it and extravagant enough to flaunt his power with it – Yamanaka Inomame. The Imarizu's strict and unwavering eyes did not falter. The few eyes visible through the broken masks did not grow excited for their ultimate goal coming closer, their convictions did not waver. Nor did they feel any pain from their bandaged thighs, their lips did not pale and their eyebrows did not betray their pain. These were men whose minds were honed and sharpened like the finest blade.