Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

Live Hatin' or Die Lovin'

It was beginning to seem to Mana that upon landing the hit on her opponent she may have given herself an opening that'd have allowed her to counterattack with more success. Still, she was hesitant to proceed and open herself up by allowing herself the luxury of being aggressive. After all, while her opponent didn't look too good and was barely staying upright, she herself hasn't fully yet recovered from the battle with the Imarizu last night or this recent craziness that left a trail of destruction and some dead bodies in its wake.

The Imarizu moved his hand behind his hip. Mana's attention sharpened, she began trying to read the man's movements but they were actually slow enough even for a normal man to see, such lack of speed or attempt to trick her eye, which ironically resulted in Mana's eyes being tricked, knocked the magician out of the rhythm. Her eyes needed to roll back the rate of her perception as to perceive such a movement in her top perception rate would've taken an eternity. It was like the Imarizu's hand moved a light twitch every hour.

That was undoubtedly the assassin's intent and Mana's mistake, right after slowing himself down, knowing full well that the girl won't risk attacking him. The Imarizu dashed onwards at Mana. Fear sparked in the girl's heart but as she braced herself for impact she realized that she was going to make it – her perception took some precious microseconds to return to its former rate, she took some time to place up her blocks as she was clearly not going to evade this, still – survival was well within the realm of possibility.

Black cloud of smoke hit Mana right in the face as instead of attacking her head on and injuring Mana's blocking arms and shins the assassin dashed past her, instead popping a smoke bomb. The gust of air accumulated from his movement gathered the cloud of black as tar smoke and bashed it right at the magician's face and into her breathing system, had this been toxic Mana would've been in trouble. The magician turned back to defend herself. It didn't work – she couldn't see the Imarizu's movements but she could read them, predict them – attacking one from behind was textbook manner of advantage utilization.

Her body froze in pain, Mana's side burnt up from the pain inflicted on herself from before. All the gut injuries from last night all acted up at once forcing the magician to gasp surprised in pain. Then the irritating and burning sensation in her lungs completely flipped the tables on her. Not only was the substance in the Imarizu's smoke bomb highly irritative to Mana's lungs but also to her eyes, instantly making the girl tear up. This pain from the sum of her injuries ruined her defensive measures.

A light tap to her central facial area opened Mana up for a follow up attack, it stiffened her body and lightly lifted it off the ground. A following cross to her abdomen was completely impossible to block or defend against, evasion was long since out of the question. This assassin was smart above all else, he not only had an immensely overpowering level of power and speed, martial arts mastery but also a true assassin's mind.

Mana's eyes whited out, she would've screamed out in pain had she anything but toxic gas in her lungs. She only breathed out a light whiff as the final stored semblances of air left them forcefully. Her opponent moved sideways placing his extended arm to stop the magician from falling down, since Mana's mind blacked out he was in complete control of his combination as well as the magician's responses to it.

The old man pushed Mana's body with his extended arm not letting it fall down, then giving it another quick jab before following up with a strong cross at her lower chest area and then hooking at her head from below. The magician could feel no pain. At some point her mind was subconsciously convinced that it was over – she was dead, however the very fact that some semblance of consciousness was still retained and she didn't just completely turn off tipped the magician to bet on the other outcome. Maybe it was because of difficulties for her opponent to breathe as well, maybe it was because of the broken ribs and countless other bones and severe bleeding but he couldn't hit Mana nearly as hard as he had the potential to.