Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of What Defines Us

Control of Our Own Time

Yushijin charged at his opponent, sword sheathed behind his back, hands clenched by his side and ready to shoot off into a barrage of straight punches. Roh-D extended his hands once more, aiming to derail his opponent's charge by firing a pair of weak and compressed sound wave blasts in his direction but the resonating airwaves only hit thin air.

This time, however, Roh-D was not about to get caught unprepared. He moved differently, placing generalized defensive moves and swatting his pesky opponent away before he should have been able to even see him move. Roh-D was getting into Yushijin's head by predicting where it would be most alluring to attack him from. Kiyomi took a brief moment to glance at Mana. The Yamanaka could recall hearing about Mana receiving some amazing martial arts training during her trip to Wind Country, just how much more would she have been able to read from these moves if she could have seen them?

An impressive dance of Yushijin's fists bouncing off of the tough and surgically altered body of his opponent continued on. After getting a few of nasty smacks across the face, packing enough wallop to throw him to another country had he not properly defended against them, Yushijin appeared to alter his tactics. Make more fake-outs before finding a softer spot in Roh-D's back and giving it a good, slow and packed with all the force he could gather, cross.

That was Yushijin's chance, the long-haired swordsman gripped the handle of his blade, drawing it lightning fast before smacking right at the top of his opponent's head, likely to stun him shortly so that he could prolong the opening that he had created and cut his opponent a pair more times, than he would have normally been able to.

A loud poof echoed throughout the arena with the modified limestone carrying the haunting sound all the way to the end of the audience rows and up to the VIP skyboxes. Roh-D chose to substitute himself with a stone piece that had been dislodged from the wall when he hit it earlier, after being smacked by Yushijin's blunt side of his sword. By the time Yushijin noticed the substitution taking place, he was already invested into the slash that would've split his opponent in two, his sword cut through the stone piece cleanly before the genin sheathed it back as lightning-fast as he had drawn it from its sheath before.

*****

"So Roh-D used his Substitution first", Kiyomi whistled in surprise, the noise that escaped her pressed lips got completely drowned out in the applause of the audience that found its place in between two series of engagements between the genin. It was a serious statement in a battle – Substitution caused focus, stamina and could not have been used for a while after being once used due to the strain it caused. Meanwhile, the option still remained for Yushijin.

"That was pretty good", Vinda chuckled, "The Kumogakure bastard almost got cut into pieces. He pretty much had to use that Substitution".

"Yeah, Roh-D's plan was pretty impressive – he purposefully left clean openings, knowing that Yushijin would exploit them after toying with his time perception. That way Roh-D always knew where he'd be attacked and, given him scoping Yushijin's timer earlier, when", Erumo grinned, "Of course, it didn't matter once Yushijin read what Roh-D was doing and stopped letting his opponent dictate the pace of the battle".

Kiyomi looked at the girls who appeared to be impressed by the battle transpiring beneath them in the arena. Only Mana was curiously glancing at the VIP skybox for some reason, completely ignoring the battle below or refraining herself from making any comments.

"Something wrong? Did they suppress their chakra?" Kiyomi wondered.

"No. I don't think they intend to... That places me and Gasco at a disadvantage", Mana replied, brushing the question aside like it wasn't important or anywhere close the reason why she was staring at that point blankly.