Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Games of Body and Soul

The Master of Regeneration

"I thought I'd knock you out with that last attack, I take no pleasure in hurting you like this. Not while you still feel pain..." Axolkin scratched the side of his head. For what it was worth, at least he seemed truthful. That did not make him any less dangerous.

This fight was pointless. After this last exchange, Mana has finally come to realize it. She has fought opponents that initially seemed unbeatable and out of her league but this was one of the times where no matter how naïve she was walking in – she couldn't overcome these crazy odds. Not taking this guy head-on.

If she were to simply attack this man with force and play the ramming game, she'd get pushed back and swatted aside. It was unlikely that Axolkin would mess the next attempt to knock her out. If Mana were to try and stall this man out, she'd run out of chakra trying to survive his endless attacks far faster than her opponent would run out of his trying to knock her out. There was no attack in her arsenal strong enough to somehow pull her out.

"I can see from your face, Mana-sama, you're still considering continuing this fight. That is very unfortunate, do not do this. Don't make me hurt you any more. I may just need to remove your arms and legs before bringing you to Ayushi-sama, for your own good." Axolkin began picking up the pace.

Mana's mind raced through her options. Axolkin flipped in mid-air, throwing his extended foot forward like a guillotine blade aimed right at Mana's shoulder. The magician's eyes opened up wide while showers of red scattered across the laboratory. Rose petals spun around in a wild vortex greatly confusing the Spliced ninja, soon enough, both the magician and the arm that Axolkin thought he had severed dispersed into petals.

That kick was mighty. It split open the steel floor and covered the entire laboratory with cracks and the force was all perfectly contained. This went far beyond even the world-ending power of a ninja, this man was truly a monster. It was a serious statement from Ayushi's part to produce someone like this, an army of Spliced ninja like Axolkin could have truly challenged the might of ninja villages.

"You are wasting time, Mana-sama. You cannot hurt me, I am part man, part axolotl. My spliced relatives are masters of regeneration, my immortality far transcends even that of the other Spliced." Axolkin expressed his annoyance while his attention wandered across the dark and devastated laboratory. Mana managed to slip away from his sight with that last illusion, it was a new approach, one that the Spliced ninja was not used to facing. Who would have known that ninja would wield more success by hiding in the shadows?

Mana sat perfectly content in her hiding spot, hugging the shadows behind a busted test tube. The broken glass pressed uncomfortably against her feet, Mana had ditched her sandals so that she did not alert the Spliced ninja. Her mind returned back to the Academy, back to the stealth lessons and reminded her of the miles she walked stepping on her own palms to muzzle sound coming from her steps and learning to step heel-first, in a perfectly controlled manner.

Mana was never too great at stealth but this time her life and that of these poor Congregation people depended on it.

Lucky. Axolkin walked off to the other side of the laboratory. Strange... For a man so fast and familiar with the place he could probably scout this entire area in just a second, moving so fast he filled the entire laboratory in a moment in time. Mana may have managed to escaped any attacks he would have used following up such an innovative attack but she would not have eluded his sight.

A mighty rumble shook the entire laboratory. What was that!? Mana fumbled all over the broken glass, just barely managing to toughen her body up so that she did not open herself up everywhere and bled out on the busted steel floor, killed by some strange earthquake...

"So they've totaled the whole shop, huh?" Axolkin nonchalantly looked at the dirt falling through the cracks of the reinforced walls of the laboratory they were in. "Luckily for us, it would take a cosmic level calamity to bury us underground. The work done here was simply too import..."