Magi: The Tale of Faith and Hope

Everyone's Daily Life & Sinbad is the Culprit

"Do you know what your mistake was?" Ja'far asked Hope, who was currently bound by the constriction of his rope darts wrapped around her. They were in a small training facility in the palace.

"Taking my eyes off the ropes after I thought I dodged them?" she said.

"Good," Ja'far said. Let's try that again." He released her, and she picked up the two sixteen inch sticks she had found and got ready for another round. Ja'far struck first. Hope jumped back instead of forward this time, keeping her eyes on the ropes and his hands. His hands twitched, and she knew it was coming. The ropes shot further back, getting behind her. Hope waited for them to start to cross each other and ducked. The two darts wrapped around each other instead, and she shot forward at Ja'far, tightening her grips on the sticks. Ja-far quickly untangled the ropes and retracted them, gripping one dagger in each hand as she struck. She pivoted, moving her right shoulder to her left hip, attempting to deliver a forehand strike known as a 'San Miguel'. Ja'far blocked with one of the daggers. He thrusted the other at her gut. Hope quickly used her other stick to knock the strike off target, so it slid a harmless inch away from side of her waist. Ja'far sliced through the first stick he had blocked, cutting it to eight inches in length. Hope tried to knee him in the gut as he did this, but he jumped back. She adjusted her grip on the short stick and charge forward again, determined not to let him make full use of his ropes. She attacked again, with the short stick, hitting the under side of his wrist just hard enough to make him drop the dagger. It didn't hit the floor, because the ropes were coiled around his arms under his sleeves, but at least it wasn't in his hand anymore. She used the longer stick push them further apart when he aimed the dagger still in his other hand at her neck. She didn't want to break any bones, so she avoided smashing the ankle towards the opposite foot to knock him over, and dropped to the floor and tried to sweep his legs out from under him. Ja'far jumped up and dodged, firing his darts at her from the air. Hope dodged and they embedded themselves in the floor. She quickly jumped on top of the ropes before he could pull them out, one foot on each rope, pinning them in place. She dropped the sticks, grabbed the ropes and yanked him closer to her, getting ready to knee him and pin him, when she felt something cold and sharp against her throat. Turned out he had another knife. "Congratulations," he told her with a smile. "I hardly ever have to use this."

"I'm still dead," she said, sweat-dropping.

"You're less dead than you were last training session, but you should stop holding back," he said. "You should also think about getting a more durable weapon."

"Improvised weapons are what I'm used to. We're not allowed to have them in most places in our world. So when trouble strikes, we use whatever's at hand," she explained. And she and Hope were trying to save up money to expand their business.

"I see..." Ja'far said. "Well, you're not in your world anymore. Again."

Alibaba was training with Sharrkan in another small training facility in the palace. Sharrkan moved so fast that Alibaba couldn't completely dodge every attack. He had scratches on his face and arms. Alibaba had just successfully blocked a blow, when the jewel on the sword in his hand and the sheathed blade of his broken knife started to glow. An eight-pointed star seal appeared in the jewel on the sword Sinbad gave him. Alibaba knew what that meant.

"Amon... moved to Balbadd's royal sword!!" he exclaimed, excited.

"He finally moved, huh," Sharrkan said, smiling. "Finally, my strict guidance shows its results, I guess."

'It really is the result of his strict guidance...' Alibaba thought, remembering all the times Sharrkan was strict with him and pushed him to keep going. 'He is totally different when we do sword training!'