Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

Bet on Freedom

The dust cloud and the smoke cleared out. Almash was a little winded as using chakra was no small feat to a man who wasn't even enrolled or sat a single class in the Ninja Academy. He was entirely tutored by Damij. Trained and bred to take out not necessarily the strongest but definitely one of the most iconic veterans of the arena. The smoke cleared revealing Bult's huffing and kneeling frame, one body part at a time.

"Huh... You used the heat from the technique to cauterize your bleeding wounds, rolled out of the way just halfway." Almash smiled sadistically before his body lunged at his opponent again kicking Bult into the man's jaw and sending him sliding backward and over the edge of the arena. Once again, the survivor inside Bult rose up and gripped up to the edge of the arena just to hold him from falling down, just to survive as long as he could, it didn't matter what he'd be surviving for.

It was easy to lose one's way of life in a place like this. When life takes a hard oaken stick and drives it right into one's kneecaps. It ain't hard to let suicidal thoughts or madness take over. If one isn't secretly also the other... The only thing that keeps one not only alive but moving is the thought, the promise that no matter how hard things would get one has no right to give up. A man or a woman, it doesn't really matter as both are made of the same flesh and bones, must promise oneself that even when they'll lose their way, when they'll be blinded by their opponent's punches or falling halfway down to being skewered by spikes they won't give up on their wish to live. 

Technically, at those moments, it wasn't even much of a "wish", more like survival because one promised oneself survival during their toughest moments. Bult was acting driven entirely by such a promise. He didn't want all this pain, all this punishment. All he wanted was to rest, to finally repent for his sins, for all of his kills and just let go but... He promised, all those years ago!

The crowd jumped up off their seats, one childish adolescent even tore her top off in wild enthusiasm as Bult pulled his body up to the edge once more using one of his busted arms, screaming his lungs out from both pride and pain. If he was being forced to kick the bucket he may as well give these fuckers a bloody good show. 

Countless glasses of beer were slammed at the steps of the arena, men and women screamed in hype and excitement but Bult couldn't entertain them anymore. He couldn't stand back up on his feet. He was a soldier wounded in too many battles and his old horse carrying him through them refused to go on. Suddenly the public realized it and fell dead silent. Their hero was about to meet his doom...

The Sheikh was leaning over the edge of his platform, he was excited, but he was also mad. His face was dyed entirely red in fact because he loved this battle, it was a solid brawl but... It wasn't enough... It was still missing some pizazz, that one final volcano eruption blowing the top of the rocky mountain off. And here this amazing fight was about to end... He had to stop it, he had to do something, he was about to reach that one moment in time, that amazing fight between two masters so many years ago but... It would end before it could reach that peak... No! It had no right to end, not now, not so close!

Almash licked his lips, licking blood off of a couple of wounds where Bult managed to bust the monster's lips and in couple more places where he bit his own lips in excitement himself tearing entire minuscule chunks of skin and flesh out of his own palate tongue and lips. He loved this fight but he loved the end most of all. Almash closed his fist and cocked it back, he knew what he'd do, he'd channel just a single ounce of chakra punching hard enough to bust through the man's broken ribs and blow up his heart with pure concussive force – it'd be his glorious finisher move... Maybe one day it'll reach the level of fame to match the Bare-Hand Axe Handle?

Almash's fist howled in the air, Bult no longer was able to see with one eye while the other one barely translated passable quality view of the world around him, it constantly needed to blink to let the pouring blood to pass over the eyelid and go down below. Bult was done for and he knew it, he accepted his death, he accepted his repentance, this wasn't Almash finishing him off, it was his endless victims unifying into a single indestructible entity comprised of cosmos and vengeance itself that possessed his opponent that day. Maybe it was just his beaten and shaken brains making up stupid bullshit...