Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

The God of Martial Arts

The crowd kept squirming in their seats, yelling unintelligible things but from what little Mana could make out – it was all just out of surprise of this Fajal making an appearance. The magician slowly walked back to Bult's resting place and knelt up to the man. It was hard to see the fear in the man's swollen and beaten face but Mana could see it, see his eyes shake in fear, hear air uncontrollably pass in and out of his lungs and see his swollen eyelids twitch. 

The magician took in a couple of controlled breaths just to let her body recover from the stress of surviving multiple fights with master martial artists who would've beaten any normal human. She had taken her weak human body farther than most humans were able to but she was about to face a test unlike any other.

"Bult-san... I need to know about this Fajal, as much as I can if I am to survive this," she tried to get the veteran of the arena speaking but he finally managed to regain control of his body only to show what seemed like the signs of giving up, complete surrender to the fate that it was all over for the two of them.

"There's nothing to know, he's trained with every prominent martial arts master in the known world, he's won tournaments in every arena worth a shit. He's the only known person to give Damij a fight for all of the seven minutes instead of just being toyed with. He's trained for his entire life, he's the closest thing to what that old man rambled of, you've won a lot of amazing fights today, beg the Sheikh to call Fajal off, please!" Bult yelled out loud, Mana was shocked to see the warrior's pride she saw so much of being broken by a mere mention of a man's name. The dreadful sound of a platform covering all the way to the living quarters tower interrupted Mana's attempts to get information.

The young kunoichi stood back up and faced the tower to see this Fajal that all of the audience was now cheering for despite having been mostly on Mana's side throughout this entire thing. The door opened with a loud rumbling sound, the old stone structure shook and sent clouds of dust as it was moved open at a turtle's pace leaving a gap wide enough for a man to walk out.

Fajal's boots were the first to touch the platform and appear from the darkness, they weren't the usual sandals that most ninja wore or plate boots that mercenaries wore. They were made of leather, covered with belts to shape it around the man's foot. Fajal wore a black bodysuit, similar to the one that ninja wore, however, he also had a reddish armored vest, it looked custom made, possibly looted from some high ranked mercenary during his wandering days or even in this very arena.

Fajal's full facial hair was even longer than the dark hedge of his actual hair, covering his both sides of the face and extending richly and thickly but not long enough to make it into an advantage for his opponents. The man's actual hair was short, rudely cut as Mana assumed leaving them in a rather militaristic looking bland style. His face bore no scars, something that alarmed Mana having the man's background in mind, wasn't he hit at least once before? A good hit would've left him without teeth, left something on his face, marks not unlike the chains of scratches and gruesome mosaics of war that Bult had all over his face. 

Fajal's face was completely clean, not even his nose appeared to have been broken once. He stood in a strict militaristic stance, his back was as tense and straight as a string of a violin, his tense and rather bulky arms were placed behind the man's back and he had a cocky yet strict stare to his brown eyes. Mana could feel them judging her almost immediately when their eyes met.

"Desert or wasteland?" the man slowly and rather quietly uttered when he finally stepped off the platform onto the arena staring at Mana.

"Huh?" She uttered confused.

"Your skin is slightly paler than mine but it is dark enough to suggest that one of your parents was from the Land of Lightning or Land of Wind, that is why I asked, the wasteland of Lightning or desert of Wind?" Fajal explained his question in few words. His tone implied some degree of condescension that the girl was not able to pick up on his question but he was looking down on the girl ever since he first laid eyes on her so that was not really much of a problem. The man spoke rather quietly but had a very cool and frightening demeanor to him making the crowd die out when he opened his mouth and making his every word clear and audible.