Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

The Hitman Contestant

"Very well then, begin!" The announcer relented announcing the beginning of the following fight.

Quatal's head rapidly twisted and bent forward, the weighted braid of his shot forward like an arrow attached to a chain. Mana caught the strange attack by catching the braid and pulled by the braid but it only made the weight slip off the hairy bonds, within a brief moment, a fraction of a fraction of a second Quatal's elbow strike forced Mana to take a lean back and hop playfully back. Quatal was fast, so far a bit slower than Apheiya but leaps and bounds faster than Fajal or any of Damij's crew Mana had seen. Maybe there was a reason why the infamous crew left all the dirty work for this man after all...

The braided hitman caught the falling weight with the tip of his foot and kicked it up into his own palm, his body moved so fast, so efficiently! It was just like the old man that trained her except much younger, this hitman wasted no movements, his pure skill surpassed even the greatest martial artists Mana had seen up to that moment.

Swiftly with just a couple of slips of the fingers, the man tied his braid back. He then smiled and dashed back a couple of meters.

"I must commend you, most I face die after this first attack," the man smiled.

Mana didn't honor the man with a reply. She had only seen a couple of his moves but she needed to quickly make a profile out of them. If she could get a couple more of his patterns she'd never be touched by this man unless she wanted him to touch her. The magician couldn't doubt the braided hitman's claim even if she wanted to, that braid flew and spun at her faster than a drill, it worked as a budojutsu technique by itself, naturally, hair was a very potent material that easily transferred chakra. One could've called it a conductor of chakra. A hit like that could pierce stone, steel, diamond even. Given its chakra enhanced nature, it'd probably drill right through any material, the flesh was on the bottom of that list. Mana was lucky to have caught and stopped it before it got to her. Arrogance may have killed her...

The man started furiously wriggling his head around, his hair started glowing with a faint greenish glow as the faster than lightning attacks tried to overwhelm Mana. They were too rapid, some of them were feints. The man clearly didn't want her catching any of his attacks again. With soft and much faster taps Mana simply slapped the dangerous jabs aside sending the braid drilling through the ground as potently as a diamond drill would pierce a sheet of paper. Had the braid been longer it could've really left some deep holes in the grassy out of bounds area.

Quickly Mana's body blurred, she tried to attack the man just as fast as she attacked Apheiya just to see where the man ranked. Her elbow sunk right into the man's face sending him floating into the air before his braid hit the ground and the man dragged his body back down from being sent flying. He lost his concentration, he expected Mana to just stand there dodging those attacks until one of them tagged her and until they wore her out. Too bad Mana had no time for those disadvantages. She needed to put up a decent show for the Sheikh but once she thinks she'd drawn everything out from this man she'd finish him off. The magician felt capable of doing so.

Quatal shook his head and wiped the blood from his nose and his lip. Mana was genuinely a little surprised by how little damage the blow actually did to the man, she dashed at him at considerable speed and transferred all of that force into his face with just her elbow, that force barely spread throughout his entire face and was completely focused and yet...

"I see there is no use trying to attack you like those ordinary fighters. You are anything but, you are an anomaly capable of causing trouble for us. A worthy opponent even," the man admitted lowering his head and slipping his purple sleeveless gi off of his shoulders.

"This man is able to compete with ninja, I never thought it was possible for anyone but ninja to fight on that level. It appears we have been lied to in the Academy." Mana wondered looking at this man and remembering the absolutely overwhelming power of Damij and the woman she faced before. All of the dominant martial artists were on genin ninja level, some of them surpassed that level even. It took Mana cheating at martial arts training and devising a hack style of fighting as well as mastering the physical imperfect control of chakra to even fight them on the same level. The world was insane and full of wonders... Just in such a world, a Box of Ultimate Bliss must've existed, Mana had no doubts about it.