41. Confrontation

Two nights after Waldina’s group continued their journey from Jimdar, Waldina woke up due to a malicious person closing in on her. She opened her eyes and saw Kris pointing his mage staff at her. At the end of the staff there was a small blade and it didn’t take long for the ninja to grasp the situation they were in. A dark smile rose to her lips.

“So, you have made your choice?” she spoke, drew her sword and forced the staff away from herself, using her blade. Right after she withdrew her sword she stood up and reached for a dagger from her thigh belt.

“It’s not a choice if there aren’t other options,” Kris replied with a smile even darker than hers. Waldina frowned and took a look around them. Claudia and Kiandra were in deep sleep; it had been Claudia’s turn to stay on night guard duty this night, but she had fallen asleep in an unnatural position.

“What did you do to them?” the purple-haired ninja swung her hair at the direction of her friends. Her long hair, tied to twintails, swung with the movement. Kris let his eyes move slowly from the flowing hair to Kiandra and Diaz, laying on the ground.

“I wanted to ensure you wouldn’t be getting any extra help from them,” he began biting his lips. “But no worries, they’re only sleeping.”

“Maybe you should have put me to sleep instead of them,” Waldina remarked, finally taking a step towards Kris. He took a better hold of his mage stuff before shrugging: “Yeah maybe yet would it even have worked? So fight me. Duel, the winner gets what they want and the other leaves them alone. What do you say?” After the words he turned to look at, almost unnoticeably, to some point far away. Waldina didn’t need to follow his gaze to know what he was searching for. Especially when she had found it before him, thanks to the gift from Blancob. The small rodents were surprisingly handy in ambushes.

“Are you searching for Rubin?” Waldina laughed grimly and Kris turned to her, his eyes screaming in panic.

“It wouldn’t be a duel, if your team had two,” she noted and clicked her fingers. In command a group of rodents carried unconscious, tied Rubin to them, close to Kiandra and Claudia.

“What have you done to her?” Now it was Kris’ turn to accuse the other of using dirty tricks.

“Hmm? Same what you did to my friends. So we’re tied now,” Waldina pointed out, grabbed a dagger and adjusted her hold of the sword. She didn’t give Kris time to regroup his thoughts before she charged towards him.

Just in time the mage managed to defend the strike with an ice wall. The blade rebounded backwards forcing her to take a step back, away from Kris. The mage used the opportunity to fire fire balls at her. But if ninjas were excellent at something it was both escaping and evading. Needless to say, not a single fire ball scratched her.

Waldina leapt to another attack, running in zigzag in front of the mage. This way she easily evaded all of the fire balls and wasn’t an easy target. After she reached Kris she looked up at him, feeling the tiniest bit of melancholy. Maybe in a different time or place they could’ve been friends. But right here, right now she didn’t hesitate to hit the man’s chest with the dull side of her blade. It was by no means lethal yet forceful enough to get the mage fall down to the ground.

Before Kris managed to stand up she threw plenty of shurikens around him, sewing him onto the ground from his clothes. Kris squinted his eyes at her and casted a spell.

Suddenly Waldina was surrounded by ice walls. There was a massive fire bird closing in on her from above. It was angry and its sharp, burning beak was biting the air, eyes focused on Waldina.

“Tsk,” Waldina clicked her tongue and sharply kicked the wall surrounding her. It didn’t budge nor break. She weighed her options. She could use her sword for climbing but in the worst case scenario she’d only break its blade. Or she could rely on one of her ninja skills. Yet for example leap could be a tad bit too dangerous for this sort of situation; it was unreliable to use and she couldn’t see her destination so it could be dangerous. So that wasn’t an option. The wall was way too slippery to run upwards. She didn’t have many choices.

“Aqua chuvarein,” Waldina chanted as she got an idea. She was currently surrounded by walls; so in some sort of pool. Humans floated in water, so in theory she should be able to rise up with water and climb out of the ice cage. On top of that it would greatly decrease any risks of getting burns as cold water worked against it. Thus, she’d manage to evade the attacks from the fire bird as well.

The water began rising around her, yet it happened terribly slowly. For the time being, the purple-haired ninja tried to keep the flaming bird at a distance with the tip of her long sword. But at this rate the bird would find another way to her long before she’d succeed in using her water tactic.

Waldina gritted her teeth and used her remaining mana for casting the previous spell another time and to cast the spell for pure ‘drinking’ water as many times as possible. After her mana count dropped to zero an enormous wave of exhaustion pierced through her body. She sighed deeply before commanding out-loud: “Three experience points to mana.” Yes, she could control her bracelet and thus status via speech. However, using spoken incantations was already embarrassing enough to her, and using speech to administrate her experience points was even more so. Besides when she used her bracelet manually she had a better opportunity to check through all of her stats and she didn’t need to rely on her memory.

Energy was now coursing through her veins as her mana count shot up, thanks to leveling it up. She didn’t use more of it for water spells however, as she wanted to ensure she’d have energy even after the fight. Additionally the water was finally about to reach her neck and lift her up from the ground. The ever-rising water also managed to scare off the bird who lost a bit of its enthusiasm from its attacks.

Triumphant Waldina reached up into the air with her sword and cut through the fiery bird, who disappeared. At the same time her hands reached the edge of the ice cage. She grabbed the edge and flung herself over it. She skated along the icy wall, dripping wet, until she reached the ground.

Meanwhile, Kris had managed to break free from Waldina’s shurikens, tying him to the ground. Though his violent escape had torn up his clothes from the sides. But at the end of the day clothes to him were just clothes; thus he rushed to the unconscious Rubin. The ropes used for tying her up had caused red marks around her wrists and ankles, but other than that she seemed to be alright. Kris sighed in relief.

However, he didn’t manage to free her from the ropes before a dagger flew right beside his ear. Waldina charged towards him determinedly holding her sword and a dagger. Seeing this, Kris grabbed his mage staff and aimed at the wet ninja with icicles. He figured swimming in an icy pool would have left her feeling cold and icicles would feel extra nasty on her skin.

But Waldina was still the master of evading skill-shots. She ran in zigzag formation yet again evading hits from icicles. Right before she reached Kris, she disappeared from his field of view. Confused Kris wasn’t able to react to her sudden change of position. The ninja appeared right behind him and pressed a cloth against his mouth and nose. Kris fought back, desperately trying to throw the much smaller girl down from his back, trying to weaken her hold from him. Anything. Yet without success. Waldina pressed her legs so tightly around him and didn’t weaken her hold of him for even a moment. She was holding on to him so tightly it would take a lot to shake her down.

And finally Kris lost his consciousness and Waldina let go of him. Without a moment’s delay she tied his wrists and ankles tightly. After reaching a satisfactory conclusion she dragged both Kris and Rubin next to a tree, tying them to it. Then she went on to break both Kris’ mage staff and Rubin’s bow.

Yet even after using all these tricks she knew that the only way she could ensure neither this duo nor the rest of Jaspis wouldn’t follow them would be by sending them to the after-life. She just couldn’t do it. It would be the last thing she’d do. Clenching her fists she turned to her companions.

It took some time to wake up both Claudia and Kiandra, but after slapping them and throwing cold water on top of them, they finally opened their eyes. Waldina sighed in relief and asked Claudia to change into a fairy. After a while, Waldina had two fairies tied to her twintails; Kiandra on her right side and Claudia on her left.