Samurai vs. Shadow

Rohan initiated the battle with the first strike. He swung his katana swiftly aiming directly at Kagero’s chest but the latter managed to block the attack with his staff. The samurai was trying to inflict more damage to the shadow ninja’s wound. The fight continued back and forth at high speeds with each side blocking fatal hits. As the two of them fought they seemed to be evenly matched and their scared audience could barely keep up with their movements. Kagero then jumped backwards and threw a shuriken at one of the workers who was watching. Rohan rushed in front of the projectile and took the attack with his right arm.

“Now we are both even,” Kagero chuckled menacingly. He pointed at Rohan’s arm which had started bleeding. “Are you familiar with the Art of War?”

“By Sun Tzu? Yes I am.” Rohan removed the shuriken and threw it to the ground before griping firmly on his wound to prevent further bleeding. “What does it have to do with this?”

“This battle was decided before we even began,” Kagero announced boastfully. He raised his hands and pointed at the audience. “I have nothing to lose yet you on the other hand are fighting to protect these weaklings.”

“We’ll see about that one,” the samurai responded.

Rohan threw a smoke bomb and switched his blade to his left hand and raced forward in the cover of the smoke. They fight resumed in the smoke with the level of intensity having risen. Kagero realized that Rohan was just as good with his left hand as with his right. Rohan swung his blade multiple times at Kagero’s face and the latter failed to dodge all attacks. The samurai had managed to cut the shadow ninja’s kasa and also leave a mark on the porcelain mask.

“Let me show you what real kenjutsu is,” said Rohan as he drew a wakizashi from his right waist. His right arm was no longer bleeding as before and he was now able to utilize it. He proceeded to take up a fighting stance with the two swords.

“The Niten Ichi (dual wielding) style?” Kagero thought in amazement. “So it seems you still have much fight in you…hahaha I truly am intrigued.”

The intensity of the fight was now tenfold and Kagero had taken the defensive whilst Rohan kept attacking him nonstop with a barrage of swings from all angles. Rohan then violently swung both blades to the right and Kagero crouched to avoid being cut in two. Whilst Kagero was squatting he also swung his staff and hit Rohan on his back. A sharp crack of the samurai’s back bones echoed throughout the room. Rohan fell and thudded on the tiled floor. He had received a terrible hit to his back but he ignored the pain and rose up to fight. Rohan got back in action and was more careful now not to get hit with a surprise attack like before. The two warriors had been fighting for over thirty minutes and the battle seemed as though it was undecided and could go either way. Then suddenly Rohan got the upper hand again, he was now combining both his martial arts. Kagero realized that the odds were now against him and while he was blocking Rohan’s attacks with his staff he noticed that he had also been led to a corner.

“Kuso!” Kagero groaned in annoyance. “Bōjutsu is useless for combat this close…to think I didn’t realize this sooner,” he thought.

The samurai had been purposefully advancing towards and leading the shadow ninja to a wall. Kagero’s weapon was now useless because there wasn’t any space to swing it and Rohan was still advancing with his swords. Rohan kept on swinging his blades in rapid succession and in a circular motion as if forming a tornado until Kagero couldn’t withstand it any longer.

“I see you now have me cornered samurai,” said Kagero trying to think of ways to turn the tables against his opponent.

“Now you’ve got nowhere to run,” Rohan grinned.

He disarmed the shadow ninja with crisscrossed sword swings from both above and below. Kagero’s staff was sent flying through the air and it fell onto the floor at the centre of the room. Rohan then gave Kagero a powerful kick to the gut and the latter hit the wall with his back and his bones also crackled quite similarly to Rohan’s from before. Before Kagero could collect himself he was given a punch to his face and he fell to the ground with a loud thud. Kagero’s mask was cracked almost half open revealing his dark left eye. Rohan got on top of Kagero and was ready to strike the finishing blow.

“What were you saying about this fight being over before it even started?” Rohan questioned before finishing off his opponent.

Kagero realizing he was about to die devised a plan in a split second and threw pepper dust into Rohan’s eyes with his left hand which wasn’t pinned. Rohan got up and cried out in pain, his eyes felt as if they were on fire.

“Aahhh…my eyes,” Rohan cried out as he jumped from on top of Kagero. “Water, please…anyone! I need some water!” he exclaimed dropping one katana to try and wipe his eyes.

Kagero stared at the wakizashi on the floor but his back was in so much pain he couldn’t raise himself.

“Fuck! Get up you idiot,” Kagero thought trying to lift himself up with his hands whilst Rohan was still wiping his eyes.

He finally managed to turn on his stomach with much difficulty and then crawl over to the wakizashi at a tortoise’s pace. At the same instant Kagero raised himself and got hold of the blade Rohan had regained sight in his right eye with the left still closed and aching. The sound of metal clangs resumed but the two men weren’t as fast as before. Kagero then jumped a step backwards and threw the wakizashi at the worker who had been saved by Rohan. This time the samurai was too late to react and the sword speared the worker in a clean headshot.

The people who were watching were now even more panicked than before as they saw blood gushing from the corpse’s head as it fell to the floor on its back. By the time Rohan reached the body it was too already late and Kagero had taken his staff. Rohan was trying to reassure the people but was also in pain and some of them were slowly losing faith in him.

“You will not get away with this!” Rohan barked furiously as he gazed at Kagero with both hands clenched on his katana. He was also starting to regain his sight on his other eye. “You fight without honor…that is not the way of the samurai.”

“What honor?” Kagero glared at Rohan whilst spinning his staff. “There is no meaning in any of that…in a fight to the death all is permitted.” He broke his staff in two and the said with a serious tone, “Time to end this…you’re not the only one who can use dual wielding samurai!”

The two of them continued to fight for another fifteen minutes and this time Kagero was the one who had the upper hand and taking the offensive. Rohan was now defending the successive attacks from the shadow ninja with a single blade.

In the meantime outside the palace Kagemaru had finished taking out his opponents at the roof top. He had also received his fair share of beating and after he was done he proceeded to the ground to aid the shadow ninja. The shadow ninja had lost more than half of their men while the samurai on the other hand were only down a quarter. Kagemaru then started violently evening out the numbers.

“He’s making quick work of these guys like it’s nothing. Truly he’s the next in line to be the Lord Shadow,” said one shadow ninja amazed by Kagemaru’s speed.

The fighting between the royal guards and the ninja continued for several minutes. Kagemaru fought using weapons similar to Kagero’s however his skill was more advanced. His staff was just as black, a bit longer than his father’s and also looked more like a spear than a stick.

“Do not falter,” he told the shadow ninja after stabbing a samurai with his spear. “We still have a long way to go…they have the numbers and we don’t.”

Kagemaru removed his spear and advanced forward to a group of samurai with the shadow ninja following behind him.

“Watch out for the one using Sōjutsu (spear techniques)! That black spear of his has taken out more than a third of our samurai in just minutes,” one samurai warned their group.

The samurai took on the defensive and moved back a bit whilst they stretched outwards on each side making a horse shoe formation in efforts to encircle the shadow ninja.

“So he’s the brains of this lot huh?” Kagemaru thought. “He seems to know about my technique and he is trying to surround us. Well then he has to die first.” Kagemaru told the ninja to halt and in that instant he devised a counterattack.

“So you think increasing the distance between you and us while at the same time trying to enclose us with that shitty formation will do you any good? This is shōgi not checkers!” Kagemaru shouted looking straight at the group of samurai. “He forgets that a spear can be used for long range attacks,” he thought.

At that moment Kagemaru took aim and then swiftly flung his spear straight at his opponents. The weapon soared swiftly in air like a projectile and it impaled one samurai who had been standing behind the man Kagemaru thought was the general of the group.

“He has lost his weapon…ATTACK!” the man shouted and samurai raced towards the ninja who seemed to have fallen into a trap.

“What do we do now Kagemaru?” asked one ninja.

“Wait, stay right there.” Kagemaru made a mudra (hand gesture) with his index and middle fingers raised whilst the thumb rested on the ring and little. “Tōei (Projection)!”

The black spear which had been stuck on the corpse started to shake and the back of the weapon morphed and became as sharp as the front. Kagemaru then raised his left hand and like a conductor in a choir, he started to move the spear telekinetically. The weapon swept up from the ground as fast as lightning and it pierced through the “general’s” head.

“The prana (Sanskrit: breath/life giving force) mudra so he’s decided to use that technique here. I guess he really had no choice, well either way it’s over for these samurai,” one shadow ninja whispered. Kagemaru speared more than a dozen samurai with both ends before summoning it back to him.

“We have managed to destroy their formation, you can now proceed to finish them off,” Kagemaru proclaimed giving the shadow ninja the go ahead.

“What kind of sorcery was that?” one samurai asked and was quickly replied by another, “I saw him mouth the word projection…this must be the forbidden shadow magic technique. I always thought the stories were just fantasy.”

“Shit we’re fucked then…” the first samurai added.

“It’s not over yet, if we die then we die with honor as Fire village samurai,” the response came from the second samurai. “Onward men!” he let out a scream to motivate the remaining lot.

The samurai raced forward to their deaths. They were brutally massacred by the ninja and the ground was littered with corpses from both sides.

Meanwhile inside the palace the fight between Kagero and Rohan was also nearing its end. The two of them were now tired and the shadow ninja was resorting to using the terrified audience as bait to distract the samurai whilst also thinking of a strategy to finish him off. Kagero kept moving around the rooming till he reached the corpse that he had been stabbed with Rohan’s shorter sword. As the samurai ran towards him in full sprint he threw both his staffs aimed at two more workers. Rohan reverted and then swiftly blocked one piece of the staff before it could kill the worker and then took the other with his back. He had miraculously managed to save both workers from their demise.

The second piece impaled Rohan from behind through his gut. It got stuck inside him and both its ends were protruding from each side. Rohan started bleeding profusely and also spewed out blood from his mouth. Meanwhile Kagero took out the wakizashi from the dead worker’s head and then sprinted forward to stab Rohan from behind.

“You fought well and if it wasn’t for these weaklings you had to defend you may have won this battle. But like I said, this fight was decided when I realized that weakness and used it to my advantage,” said Kagero clenching the sword with both hands and shoving it inside Rohan.

The blade was driven right through the samurai’s chest and he dropped his katana and managed to let out a few words with much difficulty.

“S–stabbing me from the b–back…such cowardice!” Rohan groaned in agony. “You have no honour.”

Rohan then faced Kazuma with a disappointed look.

“Kazuma-sama, sumima–”