Paan is hit by a wave of heat as he opens his eyes, he sees nothing but orange sand.
Everywhere he looks he can’t see even the smallest sign of a person.
‘What the hell?!?’ Paan yells as he kicks sand around, ‘They put me here cause they know how strong I am.’
Paan storms off into a random direction with his fists clenched and the sun overhead shining down harshly on his back.
When Paan walks away another set of footprints, from a seemingly unknown person, go in the same direction as Paan.
We change locations and see Red in the city sect on top of a building with heavy rain.
Red looks over the edge of the tall building to see many people fighting on the ground below.
The sound of swords clashing and footsteps splashing in puddles made it clear to Red that there is a full out battle happening.
Red looks up at the clouded sky, ‘With this weather there might be a problem. Maybe Kurama was right about the jungle.’
Suddenly the rain starts pouring harder drowning out all the sound Red heard earlier.
Red moves his wet hair out his face, ‘I can barely see in front of me. I have to get inside, or I’ll be at a disadvantage.’
The building that Red is standing on starts to shake slightly.
‘They must be moving the fight inside. I don’t have that much magic, but if I use the Sanctuary spell I can drop down to the ground and sneak away.’
The shaking gets stronger and more noticeable.
Red lifts his hands in a prayer motion with arms feeling heavy because of his clothes being soaking wet.
‘Sun Style Spell: Sanctuary’
Red feels exhausted after saying the spell as a faint orange dome encases him.
He gets closer to the edge readying himself to jump.
*CRASH*
A hole in the roof is appears as a hand reaches over and pulls themselves up revealing a very familiar looking person.
A man with thick black glasses comes out of the hole wearing sweatpants and a black shirt that says, ‘Dead End’.
Red turns around to make eye contact with the guy, he also notices that he is completely dry as if he’s not getting rained on.
Panicking, Red turns back and gets ready to jump.
In an instance the man with glasses appears behind Red, without a word he punches at Red.
Red is launched at incredible speed to the neighboring building, he crashes through the glass and into what looks like an office layout.
‘In order to get passed my Sanctuary he had to attack me twice or that punch was stronger than I could imagine.’
The man appears in the same room with Red, his whole body starts to get blurry as he starts to look foggy.
We change locations again and we see Kasumi in a forest area as she moves tree to tree watching her surroundings.
Kasumi hops between trees shaking them slightly as she moves.
The ground is littered with orange and yellow leaves and the trees looked like an autumn picture.
‘The Jungle? Who does that idiot think he is bossing me around? He gets a soul-bond weapon, and he thinks he’s the sh*t.’
*Crunch*
Kasumi turns to see a woman walking through the leaves.
The woman was wearing a large smock and a bandana to hold her short black hair out of her face. Her face had some black smudges on it like she was messing around in the dirt. She was walking through the forest whistling without a care in the world.
Kasumi silently watches and follows the girl from above in the trees, she stares intently at her pin. ‘She is obviously strong, she’s acting careless to catch someone off guard there’s no way I can win a one-on-one fight if she’s prepared I’m not that skilled…..’
Her thoughts trailed off as she watches the girl trip over one of the tree’s roots that was sticking out from the ground.
‘Or maybe she’s just an airhead.’ Kasumi’s head starts racing with what Paan said, ‘….we just have to attack everyone and grab their pin. (Imagine that in Paan’s voice)’
Kasumi leaps from the tree at high speed and grabs the pin on the girl’s smock and jumps back into the trees.
The girl gasps, ‘Hey give that back.’
Kasumi sits in a tree branch breathing heavily, ‘I got it, I really did it. I should destroy it and move on.’
She looks at the pin ready to break it as she notices that it doesn’t have a number on it rather it reads, ‘Got U’.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
The pin glows red and it gets hotter and hotter until
*BOOOOM*
The pin creates a giant explosion that launches Kasumi to the ground and sets the nearby trees on fire.
The girl wearing the smock walks towards Kasumi laughing, ‘How’d you like my creation? I didn’t think it would come in handy so soon.’ She reaches out her hand, ‘Give me your pin and we won’t have any problems.’
Kasumi pulls out her daggers, ‘I messed up, I don’t want to an all-out fight. There might be others here too.’
She holds her daggers in a fighting stance to try to scare the girl as she backs away slowly.
Kasumi dashes away and when she turns back, she sees the girl press something on her shoes and a loud whirring sound pierced the air.
The girl starts moving faster and faster, easily catching up to Kasumi.
Kasumi tries to run even faster using the trees as springboards to go gain speed, but the girl is matching her speed perfectly. She reaches out and grabs Kasumi and they tumble through the leaves. Kasumi drops a dagger in the fall and the girl kicks it away as she holds Kasumi while on top.
‘There’s no way you can beat me, I built these specifically for people like you.’ She points the metal soles on her shoes, ‘I’ve taken an air crystal and harnessed the wind magic, and it allows me to propel myself with air.’
Kasumi’s eyes widen as she gets an idea, ‘So you’re a blacksmith? How do you have access to such great materials to craft with?’
She loosens her grip, ‘You’re looking at the best blacksmith in all of Glad-dor. Mina’s Magical Market is one of the main hubs in the country, I can make anything you want.’
As Mina rambles on about her shop, Kasumi looks around for her dagger, she sees it about ten feet away.
‘Shadow Technique: Moving Shadow.’
Kasumi sinks into her shadow like a black puddle and out emerges the dagger that was on the ground before and Kasumi is now ten feet away.
She turns to run away but Mina shouts, ‘What is with you? This is the Dragon Gauntlet, and it doesn’t even seem like you want to take the pin from me. That’s why I’ll always win, not just because my creations are stronger than you, but because you lack motivation or any determination. Why are you even here?’
A black hammer appears in Mina’s hand, and she swings down on the dagger screaming, ‘Blacksmith Skill: Dismantle.’
When the hammer hits the dagger, it glows as the dagger is suddenly gone and in its place is a lump of gold, bundles of wood, and various other materials.
Kasumi falls to her knees with tears in her eyes, she mumbles, ‘….my dagger…’
A young girl with pink hair sits on her knees in front of a gravestone with her two pink eyes shedding tears. On the pedestal there is a black box that inside has two gold and black daggers.
‘You’re right.’, Kasumi holds on tight to her dagger as she stands up, ‘I’ve lost all motivation a long time ago and I have been lost for years. But I feel like if I run away now, I will always be lost.’
She dashes at Mina, with her dagger drawn, and lunges straight at Mina’s throat.
Mina presses her shoes as the whirring gets louder and a burst of wind comes from the bottom propelling her back straight into a tree.
She stays there gasping for air when Kasumi slashes her dagger at Mina’s legs leaving several cuts.
Mina activates the wind shoes again pushing Kasumi back a few feet, with the extra space Mina holds her hand out and says, ‘Blacksmith Skill: Inventory.’ In that moment an array of different weapons surrounds her like a giant catalog.
She picks a long metal whip as the other weapons disappear; she swings the whip showing how truly long it is. Mina keeps her distance and aims the whip at Kasumi, hitting her right in the face and keeps going getting more and more forceful.
Kasumi puts her arms up to block the bombardment of blows, but the whip is heavy, and she can feel each hit as it makes a pounding.
Mina pulls the whip back and swings and….
Kasumi catches the whip, allowing it to completely wrap around her arm as it starts turning red from the blood.
‘Zeus Activate.’ Mina smiles, the whip crackles with energy and electricity surges through Kasumi’s body.
Kasumi’s body twitches as she doesn’t have enough control over her body to remove the whip.
‘S…S…Shadow Technique: Moving Shadow’
She swaps places with her dagger, which moved her only about an inch, but it allowed her to escape from the whip’s grasp.
‘I’m so tired of that stupid move, you’re really a one-trick pony you can’t compete with me.’
Kasumi pulls down her eye mask, so it covers her right eye only showing her white left eye. Her vision changes as everything around her is now in shades of grey and black with being in a forest it makes it harder to distinguish anything. She looks at Mina, who now looks like a ‘Mina-shaped’ black figure, Mina has white dots all over her body. It looks like someone looking at the night sky filled with stars.
‘What the hell? How does she have so many weak points and still evenly matched with me?’ Kasumi blinks rapidly to see if she’s not seeing things correctly.
She puts the dagger in her mouth and readies herself while Mina summons her hammer again.
The two of them charge each other and an onslaught of attacks commence, Mina swings her hammer as Kasumi dodges and counterattacks by giving an open hand hit on one of the ‘white dots’ on her chest.
Mina reels back in pain but continues to attack, Kasumi flips and jumps barely dodging with Mina’s black shape figure is getting harder and harder to pinpoint with all the surroundings being grey and black. Kasumi slips on a leaf on the ground and starts falling back as Mina brings the hammer down.
Before the hammer hits only one thing could be heard:
‘Ashashin Sill: Puhsonal Prson’ (‘Assassin Skill: Personal Prison’ but she’s holding a dagger in her mouth.)
Inky black chains shoot from Mina’s shadow and chains her in place, allowing Kasumi to fall without getting hit.
Within a second the chains fade away and Mina’s hammer continues to swing down, with only a few moments to react Kasumi puts both arms up to block.
The hammer hits with Mina saying, ‘Blacksmith Skill: Dismantle.’
*SNAP*
Both of Kasumi’s arms fall to her side with both being perfectly broken with a clean break. She tries moving them but can’t feel them at all, the arms hang to her side limp.
‘AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!’ Her scream is muffled due to the dagger in her mouth, tears roll down her eyes as her vision blurs with the pain.
‘I didn’t realize how much my Cursed Eye drained my stamina; I could only keep the Personal Prison activated for a moment.’ Kasumi looks over Mina seeing all the dots, ‘She’s not a skilled fighter, most fight to protect their weak points but she fights with no care, I can’t tell what she’s going to do.’
‘Blacksmith Skill: Inventory.’ The collection of weapons appears again, and she reaches for a weapon.
Charging in, Kasumi jumps and kicks at Mina right at the head, she goes flying and the weapons disappear.
Mina lays motionless on the ground; Kasumi slowly walks over to her body. Mina’s eyes are closed, and her breathing looks shaky, her body is completely full of weak points covering her whole body.
She drops the dagger out of her mouth, ‘You are a better opponent than I thought. I have nothing bit respect for you, but I can’t afford to lose here. Which is why I know you’re going to do this.’
Kasumi whispers, ‘Assassin Skill: Killing Room.’ A small transparent dome encases both Mina and Kasumi, the outside world becomes completely silent, and nothing can be heard.
With a crazed look in her eye Mina gets up and mouths the word, ‘Blacksmith Skill: Inventory.’ But no sound comes out of her mouth as it is completely quiet. She falls back down falling unconscious.
The transparent dome fades as sound fills the air again.
‘Hey, it sounds like the fight is over, let’s go we can remove two people from the Gauntlet easily like this.’
Kasumi starts to panic; she leans over and picks up her dagger with her mouth. She looks over to Mina and then the slowly increasing crowd that’s approaching. Kasumi bends down and leverages Mina on her back and she leaps up into the trees.
She searches Mina’s body and steps on and breaks the pin she had. She lays in the tree branch and feels the strain of the fight as she closes both eyes and tries to rest.
Kasumi vs. Mina
Kasumi Wins