“Who are you?” Raizen growled. He didn’t think he would ever encounter an enemy like this one. From the way the wild man moved and acted, he was a trained fighter, despite his handicap, moving with fluid grace that one gained from years of fighting. It was something different then what he was used to. Most of the time, the enemies Raizen had encounter over the years, were not skilled fighters and often gave up after a short period of time unless they had some people waiting in the wings to provide back up. A certain thrill darted through him. This wild looking man was providing Raizen a challenge he could only get from a sparring match with another hidden ninja.

The wild man replied in some language that took Raizen by surprise. It had been a while since Raizen had heard it spoke, but he recognized it never the less. Russian. It was a powerful country across the barrier, on Earth. That prose more questions then answers. However, the Hidden Bark Village had several specialized Ninja, Police Force, and Medical Personal who dealt with foreign languages. Raizen knew, once the mysterious fighter was caught, they would be able to figure out where the fighter was from, his reasoning for being in the Hidden Bark Village, and who possible sent him.

He ran his eyes over the wild man, taking in the fact he wore a pair of black boots and pants. The pants were combat pants, very similar to the ones Raizen owned, but they appeared to be made of a thicker material. A belt wrapped around the man’s waist, holding something in place, but from this angle, Raizen couldn’t see what it was.

Raizen blinked and raised his kunai to block an attack, aiming at his expose neck. He muttered a soft curse. The kunai clang against the dagger. It was loud to Raizen’s ears as he tried to push the mysterious one armed man back. However, his opponent shifted, allowing the kunai to slid against the dagger and forced the ninja forward. Raizen’s eyes widened as he lend too far forward, becoming off balanced, leaving his right shoulder open. He stepped to the left as the one-armed man took a swipe at him. A sharp pain in Raizen’s side, near his hip, rippled out. He gasped as anger darted through him. He spun on the balls of his right foot, facing the one-arm man and attacked the exposed side without the arm. He aimed his kunai at the ribcage and missed when the one-arm man took half a step back, allowing Raizen’s attack to slip by him. However, Raizen’s free hand ran through a series of hand signs before he brought his hand up, narrowed his eyes, steeled his nerves, and there was a bright flash of light followed by a loud clapping sound.

The one-arm man cried out, stumbling away from Raizen. His arm flanged around before it came to a stop before him, in a defensive position. His eyes blinked rapidly as he recovered his eyesight. He shook his head like a dog.

Raizen didn’t wait for him to finish recovering from the blinding attack and slashed at his chest, hoping to caught him off guard and deal with a decisive blow to end the fight. However, the one-armed man walked backwards, keeping enough space between Raizen and himself to gain his eyesight and hearing back. He paused then launched himself at Raizen, going through a series of left to right, right to left slashing motions. Raizen find himself back tracking in order not to get hit. A spark of interest rose up. Perhaps, he find a decent challenge. It had been a long while since he had one. It was simply too bad it had to be during an important mission where Raizen couldn’t play with him.

The one-arm man flipped the knife, grabbing the blade before he bent his arm back, over his shoulder before he threw it at Raizen. He reached down to his belt and grabbed something out of the waistline, raising it up to line up with his shoulder. The one-armed man’s shoulders relaxed as his back straightened. He planted his feet in shoulder wide stance, half turning to make himself a smaller target.

Raizen ducked under the thrown knife. He rushed forward. He narrowed his eyes, seeing the body language change. It was his chance to end the fight before it went on. He kinda wished Quill would have helped out, but it was just one man, despite the fact he was missing an arm. He wondered, briefly, how that happened. He blinked as he noticed the strange weapon in the one-arm man’s hand. He saw the finger curl and slowly squeezed back. Alarm race through Raizen. His heart leaped into his throat. He jumped forward, rolling forward. A loud bang went off. It echoed through the area.

Birds flew off from the nearby trees. There was silence as Raizen came to a kneeling position, several feet away from the one-armed man. His ears rang as he focused on his enemy. The only sound he could hear clearly was his own thundering heartbeat. He stared at the one-arm man. That was a new weapon. He slowly stood up. He held up his kunai. He was sure the blade was useless against the new weapon. His free hand slid behind his leg and went through a series of hand signs. His eyes narrowed, switching back and forth between the enemies’ eyes and the finger.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Raizen heard his students exclaimed in alarm as his hearing return. Lilian’s voice rang through the air, asking if he was alright. Ralph appeared on the corner of his vision, pale faced with the Tiefling holding onto his shoulder. Enzo stood beside Ralph, cocking his head to the side, looking at the one-arm man. In the distance, yells echoed the same line of what happen and is everyone alright. Raizen ignored them.

The finger squeezed back. Raizen jumped high, bringing his legs up close to his chest, as the weapon released another bang. The ninja sucked in a deep breath and brought his hand up to his mouth like he was smoking a cigarette causing bright flames darted from his mouth, spreading in a small cone to the one-armed man.

The one-armed man jumped to the left. The fire cone flew by him. He landed on his feet and stepped back, raising his arm up, aiming again at Raizen.

Raizen silently cursed as he landed on the balls of his feet, crunching down before he leaped to the one-armed man, planning on disarming the strange weapon from his hand. A third loud bang sounded. He jerked to the side when a pain he never experience before went through the side of his arm. He gasped. He glanced down. He felt the warm blood flowing down his arm and saw a small hole in his long sleeve shirt where the object had hit him, but he didn’t see the object. He had been hit before by an arrow and the pain was similar. He slid to a stop and changed direction. He spared his enemy a glance to see he was slowly squeezing his finger back again. He twisted, exposing his back to the one-armed man. He felt the ground rumble and a rock wall broke through the ground. He heard Quill called out the jutsu he used to protect Raizen’s back. He turned and saw he was wrong. Quill didn’t use a rock wall to protect Raizen’s back as he hurried forward and kicked the strange weapon from the one-armed man. The weapon went sailing through the air and hit the ground, skidding several feet before coming to a stop.

The one-arm man was encased by a rock body case, leaving his remaining arm and everything above his shoulders exposed. His expression was still stoic, but his eyes flashed with rage. He barred his teeth and Raizen could have sworn the man growled. He watched the man tried to escape, trying to wiggle his way of the rock body case, but Raizen knew from experience, he wouldn’t be able to. He relaxed, turning to Quill, saying thanks to the other ninja master.

“I wonder where he came from,” Quill started, gazing at the one-arm man, “I never heard that tongue before.”

“It is Russian, I believe,” Raizen said, “I have heard once or twice while I worked with the Lady of the White Hall Estate. She is well versed in the various languages of Earth due to her occupation within Avalon and across the barrier.”

“Interesting,” Quill said. They shared a knowing smirk of the Lady’s occupation. It was a rare treat for a Hidden Bark Ninja to work with the Lady in her line of work. It was a treated as a training experience and most of the ninja who would managed to work with her was schooled in the job of being as Assassin. They did returned home, better for the experience. Raizen and Quill were two of the lucky ones before the Lady stopped taking jobs to raise her children. “Perhaps our language experts would know something of his language to figure why he is here.”

“Hopefully, this is just a case of Unknowingly crossing the Barrier into the Dead End Forest and end up traveling here and staying because it was the first place he saw with people,” Raizen suggested, “If not, I’m sure Intelligence would love to get their hands on him.”

Quill hummed in agreement. He glanced at Raizen, “My students should be able to watch yours while we deliver this one to Language experts and get you checked out?”

Raizen nodded. His side felt like it was on fire. He had heard Quill doing this sometimes to his students to make sure they would be able to complete the mission without him around. He personally had took the same approach, several times in the past with his previous teams he was assigned to teach. So far, the only team that had complained about it was his current team. He glanced over to his students and saw Ralph watching him. He waved Ralph over. Ralph jogged to him and came to a stop by him.

“Ralph, please inform Lilian and Enzo I will be heading to the hospital to look at,” Raizen explained, “I will be back later to continue this mission. Until then, listen to Quill’s students. They have more experience and they do have the capability to handle most things you could face on this mission.”

Ralph nodded, “Anything else, sir?”

Raizen shook his head. “Go inform your teammates.” Ralph nodded, again, and went to join his teammates.

Turning his attention, he watched as Quill preformed another jutsu and the rock base of the body case transformed into a large rock with a pair of wheels. He walked over to the one-arm man and pushed him. The wheels rolled away from Quill. The one-arm man’s eyes widened as his face flashed with alarm as he rolled backwards. Fear replaced the alarm. Raizen watched with a raised eyebrow as the one-armed man tried to escape from the rock case.

Quill ignored the series of looks he earned as he walked away and reached down, grabbing the strange weapon the one-arm man used against Raizen. He looked at it with amazed. It was different. Perhaps Research and Development could do reverse built it to understand what it was and how it worked. With any luck, they would be able to make a replica of the strange weapon. It would create an advantage for the Hidden Bark Village when they faced another enemy.

Raizen glanced at the strange weapon. His ears still rang with the loud bang from the strange weapon. He never seen something like that before. He was curious. However, he needed to get checked out by a member of the medical staff to make sure the strange weapon didn’t have any other dangerous properties like poisoning or a rare disease.