Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

Iron Shogun Hits the Field

The two men continued to push their weapons at each other, it was surprising to see Oni Mask's body holding completely still against a physically superior opponent. Kazekage was a towering and bulky man. He completely blew away the image of all puppet users being puny and having to use puppets to protect themselves. Even so, Oni Mask managed to hold his own and not get completely blown away in a struggle of physical strength, this spoke volumes of the physical prowess of Tanshu's sensei. Finally, Mugao decided to end this struggle. Quickly he canceled all of his efforts to push the clash of the weapons back at his opponent making Oni Mask slightly stumble forward losing his balance.

The brute then leaped into the air flipping over as if the air itself was a surface for him to roll around, his scythe extended forward held by the man's puppet strings and spinning forward in a mad vertical spin. Oni Mask had little time or ability to evade the technique. The man turned around and raised his metallic leg to his chest to block the scythe. Blood shot out of Oni Mask's body covering the cut up rocky floor which now had a giant fissure right in its center where Mugao's spinning technique cut the rock in two. 

"Puppetry Style: Desert Wind" Kazekage exclaimed calmly pulling his scythe back to his hand. The great weapon had penetrated right through the artificial leg and dug deep into Oni Mask's chest, it didn't seem to have hit any vitals but the man was still kept on his knees and didn't look in much of fighting condition.

"He's won!" someone in the ranks of the Sunagakure ninja cheered out and someone else raised their hand to calm them down.

"It ain't that simple, we've seen this Demon act like dying and counterattack like crazy before. The vitality of those Demons is incredible. Unless he quite literally stops breathing it is useless to call it a fight..." the ninja said angrily. He was right, the Demon was halfway down but he was still huffing and if anything his life-threatening injury just seemed to piss him off more.

"Give up." Mugao asked his opponent, "This is pointless, even if you do kill me you'll never beat my men in this condition, whatever the outcome of our battle is - it's over for you with that injury." Kazekage grunted out, anger did cloud his judgment, he wanted to just skip the reasoning part and keep pounding the face of this man until that fancy mask he wore was in pieces but... Reason was what made him different from the people he fought, he wasn't a blind murderer who killed everyone in sight. He was not above killing and was capable of murder but that didn't mean that such punishment needed to be abused without reason.

The Demon stood back up, he no longer laughed or threatened, he just stood back up and took a fighting stance - now it was serious for him. "Don't joke with me, killing you was always my intention and my orders, even if I kill you and your men kill me afterward my orders will be fulfilled and that is all that matters." Oni Mask replied. He was quite obviously lying, dying while following orders was never his intention and while he knew that even if he beat the Kazekage he'd never beat the rest of his men afterward he was confident that he'd manage to escape them. What was another diversion or a smoke bomb if it meant his own escape. They would just all clutch and protect each other and gather around watching the backs of each other, too busy to be worried over their own throats to chase him.

Oni Mask leaped forward, so did Mugao. The Demon put both of his palms together and shaped his hands as if they were a jaw, running lightning chakra through it. Mugao slashed from the side when the Kirigakure Sannin thrust his hands forward. 

"Demon Kenpo: Nasty Bite!" he named his technique as it clashed with Mugao's long end of the scythe. This did not end this exchange of attacks however as Oni kept pressing harder and pushing his hands forward further. Loud cracks came from the center of Mugao's scythe as the thrust cut it in two leaving the shattered chunks of steel all over the rocky wasteland. His arms also hit Mugao's chest but the Lightning Release chakra had already gone out by that time and it barely even affected the Kazekage.