Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

Standoff

Poncho continued to stare the three kids that decided to butt in down. He was not a prideful individual but he wished to conclude his duel with the sword-wielding brat from before, the one that lead to him getting caught. It was not as much what followed the capture of Denton and Poncho Assassin that annoyed the swordsman, more that he was bested by someone of lesser skill. This brat had no right to beat him back then and yet he did for the sole reason of being lucky.

"It appears that our combination attack didn't really kill the kids," Poncho grumbled out rather quietly, the exchange of words was meant to transpire with Denton after all.

"Even better, now we get to kill them right on the edge of Agbarah instead of days walk from it. The Kazekage will have no quarrel with us" Denton smiled removing two fist-sized spheres from pouches on his large manly leather belt. His smile was known only to the man himself since the mask only slightly tipped forward, not something visible to a trio of children a decent distance away from the sharpshooter.

Poncho and Shimo dashed at each other, both drew their swords on their way meanwhile Denton leaped back a great distance flinging the two spheres forward. The masked man expected the kids to attack him since he appeared to be a frailer and long-range focused fighter, however, the female ninja and the strong punching boy disappeared from his sight altogether, just a moment later Denton realized that his gut was warning him justly. The two reappeared right in front of Denton however at that moment it was too late – an ironic thing to consider having the flashing speed of the two younglings.

The two spheres that Denton had thrown exploded, one of them emitted black gas in a wide range covering clouds, the other meanwhile burst with purplish smoke. Meiko and Kouta covered their faces, it appeared that Denton managed to outsmart them with these smokescreen bombs and leap away. Meiko felt a crushing grip grabbing her abdomen and then wind violently ripping her short hair as Kouta pulled her off of the smoke clouds jumping up and then away.

"The second bomb was poisonous, he used the pitch black smoke of the first one to cover up the purple smoke of the second one, purple smoke means poison," the medical ninja explained to Meiko who just grinned and scratched the back of her head.

"Wow, I totally forgot that, boy we're lucky to have you around," the blacksmith carelessly giggled acting as if she didn't just get pulled out from certain death.

"These guys aren't toying around, they're the real deal... And now that masked bastard slipped away too," Kouta angrily grunted out turning back to check on Shimo who was clashing his sword with the other Shaphac assassin.

The two clashed, again and again, moving in almost identical speed. They outraced the sound and sparks of their own sword clashes, spun around, flipped and clashed trying to catch each other off guard but none of them gave in. Finally, the two settled down in a struggle of strength as they rammed their swords against each other and tried to overpower the other with a forceful shove, even if Shimo was a teen he managed to hold his own against the rather slim Shaphac assassin in a struggle of strength.

"Your skill has greatly improved since the last time..." The Poncho Assassin commended Shimo to which the Yuki only smiled cockily, Meiko and Kouta's bodies flashed in from two different sides in his aid, winding up their punches that were supposed to crush the Shaphac swordsman in between their two sides of assault, breaking the man's body completely.

Suddenly Poncho let Shimo's force to push him back, he pulled his sword and sheathed it, unsheathing it again in thousandth of a second, the man drew the blade so fast that it released a wave of compressed air that knocked the two teammates backwards on their butts while the Shaphac swordsman took a couple of quick and subtle hops backwards gaining some distance over his three opponents.