Tales of a Ninja Magician: Of Where We Come From

The Hitman Contestant

A tall and average built man stepped onto the platform and slowly made his way down it, staring at Mana from above the entire time right before he approached the end of it. He was a man who may have been in his fifties or his sixties as despite his prime bodily condition his skin and face had quite a number of wrinkles. He had a playful pair of moustache pieces that extended from under his nose and reminded more of singular black whiskers of a large cat than facial hair of a man. The most distinguished feature of his was the long braid of his reaching well over his knees with a bell-shaped iron weight attached to it. Much of the braid was tied around the man's head so it must've extended to three times that range... What a peculiar look he had.

"Ummm... I shall apologize but... You are not a champion of any events, contestant Quatal. Please make your way back to the quarters," The announcer shamefully announced. Mana's head turned to the side curiously. She didn't expect to be hated by someone to such extent that they'd walk out to fight her out of their turn. This man had no right to face her so why could he have been there, standing and staring at her from above on the safety of that platform.

"I may not be a champion, therefore unqualified to fight in the Ascension Gauntlet but I was paid by one and sent to eliminate this girl. Damij thought it'd be fun if I faced her and took her out." The man proclaimed, his face barely twitched, no emotion or soul beyond what he said but he kept his stare firmly on Mana's own eyes, staring the girl down as if eyes could kill.

"Just because you were vouched by a champ..." The announcer began to talk but Mana turned to him.

"I've got no time to waste waiting for one of the champions to grow enough balls to fight me. What does he mean "paid by a champion"?" The magician asked.

"Quatal here is a "Hitman Contestant". He himself does not participate in events however he takes out fighters that other fighters tell him to take out and pay him with food to do so, he requests those matches and interrupts other fights to take those undesirables out. He is quite the gourmet so his services are very pricey," the announcer explained.

Mana looked at the man curiously, she had never thought that this place would have a sanitarian like this one working here. This man behaved perhaps most how a ninja would out of all the fighters.

"Why do you do that? Is it because you feel bad for the fighters? Because they can't fight their own battles so you defend the weak ones?" Mana wondered asking the braided man who just grinned with half his face cockily.

"No, the food in this place sucks. I was raised on only the finest delicacies so those that can afford to satisfy my appetite can have the freedom to use my services. If I am called out to fight by the Sheikh, rarely as that happens, I just quickly dispose of my enemy and build a reputation. Damij and his crew often feel too lazy to do their own killing so they give me food from the Agbarmahal in exchange for my dirty services." The man explained, his voice was strong but also flowed like some sort of a twisted lullaby. It was how a viper with throat cancer would've sounded like if given voice.

"In other words, you take material goods from the strong to bully the weak. Come down here, I'll take you down so I can fight Damij sooner. I'm growing more hateful towards that man with every passing second," the magician sighed and obeying her request Quatal leaped down.

"This is chaos!" The announcer yelled out, "Please, cease this nonsense immediately!" But his voice was drowned out by the crowd, the man looked at the Sheikh who was overly entranced by the cheers of the crowd and the hype for the upcoming battle as the previous fight had hypnotized the man. It has clearly been a while since the man had seen fights like that.

"Do not worry, no champion out there wishes to tarnish their reputation fighting this freaky youngster," Quatal mumbled, the man firmly cracked his neck to the sides letting his night-black hair with several white streaks bounce to the sides weighed down by the small block of iron at the end. It appeared to have a tip at the end but it couldn't have possibly worked as a weapon, it was too heavy and round to be a thrusting weapon and too light to be a bashing weapon. Maybe that was why the Sheikh loved letting the man use his braid?