A plain-looking samurai with messy hair and a stubby goatee stumbled across the arena with a limp, dodging out of the way of stray fireballs or fending off careless attacks from opponents that were engaged in other battles yet found an opportunity for a cheap elimination at his expense. Truthfully, this battle royale only became more brutal to those that have been through a rough fight and had to last until the end after now having become easier targets.
The roughed-up samurai stumbled up to the fallen, crumbled, and lifeless statue of the Five-Tailed dolphin horse in the center of the arena. A serpentine statue of a demoness attached to a slithering and cumbersome chain of tomoe beads of solid stone appeared before the samurai, raising her arms and preparing to rip into the beat samurai only for the warrior to stumble to the side and flop with his back against the chipped statue.
"I didn't come here looking for a fight," Ishikawa Bando said. "This statue you're protecting is intriguing, though. It declared everyone in this arena its enemy and paid the price with its body. It's in no fighting condition and all tuckered out, yet the announcer hasn't counted it out like the others yet. Why do you think that is? Is it a mistake on the announcer's part, or is there truly more fight left in this one?"
"I sense a great deal of pain coming from it," a husky voice that by itself made it difficult to tell if it came from a man or a woman said. Bando turned his head up and to the side, noticing a Sky Warrior covered in a mantle of obsidian knives and dripping with so much blood that it trickled down the side of the Five-Tails' statue and collected in a puddle on the ground near Bando. "In a way, it makes me pity whatever this statue is and… In that pity, I find solace for myself. It's a strangely comforting spirit that resides in this stone body."
"Hmm… The Five-Tails was always a protective demon, crushing those that persecuted settlers living in its territory and always protecting the environment and tending to the lush nature around it. It must have been that knowledge that subconsciously invited you to this resting place, crow-man," Ishikawa Bando replied with a grave, lowered pitch of voice, yet a tempo that implied softness and kind intentions as opposed to offense.
"This ring announcer is someone with peerless sensory and observational skills. Despite being an untrained human, his skill in perception allows him to peer into battles of champions of divine power. I don't believe him not counting this one out yet to be a mistake. I don't believe a man such as him to be capable of mistakes in judgment," the crow replied, spreading its cape-like wings made of knife-sharp black feathers. In spreading his cape, the crow-man revealed one of his arms to be missing and bleeding profusely even through the measures of battlefield patching he had done in cauterizing the wound with a hot knife and wrapping it in cloth.
The man's skin was pale as a sheet of paper and his lips were ink-black, though it was difficult to say for certain if it was a stylistic choice or yet another sign of his approaching mortality.
"In that case, this fallen statue is an enemy, is it not?" Ishikawa Bando grumbled when the crow man pressed his back against it. "If we eliminate it, we may still score some victories in this tournament."
"I would not," the crow-man muttered softly with a tone devoid of emotion despite ample feeling flaring within the Sky Warrior. "I can see into people's feelings, peer into their intentions. It's a talent I've had since I was a child. It helps me become a better hunter and a better assassin. This spirit is deeply hurt. It's weeping, cradling, and alone. Yet in that bottomless despair, you can find common ground as someone struggling yourself. You end up identifying with those feelings and becoming a friend to whoever is going through them. I can see why that serpentine statue-woman is so protective of this one."
"In that case, finishing it off would be a mercy, wouldn't it be?" Ishikawa Bando scratched the itching and hairy back of the neck. "If its suffering is so vast…"
"Is that why you came here, Ishikawa Bando, founder of the Secret Ninja Tribe of Iga?" the pale-skinned Sky Warrior turned to Ishikawa Bando. Despite the Sky Warrior moving his head, it had been entirely wrapped in a cowl of black knives he tempered the rest of his body with.
"No, I think I just want some time off, damn it…" Bando grumbled, dragging his hand across his messy hair with a hefty sigh.
"Hmm… And here to think I wanted to ask you for a favor," the Sky Warrior said in a husky tone.
"A favor?" Ishikawa Bando's eyes opened as his right drifted to the weary warrior on his right.
"I'm hurt, and I might not be able to maintain consciousness for long. My worth as a warrior demands that I face defeat swinging. Would you do me the honor of betting your life on the line against mine?" the crow-man turned to Ishikawa Bando. "Neither of us has much left in the tank, so it would be a swift conclusion."
"I don't see any harm in that," Ishikawa Bando inflated his chest and then pushed it all out with a deep sigh. "I either grant you the warrior's satisfaction that you want so much or go off to the Afterlife and see my son after all this time… I'm content either way."
Two black blurs bounced from the location of a cracked and crumbling Five-Tails statue to the ground nearby. With their swift images clearing up, the black Sky Warrior revealed to be gripping a flap of his knife-coat wing adorned with razor-sharp tips and edges while one of his knife feathers rested in between his teeth. Ishikawa Bando stood on the other side with his sword sheathed and having adopted the sword-drawing stance of Iaido.
"Song of the Karasuman!" the crow-man snarled through his teeth that clenched the horizontal knife as he spread his cape wide open and flapped it like dancing performers rustled their capes. An obsidian hail of knives swirled in Ishikawa Bando's direction while the Sky Warrior vanished without a trace. With a light fluttering sound, the Sky Warrior's image blurred in and out in between different blades of his obsidian hail, spinning around like a black star and using the edge of the countless obsidian knives comprising his cape for additional aerial slashing projectiles.
Ishikawa Bando tightened his stance, leaning down and bringing his head so low that he exposed the nape of his neck. This way, he showed absolute resignation and carelessness in life. It was a lot like his approach to missions and duels. The samurai closed his eyes and saw the youthful smile and the bashful vigor of his son, returned to that beloved determined face he had when he pleaded for what was best for the people of Iron Country despite its centuries-old traditions.
Liberated from the selfish desire to cling to life, Ishikawa Bando took off rushing toward the deadly Sky Warrior despite his hand being drawn away from the hilt of his blade and his arms spread wide, as if welcoming the imminent death.
"Don't throw your life away…" a voice rang in Bando's head. "No matter the reason, you must live on!"
Bando's eyes shot open, he had given up on himself in battle and accepted the imminence of death many times, but the voice of a woman he had never met had never humbled him with a plight to fight for his own life. Bando has never met this woman, which meant that she shouldn't have had any idea who she was pleading to fight for his life, yet she pleaded nonetheless.
"You have no idea who you're rooting for, ma'am! I am a miserable old man who is better off dead, yet cursed with peerless skill with the sword and ninjutsu alike. You've no right to ask me to care for my life, I've given up on myself long ago and so should you!" Ishikawa Bando radiated wrath. Blood pumped through his veins, coloring his face with the blush of physical strain as Bando grabbed his blade and drew it in a wide-reaching arc. "Gorokizu!" he cried out, creating a horizontal concussive boom dome that stopped the deadly crow-man in his tracks and shoved him aside, scattering dozens of knives from his cape and the one in his mouth off while the stunned Sky Warrior hovered flinched and stunned in place.
Bando weaved a hand seal, popping away from sight into a cloud of smoke while a couple of handfuls of windmill shuriken whizzed out from the dust cloud, colliding with the incoming hail of obsidian blades and reflecting them by the dozen for each massive shuriken.
"It doesn't matter who or what you are. Life is precious and everyone is here for a reason, that's what I believe and while you may have given up on yourself, I will never stop fighting for you! That's my ninja way!" the determined voice blinded Ishikawa Bando with a beacon of sparkling light. It was as if this lustrous mass had entered Ishikawa Bando and soaked him full of it like a dry sponge being submerged in rose water and swelling up with it.
"That's spiritual chakra!" Vatee yelled out, seeing the quaking Five-Tails statue suddenly cease glowing and rumbling while a radiant and shapeless mass of energy shot out from it.
"Ninja way? So, you're a ninja? You know the feeling of blood on your hands, hating yourself and everything you have done? The delusional thought that you live to serve your country or its people when all you achieve is a reeking body pile?" Ishikawa Bando's voice rumbled while the shuriken converged into a singular shape amid the raging hail of black blades in a shape of a single man. The haunting silhouette of a soaring raven hovered above Ishikawa Bando as the injured Sky Warrior with a damaged cape aimed his cowl down with another knife in his one functional arm and his teeth, plunging down for a conclusion of this engagement.
"If that is true, why are you so obsessed with rushing to your grave? Do you truly believe that the afterlife a man like you would go to would be the same one your son is in? Why not live a life deserving to share the afterlife with him?" the ephemeral feminine voice in Ishikawa Bando's mind made the samurai's eyes flare up and sprinkle with tears down his cheeks while, led by instinct as opposed to conscious thought, the swordsman turned around and drew his blade once again, dashing up to meet the plunging death dealer.
Flash, followed by a thunderous clang.
The two men crossed each other with Ishikawa Bando taking it to the air while the crow-man landed on one knee with his ruined cape that was missing half of its knife feathers covering him up. Blood trickled from the sharp beak at the upper tips of his cowl while the Sky Warrior hunched and stared down at the blood-smeared ground below. He used to not be able to see ugliness like that. His cowl obstructed his vision, leaving only his ability to empathize with people's emotions to guide his hand in battle and life. This time, the feather obstructing his right eye had been missing and thus his porcelain-white eye stared right at the bloody smear.
"Don't you think I've tried? Abandoning my life as a samurai, the Secret Ninja Tribe of Iga… All of that was to do something right, to use my skills to make the world a better place, but all I managed was to send more people to the afterlife, to take more things away while leaving nothing to take their place. You're right, I don't want to see my son, I don't deserve it, I deserve to be ripped apart by ogres in hell for what I've done, and I can't wait for my comeuppance. My son… The people I've killed and the people my organization killed all deserve their retribution," Ishikawa Bando muttered to himself through his streaming tears, knowing that the woman living and speaking from inside of his head could hear him just fine.
The stare of the kneeling crow-man blanked out as he coughed up with blood and a fresh, deep splatter of crimson spilled across the floor. The forceful blood flow forced the man's upper body to twitch and leaned his head back. The Sky Warrior flopped on the front with a pool of blood accumulating underneath him while Ishikawa Bando flopped on his side and growled in pain that his dislocated shoulder called up.
"It's never too late to work to better yourself. You're only guaranteed hellfire if you accept it and welcome it. As long as you live your life to the fullest and help as many people as you can, helping them do the same when you can, you can always make the hurt lesser. You've been given a chance few other samurai have–your lord has liberated you of your service, now every action you take, every life you save or claim, it's all up to you. You decide what kind of man you wish to be, you decide what kind of man you'll be seen as when your time comes, and which afterlife you go to. You and your son, from the sounds of it, truly shared a powerful bond and that makes me feel you both deserve happiness if there truly is an afterlife. And if there's not, at least you'll know you did your best on your way to the end," the flashing light trickled from behind Ishikawa Bando's crawling body. The samurai brought himself up to the Five-Tails statue, helping the spirit return to its prison while Bando used the Five-Tails chipped-off leg for support to stand back up.
Ishikawa Bando stumbled up to the fallen Sky Warrior and leaned down, flipping his body onto his shoulders in a fireman's carry position. He turned back to the Five-Tails' statue that seemed peaceful, almost as if nothing supernatural had ever occurred around it.
"Well… What do you know? I guess the crow-man truly was right… There is a spirit inside of that statue after all," Bando muttered to himself, taking his time to bring the Sky Warrior to the nearest edge of the arena and throwing him out. "You probably won't like me ditching you as opposed to finishing you off, but the spirit lady was right. I'm done being a soldier and adding more scratches to my kill count. If you're pissed about it, get better and find me again, then tell me about it to my face, dumbass…"
"Oh! Ishikawa Bando eliminated Gagimal of the Sky Warriors! This leaves it at 121 competitors!" the announcer once again didn't skip a beat in reporting the elimination to his thrilled audience.
Bando turned around only to see a short and plump man with no facial hair but a Fu-Manchu-style mustache and a lone braid flopping about at the opposite side of his head. The man stood with his arms positioned behind him with a polite smile.
"Alright then. Come, I'll take you on," Ishikawa Bando sighed and cracked his neck to the sides before taking a sword-drawing stance.
Further away, the grounded Glide-Ball player still fled in a fruitless attempt to elude the frantic pursuit of the possessed hummingbird Sky Warrior girl. Ducking under and weaving around her hollowed bone knife thrusts that didn't seem to hold anything back, the Glide-Ball player who still wept over his perforated glider and ruined sports gear finally had enough, he swung the frame of his busted kite up, wielding it as a club and hitting the possessed underage huntress in the cheek which sent her flopping on her rear and rubbing her face.
"Uh… Shit… Damn… I'm sorry, I didn't mean to hurt you, kid, but… You have to understand, I mean… What are you even doing at a dangerous event like this and… You've got to stop trying to stab me with knives, you know?" the glide-baller kept appealing his case, approaching the fallen hummingbird girl who checked on her busted suit and cowl that had a rip on the side where her opponent hit her.
"A clean hit, congratulations, warrior! But you keep yourself too open!" the hummingbird girl fumbled her way through speech with her cutesy girly voice before flapping the artificial wings of her bodysuit and entering a hover above the ground. Because of her size and age, this particular Sky Warrior appeared to have fewer issues achieving flight and was in fact much lighter in the air than most of her adult allies, granting her a sense of light feet and maneuverability in the air.
Entering a hover, the hummingbird girl swung her right wing, sending hollowed-bone tubes whizzing right at her opponent at alarming speeds that would've left them thumping into him and impaling the athlete. Closing his eyes in fear of being the witness to his own murder, the pro athlete leaned back and shoved some of his gear out front. With an unmistakable and resounding thud, the light projectiles slammed into a metallic ball, which freaked the glide-baller greatly and caused him to fling the metallic ball he clutched in his hands at the hovering hummingbird girl.
The ball lit up with bright rays and ripped with a resounding blast, flinging the poor hummingbird girl out of bounds and dropping her with a crude, rag-dolling slam. The face of the horrified pro-athlete turned pale and all semblance of sense vanished from his look as he contemplated being a child murderer. With a dropped jaw, the athlete rushed to the edge of the arena and looked down, slipping off his helmet to reveal a head of long and curly brown hair.
"Girly! Girly! Are you alive!? Shit… Can we get some medical staff over here!? I hit this kid with an explosive point-blank but it was an accident, I swear!" the glide-baller began frantically waving his hands out in front of him as if he was explaining this situation to law enforcement. He looked around him and saw nothing but the chaos of battle, as nobody seemed to particularly care about the events taking place.
"Yo, are you okay, little girl?" a squad of men with pink robes, turbans and face shrouds leaned down to examine the eliminated warrior. The hummingbird girl sat up, much to the shock of the warrior that ended up eliminating her by accident.
"Man!" she cried out, observing the damage her bird suit had suffered. "My suit's all messed up, and I got eliminated too… That's… That's… Not fair… Waaaah!"
"H-How is that what she's crying about?" the glide-baller sighed in relief that the kid he thought he surely had killed survived while scratching his cheek.
"The Glide-Ball ace Luciano Saturn, Yenisel Saturona eliminated Dahiti, the pint-sized Sky Warrior! Let's all applaud little Dahiti's performance, she's only nine years old this year, and she went well-past being in the top 150 warriors of this battle royale!" the announcer turned to the audience, encouraging a wave of applause for the weeping brat who, bolstered by the applause, wiped her tears, stood up and began chuckling with dried tears glistening on her cheeks. She put up her right hand, bent by the elbow, as a sign of gratitude for the cheering audience.
"Don't… Applaud the child fighter…" Yenisel shook his head with a squint on his face, taken aback by this backward culture though, because of the light consequences of what could've gotten ugly, his outrage seemed more ironic that a sign of genuine disgust in the Sun Disc arena warrior culture.