Strike of the Holy Blade (P)

How long had it been since Miyu had seen home? A few weeks, probably a bit over two. She was a bit surprised to find that she wasn’t homesick, in fact she very much enjoyed the warm weather that seemed constantly grace the country around her. She actually thought about throwing away or selling some of the heavy jackets she possessed, as she wouldn’t need any of them until she finally decided to head home. She had to wear clothes that she had normally only worn inside buildings, well fitted T-shirts and hoodies and either jeans or shorts.

The young woman walked through the countryside of Waterfall, thinking perhaps she should return home for a bit, maybe the village leader had returned, and she could hear of some of the adventures he had been on. This day she was wearing jeans, which she preferred to wear instead of shorts as they covered up more. She enjoyed not having to wear layers of clothes, but Miyu couldn’t understand why some girls seemed to want to dress almost half naked just because they could. She still remembered seeing a group of girls in what she later found out were ‘bathing suits’ running around almost completely exposed, letting everyone look at them. She shuddered at the thought of herself in one, there was no way she would let anyone ever see her in one of those, it would be to embarrassing.

Other than jeans, she wore a well fitted purple T-shirt and a pair of sneakers. Her katana was tied onto her belt, on her left hip, her most prized possession amongst the items she had taken with her on her journey. Her headband was currently inside the large backpack on her back, which also contained 2 other pairs of clothing, 2 heavy jackets, and food so that if there wasn’t a an inn or anything nearby she could still get something to eat.

The road back to Yuki was deserted that day, which made sense because as far as Miyu knew Waterfall Country and Snow Country didn’t have any trade agreements. They could have, for all Miyu knew, but the road she was on didn’t look like it had seen much use in quite some time.
After a few hours of simply walking down the dirt road, it began to twist and turn, the heavy tree line that surrounded the road on both sides obscured whatever was around the next turn. She absent mindedly realized that if there were bandits anywhere nearby, this might have been a good place to attack travelers, if there were any. The fact that the road was so underused made Miyu believe it was safe, how stupid would a bandit have to be to stalk along a road that was almost never used?

Well, it seemed that she was wrong however. As she was about to make another turn that was obstructed by the tree line, the sound of yelling and swords clashing assaulted her ears. Bursting into action, Miyu dropped her back pack from her shoulders and tossed it into the tree line, making a note of it landing within a bush that wasn’t too far from the road. She didn’t want someone coming along and stealing her bag while she was fighting, if that was what she ended up doing anyway.
Running around the corner, Miyu spotted a small horse drawn cart with a woman with a babe in her arms and a girl around Miyu’s age cowering in it. Two men, perhaps the father and son, stood with swords drawn, facing 3 men who were dressed as bandits, brandishing their own weapons against the two.
Angered that these men would prey upon a family, Miyu drew her own sword and yelled at the bandits, “Leave them be you cowards!” Her voice sounded forceful and commanding, so much so that two of the bandits seemed to nearly jump out of their skin and drop their swords as they heard her. The man who stood in front of the two, who seemed a bit better dressed than the others, seemed a bit startled as well, but that changed when he turned to look at who owned that voice.

It was then that Miyu realized, without being dressed in her Chunin outfit, she didn’t look intimidating at all. One of the two goons actually started laughing upon seeing her, doubling over as he did so. Miyu’s face burned red in embarrassment and anger, she was more than ready to incapacitate these bandits now.

The man who seemed to be in charge didn’t seem as amused though, he examined Miyu’s stance with an appraising look on his face, as though he was wondering how much effort he’d have to put into the fight, and found Miyu disappointing. This only served to further fuel her anger, and she charged forward. The leader met her charge with his own, while his goons stood confused for a moment, wondering if they should follow him or attack the two men they had been fighting. The father took advantage of this confusing and managed to cut one of the bandits on his torso while he wasn’t paying attention, and that decided it.

The first strike between Miyu and her opponent revealed who had a more powerful swing between the two. Miyu had meant to cross blades with him and try and disarm him, but found that he struck with such force that she had to struggle to turn the blade away from her body, and in fact had to duck under the blow even after redirecting the man’s blade. The two exchanged a few strikes between each other, but the man seemed to just be playing with her.

He moved just fast enough that Miyu could barely block his strikes, and in fact he still managed to get a few glancing blows on her. Cuts appeared on her arms as he left grazing wounds on them, and she felt a bit of blood began to soak into her shirt after he nicked her on the side of the torso. He could have ended the fight whenever he wished, but he seemed to be enjoying just playing around.
She heard someone yell out near the cart, and noticed out of the corner of her eye that the young man had been stabbed in the gut. Her combatant, noticing that she was distracted, seemed to want to take advantage of that, and finally finish the fight.

He raised his hand and a flash of light filled Miyu’s vision for a moment, and everyone nearby screamed out as they were blinded. Except Miyu, and the man who created the flash. He didn’t seem to realize that Miyu was unaffected however, and rather lazily slashed at her torso, assuming she wouldn’t be able to dodge. Unfortunately he was wrong, and Miyu brought her sword up, smacking his sword up into the air. Almost instinctively Miyu let chakra channel through her blade as she brought it back down, but instead of using her normal lightning enhancement chakra infusion technique, her blade glowed with a yellow white light as it cut through the man’s torso, burning the wound even as it was created. The man cried out in pain before falling to the group, withering in pain. There was no blood, the wound was already closed by the burns Miyu had caused. The two goons had heard the screams, and turned to attack Miyu. R blade still glowing she spun on her heel to face the enemy, swinging her blade by in front of her, ready to defend. What happened was weird, however.  Physical light flew forth from the blade and towards the two men, hitting one of them square in the chest. The sound of flesh burning and his screams mixed together as the other man ducked under the strange construct, the blade disappearing afterward.

As he neared Miyu, she suddenly felt very tired, as though she had expanded way to much chakra with those two strikes, Her knees wobbled as the man was about to strike, but before the blow landed there was a thud, and the man fell forward. A kunai was in his back, and he was dead. It took a moment for Miyu to realize that the old man had thrown the kunai, and that the two men Miyu struck with her light blade were now dead as well. These thought barely passed through her head before she began slipping into unconsciousness, falling to one knee, then finally falling prone and passing out.


TWC: 1429
+7 stats
+14 JP

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