...................

When smoke bomb fell...

Many bandit lost sight of their companion. They couldn't see any thing. First they held breadth, but later found that it was just smoke bomb so they relaxed.

After several seconds then 3 poison bomb silently landed among smoke filled area and started to mix into smoke bomb.

At this point before bandit realized anything wrong, most of them got poisoned.

 

In movies, they always shows poison bomb colored like blue or deep red. But in reality poison bomb also look like smoke bomb.

So, it is very difficult to distinguish the difference visually.

 

After few seconds i saw that only three people escape out of smoke.

After seeing the number, I relaxed a little.

I guess others got poisoned.

Sometimes, I wonder how fickle life is. So many good fighters wiped out by just 10 smoke bombs and 3 poison bombs. Although money I wasted in throwing these expensive props was way more then the reward their heads offered.
I silently took a note that if I would have time, I would definitely study these special prop manufacturing procedure.

 

Bandit leader regrouped with his other two men.

He looked back at the grey fog. He had a very unsightly expression mixed with some anger.

As he looked back at me, his expression returned normal and looked calmly at me.

 

Bandit leader  took a few steps and came closer to me fearlessly.
"Don't think of going out alive now."

"you really destroyed all my men but looking at your state, they did their job perfectly." bandit leader said this with no remorse. It's like to him perfectly justified to sacrifice so many man just to gauze opponents strength and weaken it.

"Let me tell you, I am not some random bandit. I was once a ranked warrior and you should feel honored that you will get killed by me." As bandit leader said this to me, his eye started  to look bloodthirsty.

 

He really started to emit whole different kind of vibe.

 

I looked up and got a little serious .

I muttered " why such a powerful person does crime? Can't he earn money decently when he is such a capable fighter?"

I also readied myself for the fight. I have been waiting for a long time to find a decent opponent.

 

I also started charging towards him.

"tinnnn....clink...clink"

We clashed few times then seperated. At this point, I didn't care about bleeding. I also wanted some real fight.

 

This time i was using dual swordsmanship.
But my fighting style still hasn't changed, as I was still pretty much defending and looking for opening.

Leader was emitting bloodthirsty smile.

After few clashes, I was surprised that I didn't find many opening. Although bandit leader had slightly inferior physique than me but he also had chakra in him. So, he was equally agile as was I.

I found that he was very powerful but this only felt good news to me. If a small bandit can be equally powerful as me then one could imagine that samurai should be way more powerful in Iron-country. This gave me new hope that I could become more powerful in Iron-country. And my decision to travel wasn't wrong.

 

Then bandit leader changed style and suddenly pulled another sword.
I could have avoided that slash but I used this opportunity to stab at the neck of one of the henchmen to reduce opponent.
I paid small price by getting stabbed in the waist but i avoided the fatal wound.

Then i kicked the leader and backed away.

"Haah...hah" heavy breathing.

More blood started to ooze out.

 

I looked at my condition then looked at the grinning bandit. I felt situation was getting out of control. I needed to finish this quickly.

 

While breathing hard, I closed my eyes.
I started concentrating on all the moves bandit made till now.
I didn't move. I unconsciously drifted into deep meditative state. I started recalling all the sword moves I have practiced till now.

As  I focused more on finding flaw into bandit's swordsmanship, my body started to relax and made a completely different pose.

 

Leader and other lackey separated to surround me from opposite side. Lackey walked behind me and stopped.

Leader  and lackey started dashing towards me at the same time.

 

Suddenly, something unusual happened. I felt my surrounding got silenced.

 

My eyes were still closed. and leader was hardly 2 meter's away.
My mind was highly concentrated. My instinct told me to remain in that position with eyes closed.

I just felt like that I know where i should slash. Everything got cleared. It felt that moves made by bandit leader were just very naive and simple.

Suddenly, i accelerated and slashed leader neatly across bandit's neck. I bypassed the leader and sheathed the sword.

Then i opened my eyes.

Leader looked horrified and had a question in his eyes.
Like he wanted to ask that how did you slashed him without opening the eyes.

 

I felt surprised at the result.

I also had the same question. This was my first time for what i did. Then i looked across, I saw remaining lackey had fearful eyes.

To be continued...