Ten scars.
She survived ten minutes of non-stop barrage. Her parrying skills were getting better by the week, but it was still a miserable, one-sided fight.
Twenty-seven scars.
Spotting an opening for a split second, she stomped her foot down, made a swing for it—and landed her first-ever strike.
The Masked Ninja neither flinched nor made a sound. Her body was slammed onto the wall shortly after.
Fifty-two scars.
Their sparring session took thirty long minutes. A good amount of blows were delivered, and she reveled in the fact that he might end up with a spread of bruises all over his body.
Sixty-eight scars.
After her wooden stick was knocked out from her hands, she continued the fight for almost ten minutes, blocking with her arms and punching her fists out sporadically.
✿∅✿∅✿
One hundred scars.
Sin-Ni sat down in the middle of the room, cross-legged and focused. Her phone was propped up against the shelf, its screen—dark and unresponsive—faced her like a mirror. As she stretched her arms, her eyes remained transfixed on her reflection.
Ponytail unkempt, muscles lean but toned, and a face painted with blemishes; the time she had spent here really showed.
Slowly, she lifted her shirt. The sight of the scars was so disfigured, so revolting, that it made her gag.
One hundred.
She had survived one hundred slashes across her body. That was three freaking digits worth of scars. She didn't even know how that was even physically possible. Her body must have gotten used to them.
Sin-Ni clenched her fists. She was ending this today. No more.
The door opened with a slam. Holding onto the stick, she scrambled up and faced her familiar opponent.
The Masked Ninja waltzed into the room. Instead of taking his usual weapon by the door, he swung out two metal swords that were strapped to his back.
"Let's try out something new today, shall we?" he said, tossing her one of the swords.
A pang of annoyance hit her just as the new weapon landed on her palm. Was he changing things up because she had been so close to beating him last week? She let out a soft groan of protest while waving the sword around. It was a lot heavier than the wooden stick. Her grip tightened. Whatever, she was still going to win.
Like always, the Masked Ninja commenced his attack without warning. But Sin-Ni's reaction time was already primed for this. Their swords smashed together, its impact was much heavier—and louder—than she was used to.
She held on, keeping her focus on blocking the vigorous onslaught. A windstorm, no matter how harsh and turbulent, would always have that short moment of rest, that inevitable slow down in speed, that gradual move away from the middle of the hurricane. She held on, looking out for a break like that.
And there it was. A slight falter in his movement.
Pivoting on her foot, she twisted her body and slashed her sword down.
The Masked Ninja managed to parry. Sin-Ni was not surprised to have her first attempt of an attack blocked, but what did shock her was what happened next: her sword broke into smithereens.
His sword didn't.
"Wait, what—"
She was too flabbergasted that she did not see the kick that sent her flying across the room.
Coughing and spitting, she did not object as the Masked Ninja rolled her over and collected her blood.
"That's not fair," she croaked, "you gave me a weaker sword."
"They're made of the same material. It's not my fault you don't know how to enhance it."
"Enhance?"
"Yep. Enhance." He brandished his unbroken sword. The silver hues of the metal wavered under the light, fluctuating in shades and varying in their shine as if the composition within the sword was changing as he spoke. "You can enhance your weapon using enhancer magic."
"Magic?"
The Masked Ninja gave her a curt nod. He lifted the sword and swung it out to the side. Sin-Ni's eyes widened when the shelves along that side of the room got sliced in half. The ledges and items collapsed on the floor, while a large gash appeared on the wall, the cut resembled the scars on her own abdomen.
She was speechless for a long while, before exclaiming, "H- How do you do that?" How is that even physically possible?
"I told you. Enhancer magic."
Magic. The wall of illusion around her shattered like her sword. She had always had her suspicions, but it was still devastating to hear them confirmed.
"I'm really in a different world. A world with magic," she muttered. Her frantic eyes found his calm, golden ones. "Is that how I got here then? Magic? You... Gazini pulled me here with magic?"
"Of course. What did you think I meant when I told you about the portals?" He snorted as he pocketed the vial of blood.
Her blood.
Dread welled up in her throat and she gulped. "That Gazini... Is he using my blood to... to bring more people over?"
"No. I told you, he's focusing on your friend, and I'm just using your blood for my own..." —He tilted his head and paused.— "...research purposes. I have a different goal from Gazini. But you are right about Gazini wanting to bring more people over, though he has not been very successful. You and your friend were his only success thus far."
Sin-Ni frowned. "Why?"
"Not sure." He shrugged. "Maybe you can figure it out."
"Can I go home if I learn this... magic?"
"Also not sure. Another thing for you to figure out." With a quick wave of his hand, he left her alone in the room again.
The next week, the Masked Ninja brought a book with him, along with a small bag of pebbles. The book looked like an old, tattered encyclopedia that was three times thicker than the Chemistry textbook she had bought for school. The cover was faded and slightly torn, and Sin-Ni could barely make out the title: "The Basics of Enhancer Magic, 7th edition".
He gave her these items after whacking the hell out of her and giving her a new scar, of course.
✿∅✿∅✿
One hundred and twenty-three scars.
She had read the textbook a thousand times over and done all the recommended practices with the bag of pebbles. Enhancer magic was the ability to manipulate physical objects, and the textbook covered three of the biggest aspects.
Firstly, enhancement; by just flicking the pebbles, she could create tiny craters on the walls that resembled bullet holes from a machine gun.
Next, transmutation; she could tweak the shape, color, and size of the pebbles, turning them into mini clay models of animals, or shiny glitters to decorate her sleeping corner.
And lastly, telekinesis; the glitters hovering and dancing around the ceiling looked like the fireworks she had watched every New Years' Eve with her family.
Magic was hard to grasp, but with practice, it got easier and a lot more intuitive over time.
One hundred and thirty-nine scars.
Her magic was unfortunately limited to items from her own world. No matter how much she tried, she could not manipulate any items beyond the pebbles the Masked Ninja had given her or the stuff in her purse.
Not that she wanted to do magic on her actual belongings. She really did not want to accidentally destroy any of them, even if it was just a tube of dried-out mascara.
One hundred and sixty-one scars.
The sword she made using just a pebble was able to fully counter every single strike without breaking into half. It was too bad that she had been so focused on learning magic that her sword fighting skills had deteriorated a little.
One hundred and ninety-nine scars.
Damn it. In a blink of an eye, she was nearing two hundred now. How many years had she been living in this godforsaken place?
But it was okay. This was ending soon. Magic was now almost second nature to her. She could take any pebble, any scrap of metal, anything that the Masked Ninja gave her, and manipulate them into whatever she imagined. She could fly them around like drones, she could break them apart into pieces and then put them back together again. She could control multiple weapons at once if she wanted to.
Magic was as intuitive as sword fighting to her, the two skills she had never envisioned herself having.
Two hundred and fifteen scars.
This was going to end soon.
She could see his sweat dripping through his long sleeves, and out of his mask. She could see the slight fear in his eyes. She could see him trying way too hard to tackle her flying weapons, making way too many mistakes in his struggles.
She had become the windstorm, not him.
Right now, he was only winning because he was still physically in the advantage. But soon, with patience, she would get past that advantage.
She would win.
Soon.
✿∅✿∅✿
Two hundred and forty-four scars.
Sin-Ni sat down in the middle of the room, stretching and staring at her phone screen. She lifted her shirt and stared at the reflection with a pair of heavy, tired eyes. The sight of the scars was as appalling as usual, but it no longer made her want to puke.
It did fuel the rage inside her, however.
She clenched her fists. She was ending this today; she could feel it in her heart.
For the last few weeks, the Masked Ninja had been declining steadily. Sin-Ni had pushed him so much that he had been forced to bring out another sword—his personal weapon, probably. It was the largest sword she had ever seen, with an impact so monstrously heavy she was sure a wrong move would result in her body being cut in half.
But she was not fazed. With her prowess in both magic and the sword, as well as her stamina and patience to wait out for a blind spot, the Masked Ninja could fight her with a sword the size of a rocket ship, and she would still be confident of winning.
She was ready.
And once she won, she would be finally going home.
Her eyes floated over to the home button at the bottom of her phone, and her heart clenched. How long had it been since she left her home? She had lost track of time, the only thing keeping her sane was the counting of her scars.
She heard the door open and turned around to greet the Masked Ninja. Except whoever came in was not him.
It was Zhao Zi-Han.
Whatever confidence she had inside her dissipated, like a pin-prick to a delicate balloon. That smug expression on his face, that slicked-back hair as greasy as his crooked smile, and that pair of long, toned arms...
Sin-Ni's body froze over, while her blood boiled at the same time. Memories—repressed deep inside her—flooded back out like a broken dam, hitting her with an almost unfamiliar sensation. She started to tremble.
And he dared bare his teeth at her with a grin.
"Long time no see, Sin-Sin!"
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A/N: In just 1.8k words, I covered a span of almost five years, as well as an explanation for why Cydney was so good at what she does, even though she had just been a normal high school student. I hope it all made sense!
Next chapter, Sin-Ni fights her most hated nemesis that she conveniently ignored for five years again.
