Spiral Mask

Under the night sky, the full moon illuminated the grassy training ground with its soft shine. Shadows of two could be seen chaotically moving about on the ground. Sometimes the two collided and other times one of them chased the other.

Sora was sparring with Rayzen as he ingrained the ability to make fast decisions while in battle on to her mind.

They stopped and it could be seen vaguely under the moonlight that Sora was exhausted and sweating profusely unlike Rayzen who was watching her with a warm smile.

His expressions turned serious as he lectured her:

" Sora, although you are improving, it's not enough. You have to make decisions in a split second while in battle. For a ninja, hesitation leads to their death. Run or fight. Curb your emotions and evaluate your enemy. Then you will have a clue as to whether to run or fight. Let's continu- "

As Sora was seriously comprehending Rayzen's words, she noticed his words had trailed off. Looking at his expression, or whatever the only visible part of his face portrayed, she understood that he had sensed something wrong.

Her intuition proved to be true as Rayzen said seriously in a voice just loud enough for her to hear:

" Run! "

Sora worshipped Rayzen so much so that she believed him to be invincible and his words to never go wrong.

Hence when she heard him, she chose to run straight into the darkness of the forest. As her figure almost vanished in the darkness, she looked behind her for a second to see what was going on.

She saw a person wearing a long black cloak with red clouds. The only other thing that she was able to notice was the orange mask with a spiral pattern focused around the right eye.

She didn't stop for a second even while looking back and after getting a glimpse she rushed into the forest.

As she ran with all her effort, she heard the sounds of intense battle behind her. Nonetheless she didn't feel any fear for Rayzen's health due to her belief in him. Her decision to retreat was fueled by her belief in the invincibility of Rayzen as well as to not be a burden to him, that the enemy could take advantage of.

In what seemed to be less than ten seconds, everything returned to silence, except for her breath and the sound of her running through the forests. The battle had subsided.

She stopped in her tracks and turned back, took some deep breaths to calm down and gazed into the distance. She was so sure that Rayzen had won. And hence she waited for his arrival.

But a few minutes passed, and nothing changed. Through the eerie silence of her surroundings and her rising heartbeat that sounded like omnious drum beats in her ears, reverberating through her whole body, fear was slowly creeping on her mind.

The silence was broken by the wind that rustled the leaves. The darkness was purified by the sparse moonlight that flitted between the dense tree leaves.

Under the spotted eerie light that was shed randomly over the dark forest grounds, she saw it.

The orange spiralled mask!

The head of the enemy seemed to have sprouted from the ground. If it was dead, she would have thought Rayzen was pranking her. But the masked person was staring straight at her from the single eye hole of the mask.

Perhaps it was due to the darkness, she was shocked and confused on seeing the demonic red eye of the masked person. It was a three tomoe Sharingan!

Even though confused, her mind immediately analysed what she was observing, a quality she mastered by taking Rayzen's advice seriously.

' It's a three tomoe Sharingan! Ray-ray only has two tomoe Sharingan. So it's definitely not a prank. Then why did this creep survive after facing him. Is Ray-ray's testing me? '

She immediately threw a shuriken at the head. But what happened next scared her. The shuriken went straight into the masked person's head and without the slightest of resistance it passed through and landed on the ground behind the head.

Humans always feared the unknown and Sora was no exception. This created a drive in them to understand the unknown so as to eliminate the fear.

The unusual scene she witnessed had left her thoughts in shambles:

' What- ! How -?! '

Even though her thoughts were like that her instinct as a ninja won over her fear as she immediately spewed out a fireball.

' Fire Release: Fireball Jutsu '

The trees and vegetation around the area of effect were scorched to the point of incineration. As the fumes that resulted from the after effects of the fireball vanished, she saw the ground was charred and cracked more and more closer to the point of impact.

But the spiral masked head still remained unblemished.

Before she could comprehend the situation, the spiral masked person came out of the ground and walked slowly in her direction.

' This person's abilities are beyond me! I'll retreat! '

She ran away while throwing shurikens at the masked man to get a glimpse at the weakness of the masked person's state of intangibility.

The masked person picked up one of the shurikens she used and flicked it aiming for her. But she easily dodged it as she thought:

' So his state of intangibility operates under a certain order. He can't be intangible if he wants to attack. '

Although she made such an evaluation, it didn't change her mind about retreating. Just as she was about to slowly lose him, she heard him speak :

" Are you going to run away, little girl? It seems that guy wasn't important to you. Such a pity! He put up a good but short fight before his death. "

When she heard him, her mind went on to evaluate the masked person as a male. But what he said made her thoughts freeze.

It was not his belittling tone that made her stop in her tracks, but it was due to what he said about Rayzen that she found unacceptable.

The masked man mocked her :

" Ooh. Why did you stop now? I still have some time to play around. That barely managed to make me sweat. "

Sora looked straight into his eye while she motivated herself in a low voice :

" It's a lie! This is just a test. Ray-ray is watching me. I am... sure. "

The masked man seemed to have heard her and deliberately asked :

" What was that about lying? Don't tarnish my rep little girl. I maybe a cold-blooded mass murderer with a penchant for dark jokes, but I am not a LIAR!!! "

With a shout he lunged at her for an attack.