Chapter 45

The man on the arachnid casually batted away the dark blue, snowflake shaped projectiles away, using a kodachi, without the slightest worry at all. "troublesome..." was his only comment. And he made it look so damn easy! It was like facing Hayate, only worse, and with a possibility of death.

Retreat was not an option either. The outpost transmitter may not have records of signals broadcast and received, the transmitter itself was a classified design, unique to Hakumei, not to mention, freakishly expensive.

"Why are you doing this, Skywalker san? We have no reason to be fighting. We are not enemies. So why are you fighting me?"

He asked this in English, because, frankly it seemed to be his opponents preferred language. And when he didn't have a snowballs chance in hell of usurping control, it was time to break out the ass kissing, subtly of course.

"Tetsuya kun, did you not make the first move? And here I was hoping you would say a joke. Or maybe was it sing a song?"

Tetsuya was not sure exactly what was going on. On the other hand, Takeda's warning about unhinged personalities was playing over and over in the back of his head...

"Tetsuya kun, if you ever meet him again, flee. It does not matter if he is on the brink of death. Simply flee. I once read that only the truly strong can remain eccentric and still live to fight. And somebody as unsound as him even I would not care to face. For now, we will let him be, as ordered. But if he shows up at Hogwarts, retreat and tell Taka. That's an order."

"Too late for now... Lets see long you can last against Sasori here..."

Sasori. Scorpion. As in insect with huge poisonous stinger at the end of a really long, fast and powerful tail. And the avatar of slicing and stabbing before him already was 6 feet tall. The tail was nowhere in sight. Yet.

Tetsuya turned to the colour of bleached bone. A vampire would been jealous. No doubt the man was going to cut him up into tiny pieces to scatter to the four winds or something. That is assuming he didn't simply poke him with some exotic incurable poison. He really didn't want to die. So he tried to stall.

"Are you going to kill me now?"

It was best to be blunt. Strong people aren't prone to answering annoying gnats who tried to play in a higher league. And he didn't want to talk long enough that the raw fear he had been suppressing would leak out or something.

"Well, I suppose if you do not eliminate my boredom I will have to make my displeasure known..."

That monotone was making him feel like laughing, raging, and losing bowel control. He'd already lost the psychological war. Skywalker had taken control of the situation without batting an eyelid. Well, it was time to die for his clan, his commander and the line of Amaterasu. Well that's what they kept saying when he was still an impressionable youth. He raised his blade, which he knew was totally outmatched against the chainsaw massacre that was Sasori, and charged.

The annoyingly dangerous man had meanwhile jumped off the scorpion and was watching the clash, with the same indifference that had characterized the rest this encounter.

The wakizashi he used was useless against the multiple blades of Sasori. If the spider like thing wasn't playing with him, Tetsuya had no doubt that he would have been ground meat. Really, it was just dancing through his frustrated slashes. And it wasn't even retaliating! The abomination of a spider was destroying him through sheer attrition. And if the thing was animated, as he had no doubt it was, it would keep going a lot longer than he could. In short he was doomed. He had no means to break off on his own.

Harry on the other hand was actually on a tree above the small clearing at the moment, looking somewhat introspective. His puppet was much more effective than he had anticipated. Sure, it was difficult to really control all limbs at once(shadow clones and the splitting of tasks to the rescue!), but it was still awesome. His short battle was not exactly the most amazing display of fighting ability as much as applied human psychology. Killer intent, localised genjutsu and the sight of a lot of pointy objects had been far more effective than complete mastery over taijutsu or kenjutsu could have achieved here.

Tetsuya on the other hand was trying really really hard not to lose to this seeming automaton. True, it had been scarcely 2 minutes, but he was already fully aware just how outmatched he was. Life was so unfair.

And then, with no warning, the spider peeled off, retreating to a tree trunk behind Skywalker.

Tetsuya did not even dare hope.

"Not bad Tetsuya kun...All that remains to be seen is how effective your shinobi arts are against mine..."

And then, in a very casual way, he slid the kodachi from its sheath on is back, a reverse grip that belied the true lethality of the weapon. He then flipped it in the air, catching it in a more traditional grip. After giving a few practice slashes that seemed to highlight the speed at which he could move, the blade was pointed right at the Japanese boy. Then, out of nowhere, his left hand had a kunai in it, a defensive stance.

"Shall we spar, Tetsuya kun?"

The next 3 minutes could be basically summarised as the most embarrassing beating Tetsuya had ever received. He was beaten with basically what amounted to brawler tactics, even if he granted that fellow was stronger and faster than he could personally become in the next few years. The strange magics the guy used was obviously more potent and capable in more ways than he had imagined possible. This man was a formidable foe. And even if he hadn't done anything to him, other than humiliating him with light taps instead of killing blows, this was something else.

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