Mission - Tears of Blood

Hayato received word from the syndicate that he was needed on an assassination mission. Code Name: The Black Dragon, The Target: Grand Master Hakoda Sudoku, Location: China. Hayato set off on his mission with haste; he loved killing others and honing his skills to their fullest capacity. He traveled from Vince Terram to China on a coal powered ship, which he mainly fueled himself in order for his journey to have less delay.

The journey did not take that long; it was about two and a half days before he reached land. Hayato went to investigate the ruins of China. Hakoda was last seen during the spirit’s invasion of the monk temple, rumor has it that he survived the blast radius of a nuclear explosion at the cost of losing his eyes from the radiation. The other monks were wiped out and he was the only survivor, this was discovered on a scouting mission by a spy of the syndicate.

Hayato climbed up a tall mountain until he reached the top, he walked along the ruins of the temple and came along a deep cave along the outskirts of the mountain. It was snowing and slightly cold atop the mountain slope, though nothing compared to the freezing weather in Vince Terram. The pyrokinetic caused blue flames to emit from his body as he walked, which instantaneously warmed his body.

Hayato walked into the cave, it quickly became dark. Suddenly there was an echo within the cave, the voice of a stranger “So you have come to finish me off, eh demon?” Hayato stopped in place as he heard this “Demon?” he thought to himself “You have been trying to kill us all for three years, you demons came from nowhere and then decided to nuke china.” The voice spoke again but sounded like it was coming closer, the sound of some sort of walking stick echoed with his footsteps.

Hayato generated blue fire to form in the palm of his hand; unfortunately it was much dimmer and had less light than standard yellow and orange flames. Hayato made out the figure of a short Asian human with a shaved head standing eight feet away from him; he was using a Bo staff as a walking stick with two swords to his side which had curved hooks at the edges and some sort of chain on his back. He seemed to be wearing ceremonial monk robes which were white and used for martial artists, he also had white bandages covering his eyes.

Suddenly the blind monk began to spin the staff then held it in both hands with both his arms extended outward. The blind man then charged Hayato at a very swift speed. Hayato shot the blue flame into a continuous stream of fire from his palm then rapidly widened it to create flame-thrower type of attack. The blind monk reacted as if he could see, by sliding on his knees at the last instant Hakoda avoided the flame at the last instant.

Hayato brought his other fist down in an attempt to blast the monk with another stream of fire, however the monk brought his staff upwards which knocked both of Hayato’s arms in the air and caused both streams of fire to strike the ceiling of the cave. The monk used the momentum from sliding to hop up from his knees to his feet then double-kick Hayato in the chest. Under the same influence of speed Hakoda caught the staff with his feet; he then spun on his hands and whacked Hayato’s arms to the side with one end of the staff then swung around once again to hit him in the face with another spin.

Hayato stumbled back from the attack, the blue flames on the ceiling dissipated. It was dark once again; the monk jumped to his feet then held the staff in his hands. Hayato was trained to have an acute sense of hearing and be able to ascertain an opponent's position when temporarily blinded through sound alone. The swift warrior began to attack the monk with a flurry of attacks, each of which was countered almost immediately by Hakoda. He knew Hayato’s every move yet he cannot see. As his mind fought to make sense of the impossible, the blind monk has turned his sight into a liability.

Hayato gained an opportunity once the monk sent the staff towards him in a downward motion; Hayato heard the displacement in the air and caught the staff with his metal glove. The wooden Bo staff immediately ignited in a blue flame and forced the monk to release his grip, Hayato reduced the staff to ashes while the monk began to swing the whip chain around rapidly. Luckily this made more noise than the staff and was easier to distinguish its location. With sound alone Hayato was able to weave most of the oncoming swings while some of them managed to hit his torso.

Hayato ran a few steps on the wall towards Hakoda just to have the whip chain wrapped around his ankle and swing him towards the other wall. There was more to this blind master than sound alone, he was able to indicate his exact location by some sort of seismic activity. Luckily the chain wrapped around his ankle was caught by his heel blade, so once he hit the wall he attempted a spin kick which was avoided. However, this was merely to get the blind master to release his grip as the heel blade cut the edge of the whip chain and send it flying outside the cave.

Hayato then jumped back with his right foot placed in front of left, pressing the blade of the sheathed sword on his side against the curve of the sheath. Hakoda drew his hook swords then charged Hayato and brought both hook swords down towards the spirit. Hayato drew the blade in a quick and slashing motion once he distinguished the man was close enough by closely listening to his footsteps. However, the monk stopped before he was close enough to be cut as he connected the hooks together and came at Hayato with a spinning motion which used the back of one of his hook swords as his attack. Hayato drew his blade then their swords collided and produced multiple sparks; Hayato used a motion by bringing his jaw up which sent the sparks flying towards the man without warning and set his robe leg on fire.

The blind monk let out a cry of pain as he shook his leg around, now was his chance to finish him so Hayato sheathed his blade. When the sword hilt connected with the sheath, the high-speed sheathing produced a sonic boom that temporarily stunned his opponent's auditory nerve, impairing the monk’s hearing and equilibrium. Hayato used the light from the flame to know where his target was, his seismic sense was temporarily unable to help him so Hayato threw an exploding shuriken at Hakoda.

BOOM!!! A large explosion ignited, it was a direct hit and blew the monk into pieces. However this started a cave-in. Hayato quickly ran out of the cave before it collapsed, he had learned more from this battle than he expected. “Mission complete” he said as he then began to walk down the mountain.

Word Count: 1222