Hi I'm Rally from Gunsmith Cats. Join me and my .45 as we watch over what happened at the Rites of Mastery.
Saito and Anza decided it was time to test their skills in the Rites of Mastery Tournament. The Rites of Mastery basically is a tournament to prove who the best is. All the named fighters participate in it at least once. In order to be allowed to leave the Emerald Empire, one must prove his worth and end up in the top ranking in the tournament. There are several types of Mastery Tournaments. Saito participated in the warrior tournament, while Anza decided to test his abilities in the magic tournament. First up Saito.
For the most part Saito defeated all his opponents with little trouble. The usual “evil” groups out for revenge sent their assassins out to kill Saito, but he cut them down quickly. That is until he fought Dead Wind. Dead Wind was a Hitokiri (assassin) fifteen years ago but retired thought to be living with his family. The audience was surprised to see Saito not up to true form in his taunting abilities. It was almost as if he as afraid for the first time.
Saito went straight into his Gototsu move and expectedly charged. Dead Wind expertly dodged to the side and waited for the next attack. It wasn’t until four seconds later that Saito realized that he had been cut by Dead Wind. For lack of something better to do Saito charged again with the same results. Sensing that something was wrong with Dead Wind, Saito tried to question him as they made their next passes. It seems that Heaven’s Gold kidnapped Dead Wind’s family and told him if he does not kill Saito his family is dead. Not wanting to fight Dead Wind under these circumstances, meaning either Saito would die or if Dead Wind was killed then, Saito would be responsible for D.W. family being killed, Saito found out the location of the family be allowing D.W. to cut the his back with the name of the location his family was at. Nearing death from all the wounds, Saito tripped over to his housekeeper and told her the location of where the family was located at and quickly what was going on. The housekeeper ran off to save the family.
Going back to the fight, Saito and D.W. exchanged blows not really hurting each other buying her time to rescue the family. When she returned with the family, D.W. gave up and left the tournament leaving Saito as the winner. (it should be noted that Saito took over 2 ½ hours to finish this short adventure)
Anza to come later.