Monk Wu’ang eyed Gabriel, his eyes narrowing and his smile wavering in thought. He had been informed of the newest addition to their temple but no one seemed to know why and to compound matters, the elders had gathered for their annual conference three months ahead of schedule, if that didn’t alert you to the state of affairs well, you were either mentally challenged or dense as a rock. They reached him at the height of his thoughts so he had to let it lie, in order to engage with the them.
“Gabriel right? I don’t believe we have met?” Gabriel shook his head in response “I am disciple Wu’ang, a second rank disciple. This is Joseph” gesturing to the monk closest by his side “or Joe for short, also a second ranked disciple” Gabriel nodded while introducing himself as Gabriel Zhao.
“Are you sure about this?” Joseph whispered into his ear.
“It is better than ignoring him right in front of us. At least, this way, we might glimpse some of what is going on.” He whispered back.
“I see you brought the initiates with you?” Monk Wu’ang said to Gabriel
“Ah, well I thought it was okay”
He saw Gabriel exchange glances with the children “Well we do keep them away from it for their safety, anything could happen in this types of fights, stray spells and all.”
“Ah! Well I am sure there would be no problem if i kept them from going close to the ring.”
“But, they won’t be able to see the fight that way, so….” Monk Wu’ang shrugged “it would be better that they don’t come at all than for them to come and risk getting hurt.”
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Monk Wu’ang watched Gabriel consider his argument for a moment before he suddenly bent and picked up one of the boys -Kai- and place him on his shoulders. His eyes narrowed when he saw Gabriel pick up two others simultaneously and without effort on each of his arms. Before staring back and forth between the last girl and himself, his meaning obvious enough that even a ‘dumb child’ would have gotten it.
Monk Wu’ang sighed before picking up the last child “I guess you have convinced me”. The grin that appeared on Gabriel’s face was shit eating indeed, enough that he too smiled. Even the children joined in the momentary joy, Kai being the most expressive.
Cheers erupted in the crowd at that moment, startling them. Apparently the fighters had done something interesting. So he turned his attention to the fight and the man had lost his weapon -a staff- while the woman still held onto her sword.
They got back to attacking each other and the woman -sister Ying- clearly had the advantage, the man -brother Bo-jun- was giving up space wary of confronting the knife wielding sister head on. Many would not have noticed but monk Wu’ang noticed, sister Ying was setting up paper thin ice traps on the sand, likely preparing for whatever desperate moves brother Bo-jun might play.
Sister Ying cornered and pushed brother Bo-jun until his back foot was against the sand bags, she swung her sword cleverly, wide enough to threaten injury and just fast enough to give him a chance to dodge but not wide enough to leave her defenseless or slow enough to give him time to ponder his options after all it was a tournament not a fight to death.
Brother Bo-jun dodged each sword swing with exaggerated close calls, giving up spaces without contest forcing his opponent into a sense of false security. And the wonderful thing about his tactics was that whether she knew she knew the security was false or not as long as he appeared as non-threatening as possible, her subconscious will force her to lean into that false sense of security and except she had a sizeable amount of self control, she would get complacent. It was not a tactics he was very proud of but as soon as he lost his staff he had lost the option to be the aggressor in their exchange. Now he just had hope the ring was wide enough to lure her into complacency before he was knocked out of it.
