Wind of Crane and Ninja Revenge

Chapter Five - The Evening of the Setting Sun

I don't know, I think it means a bird or a cherry blossom.Hiddeki stood facing the sea, his back to Dari as though he posed no threat.

"Why must we fight?" Asked Hiddeki sadly. "Why must one of us die so that the other's existence can be vindicated?"

"Oh no," said Dari, "this whole saga was nothing but fighting ninjas and demons, you can't try to inject some half-assed deep-thought moral at the end."

"But why must blood always run for men to reach their destiny?" Said Hiddeki, turning to face Dari at last, a single tear running down his cheek.

"Oh come on, you're crying?" Dari laughed with disbelief. "Yeah this is so heartbreaking after that incredible bonding experience we had making all the ninjas explode. We are brothers in battle, siblings of the sword. Fuck off okay, I came to cut your head off and go home and sleep."

Hiddeki nodded and wiped the tear from his eye. Both men drew the swords and bowed to the other, then ran forward and leapt into the air. Their blades clashed a hundred and fifty feet up, near the absolute ceiling of samurai jumps. With a resounding clang the blades met and both men spun, parried, and counter attacked. Each slicing an ear from the other.

They landed back on the cliff overlooking the ocean, clutching their respective ears and trying to stop the flow of blood. The pause was brief however, as they had soon locked blades in a whirling battle on the ground. Dari saw an opening and drove forward, impaling Hiddeki's stomach on his blade. He failed to notice the Chinese sword master's own weapon as it slashed up and pierced his chest, driving through his lung and out his back.

Both men gasped in pain and separated.

"We are too evenly matched," panted Hiddeki, "we will both die."

Dari nodded thoughtfully and then charged forward again, cleaving off one of Hiddeki's arms with a powerful swing. He felt his own left arm detach suddenly, cleaved off by a mighty blow from his opponent. They stood apart again, staring at each other through a haze of pain and possibly stupidity. The staring contest lasted for minutes as each man sized up the weakness of his opponent. The contest ended and they both rushed forward. Their only arm brought up their blade in a slashing arc that connected with their opponent's heart. If they wanted they could have made out or something because their faces were only inches apart. Instead they both gasped and collapsed next to each other, their mighty sword flying from their dying grasps and sticking upright in the ground like really sharp tombstones.

Their lifeblood pumped out of their mortal wounds and intermingled on the salt-washed grass of the cliff side. Neither man had the strength to turn their head and watch the sun set below the horizon like a gigantic incandescent orb of endless hydrogen explosions or something else natural like a butterfly or a turnip.

OR IS IT?!?!?!