Chapter 12

Grimm stood silent, poised to strike. He had focused as much power into his scythe as he could fit, and was ready to release a shadow bolt of epic proportions.
Death’s voice echoed from the rooftops. “Are you ready?”
Grimm gave the thumbs up, hoping that Death could see from his position. It seemed to have worked, though, as it was only a second later that death was leaping off of the rooftops shouting at the top of his lungs. “Your mother was a geisha and your father was a ninja!”
Death’s action was swiftly met with a response, as a bolt of crimson energy pelted him in the face. What then followed was one of the least graceful, yet somehow one of the most skilled displays of aerial maneuvering Grimm had seen in his entire life, ending with Death relatively intact and hanging from a windowsill by his scythe.
Oda’s voice echoed throughout the streets of Kyoto once more, this time with a slightly bewildered tone. “<…What was that about geisha? What on earth is he talking about!?>”
Grimm smirked, his opponent was still talking, that meant he had no idea that he was located. Now Grimm just had to keep Oda’s guard down until he could finish aiming. “<It was a failed attempt at an insult. I doubt he actually knows what a geisha is.>”
“<Ah. Makes sense. Oh, and one more thing…>” Grimm fired off his bolt of energy right then and there, he wasn’t about to let Oda last long enough to finish that sentence. However, if stopping Oda were something easy to do, Japan would never have been united under Tokugawa.
Oda dodged by flipping out through the window he had been shooting from, and grabbing onto the windowsill on the way out. He then used the rotation from this to push himself against the wall of the building feet first. Next, he launched himself towards Grimm, preparing a sudden strike. Grimm shifted to a melee stance, but Oda suddenly disappeared before he could do anything else.
“<Did you really think I wouldn’t notice that you knew where I was, Reaper-chan? And do try not to interrupt me again, it’s quite rude.>” Grimm spun around to face Oda, who was now behind him.
However, before Grimm could respond to Oda, a sudden pain brought him to his knees. He had been struck with a blade, likely around the time Oda had disappeared, but how? That was just too fast! Was this the power of a rank 9 hellspawn?
“<Now now, Reaper-chan; don’t give up just yet, the battle’s only getting started…>”

A note from the author ninja:

Although Death’s insult in this chapter was originally meant to be hilariously inoffensive, I later realized it implied some fairly rude things.

To start with, the geisha bit. Although geisha are actually fairly respectable, they are far from nobility. For a high ranking noble like Nobunaga to have a mother ranking any lower than a daimyo’s daughter speaks very poorly of both him and his father.

Next is the ninja part. Although ninja were crucial to the plans of any feudal lord, providing valuable intel on the opponents movements, they were far from respected. After all, ninja had no honor. The very reason they were so important in the first place was that they were unburdened by the code of bushido, allowing them to use stealth and deceit. To accuse a samurai of being related to a shinobi would be a grave insult to their honor.

So… Yeah. Death actually came up with a pretty good insult.